From being a former fan of the BBC and generally its principle ,I think it is going downhill fast especially its website that resembles Hello Magazine more each week.
Just taking a look now at the 5 highlighted stories , one is of Prince William releasing a new photograph of himself and his kids for fathers day (WOW) and another is Dame Kelly Holmes " coming out" (SO WHAT). It does raise the question why there is a need for a compulsory fee from the population for this type of stuff
And 59 radio stations seems a bit much. Is all that output really “public service”? Radio One Dance for example. OK, dancing is good for public health, but toking marijuana isn’t.
One of the standout memories of my youth, was laughing at Radio 1 staging a ‘drug awareness week’, which to most of their teenage audience was a useful instruction manual. To add insult to injury, the song Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen was at Number 1 at the time, a song whose chorus line definitely wasn’t “E’s are good, E’s are good”
I was one of the people who bought the CD. I've still got it somewhere. And 'Boss Drum' was a brilliant album of the time.
I also had an 'I'll have an 'E' please Bob' t-shirt (based on the TV show Blockbusters). Despite never knowingly taking drugs...
My mum mysteriously 'lost' the t-shirt when she washing it during a trip home.
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
Where does one get an English passport? And if so can I get a Welsh one!
Careful, the Welsh don't want their secret to leek out.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
His original post was “the ratings for Boris Johnson are uniquely terrible”
I just asked him to disaggregate whether that was Boris Johnson as an individual (which is possible) or whether a proportion of SNP voters down mark anyone they perceive as “English”. Let’s try non-SNP Westminster as an initial definition.
It really was originally an attempt to understand data. But the fact that all of the SNP folks on here definitively avoided answering made me curious…
I don’t recall any such question, on what was an extremely long thread, where one doofus claimed that “England does not exist”, and the only ones to contradict him were Scots (which is plain weird).
No idea if this helps, but I found this from January:
Net favourability
Sturgeon 13% Scottish Government 7% Anas Sarwar 1% Keir Starmer -10 Patrick Harvie -15 Alex Cole-Hamilton -15 Lorna Slater -15 Rishi Sunak -19 Douglas Ross -21 UK Government -50 Alex Salmond -62 Boris Johnson -62
A Scot +13 A group of Scots +7 A Scot +1 An Englishman -10 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 An Englishman-19 A Scot -21 A group of primarily Englishmen -50 A Scot -62 An Englishman -62
But what does that tell us? That Scots generally prefer Scottish politicians? Wow! Groundbreaking. Of course Portuguese respondents prefer Spanish politicians over their own. Serbians prefer Croatian politicians to their home-bred ones. Jamaicans just love Cuban politicians. Scotland is the clear odd-man-out.
Thanks to whoever posted the Monkhouse link. Wonderful start to Father’s Day watching that in bed with a cuppa. Still waiting for the chambermaid to walk in…
You family seems quite broad minded when it comes to father’s day treats….
I'm flying Club Europe for the first time today - got a last minute special offer upgrade.
My goodness, it is good. Treated with respect and attention by staff and a lovely lounge with a panoramic view of the airport together with free breakfast and unlimited free champagne - dozens of bottles on ice open and you literally pour for yourself whenever you want it. No oiks.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
His original post was “the ratings for Boris Johnson are uniquely terrible”
I just asked him to disaggregate whether that was Boris Johnson as an individual (which is possible) or whether a proportion of SNP voters down mark anyone they perceive as “English”. Let’s try non-SNP Westminster as an initial definition.
It really was originally an attempt to understand data. But the fact that all of the SNP folks on here definitively avoided answering made me curious…
I don’t recall any such question, on what was an extremely long thread, where one doofus claimed that “England does not exist”, and the only ones to contradict him were Scots (which is plain weird).
No idea if this helps, but I found this from January:
Net favourability
Sturgeon 13% Scottish Government 7% Anas Sarwar 1% Keir Starmer -10 Patrick Harvie -15 Alex Cole-Hamilton -15 Lorna Slater -15 Rishi Sunak -19 Douglas Ross -21 UK Government -50 Alex Salmond -62 Boris Johnson -62
A Scot +13 A group of Scots +7 A Scot +1 An Englishman -10 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 An Englishman-19 A Scot -21 A group of primarily Englishmen -50 A Scot -62 An Englishman -62
But what does that tell us? That Scots generally prefer Scottish politicians? Wow! Groundbreaking. Of course Portuguese respondents prefer Spanish politicians over their own. Serbians prefer Croatian politicians to thei home-bred ones. Jamaicans just love Cuban politicians. Scotland is the clear odd-man-out.
Someone asks us to deminstrate A/not A withotu gtiving the source for the data in question. Of course we can't answer. But this will do nicely.
I'm flying Club Europe for the first time today - got a last minute special offer upgrade.
My goodness, it is good. Treated with respect and attention by staff and a lovely lounge with a panoramic view of the airport together with free breakfast and unlimited free champagne - dozens of bottles on ice open and you literally pour for yourself whenever you want it. No oiks.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
Where does one get an English passport? And if so can I get a Welsh one!
Careful, the Welsh don't want their secret to leek out.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
Where does one get an English passport? And if so can I get a Welsh one!
Morning OKC!
It's actually a good point that there is no definition of English - but NB the same is true also of Scottish or Welsh - in current UK practice, except for
(a) birth (b) residence
of which (a) is functionally meaningless in current UK practice except to tell you where to buy a copy of the birth certificate. And (b) determines such matters as election participation, student fees, etc.
On the subject of Channel 4 and the BBC, neither should be State-owned.
I couldn't care-a-less how they are funded. Not my problem. That's up to them to sort out in a free market. If they can't work it out and they go bust, so be it.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
Genealogical services rely on the census, birth certs, marriage certs, wills etc,. held by HMG for rUK (it's effectively been privatised). In Scotland the govewrnment IS the main genealogical service for domestic users.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
Where does one get an English passport? And if so can I get a Welsh one!
Careful, the Welsh don't want their secret to leek out.
You'll have these puns dragon on....
Oh, Mark, Mark, Mark, how could you add the extra 'on?' What a waste of a perfect setup.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Perhaps that's what the latest police pursuit vehicle was doing, but you misunderstood and thought they were trying to catch you for doing 275 mph?
The last BBC/Capita guy said he was going to come back with a warrant and the Old Bill, etc. I said, well fucking do it then. Nothing ever happened. The licence fee enforcement system entirely relies on people who are gullible or vulnerable enought to admit it.
Scofflaws are another reason it should be funded from general taxation.
Though I expect you also have a mildly idiosyncratic approach towards the tax system.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
Where does one get an English passport? And if so can I get a Welsh one!
Careful, the Welsh don't want their secret to leek out.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
Genealogical services rely on the census, birth certs, marriage certs, wills etc,. held by HMG for rUK (it's effectively been privatised). In Scotland the govewrnment IS the main genealogical service for domestic users.
No I was referring to sites like FamilyDNA based in the US (which is very good) and Ancestry.com. Nothing to do with UK or any Gov't services here. You supply blood, pay your money, decide on your levels of privacy, and they run the tests.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
I'm fine with the census. It produces very useful, anonymised data.
The Information Commissioner's Office £40 tax for any business that handles personal data, however, can do one. The ICO is a chocolate teapot of an institution and it's an outrage that they choose to fund themselves through a universal tax on SMEs, rather than by fining the Googles and Facebooks of this world who are the ones really abusing personal data.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
anonymised data.
I'm dubious and sceptical as to whether anything like that is anonymised.
On the internet subject, pet topic of mine, the other day over lunch I was discussing an amazing place in Germany. 10 minutes later I received an email from that very organisation, somewhere that hadn't contacted me for nearly three years.
I've had this happen several times recently: discussions have led to online adverts within minutes.
Cover your camera and switch off your phones! They're watching and listening the whole time ...
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Censuses are absolutely rubbish, in terms of value for money. And why should taxpayers fund genealogical services? Go fund your own daft hobbies. Do knitting clubs get a multi-million pound database paid by taxpayers every tenth year?
Most states are moving away from censuses. Sweden last had one in 1990, and there is zero intention to ever hold one again.
Wikipedia says: “More countries are switching to using administrative data to hold a census. This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time.”
There won't be a snap election in October, when things will probably be even worse, and if one was held he'd lose.
He'll try and ride all the way to the back end of 2024 in the hope that Ukraine, Covid-19 aftershocks, inflation etc all abate so he can give "dividends" prior to dissolution.
Punters agree with you, as do I. A 2022 GE would be madness, but then there is the non insignificant risk that Boris Johnson is actually mentally unstable. Long covid? All the years of private and public deceit and cheating? Copious mendacity (what was the true story again?) Open contempt for his person? It must be extremely wearing on a man’s psyche. Errors of judgment become the norm.
A strong parliamentary Conservative Party could counter this, but this is the most spineless group of Tory MPs in living memory.
The rational-crazy reason for an October election is in order to lose it.
Think of the Johnson government as the crew in a heist movie. We've now reached the stage where they are about to do a runner for the airport, fake passports in hand, while the police chase them.
Crazy in many ways, and harsh justice for the mugs in the Conservative Party who fell for him. But hey ho. And Johnson does have form for running away when things go sour.
Under the new rules, are there any checks on a PM who goes mad and decides "I want a General Election and I want it now?"
That’s “rational-crazy” reasoning for madman Johnson, but is the Conservative Party mad too? Perhaps. Brexit seems to have flipped their lids.
No sane party *wants* to be in opposition. There is no such thing as “a good election to lose”. Yes, defeats must be accepted and processed, but they should never be wilfully encouraged.
Yes, but if Johnson does a May by getting out his podium in Downing St to announce a surprise election, does the Cabinet or Party have the opportunity to stop it?
I think he would be daft to do it, but then he is well known to be daft!
He's worse than daft.
He's utterly selfish, which is why being a politician is such a bad fit for him.
Losing a 2022 election is bad for the future Conservatives, but they're not Boris Johnson, so screw 'em.
(I don't think he'll do it, if it all goes really sour, he'll just hide in a fridge and dare his backbenchers to overthrow him, but if he does- that will be the logic.)
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
There's quite a strong non-party difference in attitudes to privacy. I was having a meal with a right-wing libertarian and a Lib-Lab friend last night (after this https://www.verylargehugegames.com/first-contact-2035, which was great) and the conversayion strayed to cookies. The libertarian and I said we routinely accept all cookies, saves fussing with passwords etc. The Lib-Lab lady said she routinely refuses them. We were all astonished that anyone would do anything different from our own behaviour.
I gather a minor "Brexit dividend" is that the Government is going to waive the requirement to ask about cookies, instead leaving it to individuals to set their browsers to "always accept", "never accepr" or "ask me". We agreed that would suit all of us, but the less tech-savvy might be challenged unless the default is "ask me". Does anyone here know the details?
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
His original post was “the ratings for Boris Johnson are uniquely terrible”
I just asked him to disaggregate whether that was Boris Johnson as an individual (which is possible) or whether a proportion of SNP voters down mark anyone they perceive as “English”. Let’s try non-SNP Westminster as an initial definition.
It really was originally an attempt to understand data. But the fact that all of the SNP folks on here definitively avoided answering made me curious…
I don’t recall any such question, on what was an extremely long thread, where one doofus claimed that “England does not exist”, and the only ones to contradict him were Scots (which is plain weird).
No idea if this helps, but I found this from January:
Net favourability
Sturgeon 13% Scottish Government 7% Anas Sarwar 1% Keir Starmer -10 Patrick Harvie -15 Alex Cole-Hamilton -15 Lorna Slater -15 Rishi Sunak -19 Douglas Ross -21 UK Government -50 Alex Salmond -62 Boris Johnson -62
A Scot +13 A group of Scots +7 A Scot +1 An Englishman -10 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 An Englishman-19 A Scot -21 A group of primarily Englishmen -50 A Scot -62 An Englishman -62
But what does that tell us? That Scots generally prefer Scottish politicians? Wow! Groundbreaking. Of course Portuguese respondents prefer Spanish politicians over their own. Serbians prefer Croatian politicians to their home-bred ones. Jamaicans just love Cuban politicians. Scotland is the clear odd-man-out.
Thanks: it doesn’t quite get to the question. I think we need to look at negatives not net for a start.
I suspect there is a group of SNP voters who will put negative to any Westminster politician regardless of their political alignment.
I don’t think your analogy is correct - in Spain/Portugal I suspect that most voters don’t know/don’t care vs actively putting negative.
From being a former fan of the BBC and generally its principle ,I think it is going downhill fast especially its website that resembles Hello Magazine more each week.
Just taking a look now at the 5 highlighted stories , one is of Prince William releasing a new photograph of himself and his kids for fathers day (WOW) and another is Dame Kelly Holmes " coming out" (SO WHAT). It does raise the question why there is a need for a compulsory fee from the population for this type of stuff
And 59 radio stations seems a bit much. Is all that output really “public service”? Radio One Dance for example. OK, dancing is good for public health, but toking marijuana isn’t.
One of the standout memories of my youth, was laughing at Radio 1 staging a ‘drug awareness week’, which to most of their teenage audience was a useful instruction manual. To add insult to injury, the song Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen was at Number 1 at the time, a song whose chorus line definitely wasn’t “E’s are good, E’s are good”
I was one of the people who bought the CD. I've still got it somewhere. And 'Boss Drum' was a brilliant album of the time.
I also had an 'I'll have an 'E' please Bob' t-shirt (based on the TV show Blockbusters). Despite never knowingly taking drugs...
My mum mysteriously 'lost' the t-shirt when she washing it during a trip home.
Bob sensed the change when the smirks moved from P to E.
ETA I regret throwing out my official government heroin chic posters (unless they're still in the attic).
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
His original post was “the ratings for Boris Johnson are uniquely terrible”
I just asked him to disaggregate whether that was Boris Johnson as an individual (which is possible) or whether a proportion of SNP voters down mark anyone they perceive as “English”. Let’s try non-SNP Westminster as an initial definition.
It really was originally an attempt to understand data. But the fact that all of the SNP folks on here definitively avoided answering made me curious…
I don’t recall any such question, on what was an extremely long thread, where one doofus claimed that “England does not exist”, and the only ones to contradict him were Scots (which is plain weird).
No idea if this helps, but I found this from January:
Net favourability
Sturgeon 13% Scottish Government 7% Anas Sarwar 1% Keir Starmer -10 Patrick Harvie -15 Alex Cole-Hamilton -15 Lorna Slater -15 Rishi Sunak -19 Douglas Ross -21 UK Government -50 Alex Salmond -62 Boris Johnson -62
A Scot +13 A group of Scots +7 A Scot +1 An Englishman -10 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 An Englishman-19 A Scot -21 A group of primarily Englishmen -50 A Scot -62 An Englishman -62
But what does that tell us? That Scots generally prefer Scottish politicians? Wow! Groundbreaking. Of course Portuguese respondents prefer Spanish politicians over their own. Serbians prefer Croatian politicians to thei home-bred ones. Jamaicans just love Cuban politicians. Scotland is the clear odd-man-out.
Someone asks us to deminstrate A/not A withotu gtiving the source for the data in question. Of course we can't answer. But this will do nicely.
The source was @StuartDickson’s post a couple of days ago showing that Johnson had a very low net score - I suspect it was this poll (or at least the Johnson score is similar so it will do).
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
Where does one get an English passport? And if so can I get a Welsh one!
Careful, the Welsh don't want their secret to leek out.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
There's quite a strong non-party difference in attitudes to privacy. I was having a meal with a right-wing libertarian and a Lib-Lab friend last night (after this https://www.verylargehugegames.com/first-contact-2035, which was great) and the conversayion strayed to cookies. The libertarian and I said we routinely accept all cookies, saves fussing with passwords etc. The Lib-Lab lady said she routinely refuses them. We were all astonished that anyone would do anything different from our own behaviour.
I gather a minor "Brexit dividend" is that the Government is going to waive the requirement to ask about cookies, instead leaving it to individuals to set their browsers to "always accept", "never accepr" or "ask me". We agreed that would suit all of us, but the less tech-savvy might be challenged unless the default is "ask me". Does anyone here know the details?
No details but based on anecdata, a lot of people who complain about being asked are the ones who dismiss the cookie-consent pop-up without answering, so of course they are asked again next time, and again...
From being a former fan of the BBC and generally its principle ,I think it is going downhill fast especially its website that resembles Hello Magazine more each week.
Just taking a look now at the 5 highlighted stories , one is of Prince William releasing a new photograph of himself and his kids for fathers day (WOW) and another is Dame Kelly Holmes " coming out" (SO WHAT). It does raise the question why there is a need for a compulsory fee from the population for this type of stuff
I share your tastes. But don't you think the problem is that they're reacting to what viewer figures tell them is what the public in general like? Especially in difficult times, many people prefer to debate how Princ eWilliam looks to trying to consider the cost of living crisis. The Reithian "educate the public" ethos does survive in that they have lots of serious stuff too, which people can have a look at while they're there.
From being a former fan of the BBC and generally its principle ,I think it is going downhill fast especially its website that resembles Hello Magazine more each week.
Just taking a look now at the 5 highlighted stories , one is of Prince William releasing a new photograph of himself and his kids for fathers day (WOW) and another is Dame Kelly Holmes " coming out" (SO WHAT). It does raise the question why there is a need for a compulsory fee from the population for this type of stuff
And 59 radio stations seems a bit much. Is all that output really “public service”? Radio One Dance for example. OK, dancing is good for public health, but toking marijuana isn’t.
One of the standout memories of my youth, was laughing at Radio 1 staging a ‘drug awareness week’, which to most of their teenage audience was a useful instruction manual. To add insult to injury, the song Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen was at Number 1 at the time, a song whose chorus line definitely wasn’t “E’s are good, E’s are good”
I was one of the people who bought the CD. I've still got it somewhere. And 'Boss Drum' was a brilliant album of the time.
I also had an 'I'll have an 'E' please Bob' t-shirt (based on the TV show Blockbusters). Despite never knowingly taking drugs...
My mum mysteriously 'lost' the t-shirt when she washing it during a trip home.
From being a former fan of the BBC and generally its principle ,I think it is going downhill fast especially its website that resembles Hello Magazine more each week.
Just taking a look now at the 5 highlighted stories , one is of Prince William releasing a new photograph of himself and his kids for fathers day (WOW) and another is Dame Kelly Holmes " coming out" (SO WHAT). It does raise the question why there is a need for a compulsory fee from the population for this type of stuff
And 59 radio stations seems a bit much. Is all that output really “public service”? Radio One Dance for example. OK, dancing is good for public health, but toking marijuana isn’t.
One of the standout memories of my youth, was laughing at Radio 1 staging a ‘drug awareness week’, which to most of their teenage audience was a useful instruction manual. To add insult to injury, the song Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen was at Number 1 at the time, a song whose chorus line definitely wasn’t “E’s are good, E’s are good”
I was one of the people who bought the CD. I've still got it somewhere. And 'Boss Drum' was a brilliant album of the time.
I also had an 'I'll have an 'E' please Bob' t-shirt (based on the TV show Blockbusters). Despite never knowingly taking drugs...
My mum mysteriously 'lost' the t-shirt when she washing it during a trip home.
That was indeed a great album. I have boxes of vinyl from the ‘90s in storage, keep meaning to go through it all as there are some that are selling for hundreds now.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
Genealogical services rely on the census, birth certs, marriage certs, wills etc,. held by HMG for rUK (it's effectively been privatised). In Scotland the govewrnment IS the main genealogical service for domestic users.
No I was referring to sites like FamilyDNA based in the US (which is very good) and Ancestry.com. Nothing to do with UK or any Gov't services here. You supply blood, pay your money, decide on your levels of privacy, and they run the tests.
Not a good idea… the FBI screens DNA samples against those databases…
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
There's quite a strong non-party difference in attitudes to privacy. I was having a meal with a right-wing libertarian and a Lib-Lab friend last night (after this https://www.verylargehugegames.com/first-contact-2035, which was great) and the conversayion strayed to cookies. The libertarian and I said we routinely accept all cookies, saves fussing with passwords etc. The Lib-Lab lady said she routinely refuses them. We were all astonished that anyone would do anything different from our own behaviour. ?
Good morning Nick.
I refuse all cookies always.
And I don't just use an anoymised VPN, I also use a browser system called Gener8 on privacy mode which strips out adverts. I clear cache and broswing history regularly too.
I find the spying on us by both big business and Government deeply disturbing.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
That makes you a thief
A whole different level to someone who occasionally breaks the speed limit
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
That makes you a thief
A whole different level to someone who occasionally breaks the speed limit
Unless you run over a child ... in which case it makes you a murderer.
See? Easy innit.
(And I know two people who killed by a driver who had been drinking)
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
That makes you a thief
A whole different level to someone who occasionally breaks the speed limit
Unless you kill a child ... in which case it makes you a murderer.
See? Easy innit.
Only if there was intent to kill. Which means the crime isn’t speeding.
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
He was in the NUS? I shall have to degrade my opinion of him after all...
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
That makes you a thief
Incidentally, I never replied to your question. I never said I watch any BBC programmes or any others. I don't own a television and never will.
But thanks for sitting in State Judgement on me ...
I gather a minor "Brexit dividend" is that the Government is going to waive the requirement to ask about cookies, instead leaving it to individuals to set their browsers to "always accept", "never accepr" or "ask me". We agreed that would suit all of us, but the less tech-savvy might be challenged unless the default is "ask me". Does anyone here know the details?
Personally I would want a setting for "accept the cookies that make the website work, but deny all the bullshit targeted-advertising ones"...
In practice I'm not sure the UK government has much leverage to change anything -- websites mostly deal with an international audience (so the EU cookie requirements resulted in US people also getting asked about cookies, for instance).
From being a former fan of the BBC and generally its principle ,I think it is going downhill fast especially its website that resembles Hello Magazine more each week.
Just taking a look now at the 5 highlighted stories , one is of Prince William releasing a new photograph of himself and his kids for fathers day (WOW) and another is Dame Kelly Holmes " coming out" (SO WHAT). It does raise the question why there is a need for a compulsory fee from the population for this type of stuff
I share your tastes. But don't you think the problem is that they're reacting to what viewer figures tell them is what the public in general like? Especially in difficult times, many people prefer to debate how Princ eWilliam looks to trying to consider the cost of living crisis. The Reithian "educate the public" ethos does survive in that they have lots of serious stuff too, which people can have a look at while they're there.
Except its not as if the shallow stuff is not freely available elsewhere is it? If we were starting again imagine pitching a funding proposition for this kind of stuff by saying -lets charge a license fee to pump out stuff that the internet already does in spades for free
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Censuses are absolutely rubbish, in terms of value for money. And why should taxpayers fund genealogical services? Go fund your own daft hobbies. Do knitting clubs get a multi-million pound database paid by taxpayers every tenth year?
Most states are moving away from censuses. Sweden last had one in 1990, and there is zero intention to ever hold one again.
Wikipedia says: “More countries are switching to using administrative data to hold a census. This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time.”
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Censuses are absolutely rubbish, in terms of value for money. And why should taxpayers fund genealogical services? …
Genealogical information is very useful indeed for healthcare genetic studies. For a country with public funded healthcare it makes sense.
From being a former fan of the BBC and generally its principle ,I think it is going downhill fast especially its website that resembles Hello Magazine more each week.
Just taking a look now at the 5 highlighted stories , one is of Prince William releasing a new photograph of himself and his kids for fathers day (WOW) and another is Dame Kelly Holmes " coming out" (SO WHAT). It does raise the question why there is a need for a compulsory fee from the population for this type of stuff
I share your tastes. But don't you think the problem is that they're reacting to what viewer figures tell them is what the public in general like? Especially in difficult times, many people prefer to debate how Princ eWilliam looks to trying to consider the cost of living crisis. The Reithian "educate the public" ethos does survive in that they have lots of serious stuff too, which people can have a look at while they're there.
I think having fluff as well is fine so long as the public service element remains and is central. But it is understandable inclusion of the former will lead people to ask about priorities.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
That makes you a thief
A whole different level to someone who occasionally breaks the speed limit
Unless you kill a child ... in which case it makes you a murderer.
See? Easy innit.
You lost. Not so easy is it?
This is descending into the kind of willy-waving that drives those of us without them away ...
I suggest you look more carefully though at my replies. And don't call me a 'thief' when you don't have command of the facts.
Also as a general point it's not a clever idea to accuse others on here, whom you don't know, of things.
My guess is Starmer won't be fined but if he was that Streeting would be elected to succeed him. Nandy got just 16% in the 2020 Labour leadership election, not only miles behind Starmer but even behind Long Bailey.
I also doubt there will be an autumn election unless another VONC is agreed to by the 1922 cttee for later in the year and Johnson sees it as the only way to save his leadership if he thinks he has even less chance of winning another VONC than another general election
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
His original post was “the ratings for Boris Johnson are uniquely terrible”
I just asked him to disaggregate whether that was Boris Johnson as an individual (which is possible) or whether a proportion of SNP voters down mark anyone they perceive as “English”. Let’s try non-SNP Westminster as an initial definition.
It really was originally an attempt to understand data. But the fact that all of the SNP folks on here definitively avoided answering made me curious…
I don’t recall any such question, on what was an extremely long thread, where one doofus claimed that “England does not exist”, and the only ones to contradict him were Scots (which is plain weird).
No idea if this helps, but I found this from January:
Net favourability
Sturgeon 13% Scottish Government 7% Anas Sarwar 1% Keir Starmer -10 Patrick Harvie -15 Alex Cole-Hamilton -15 Lorna Slater -15 Rishi Sunak -19 Douglas Ross -21 UK Government -50 Alex Salmond -62 Boris Johnson -62
A Scot +13 A group of Scots +7 A Scot +1 An Englishman -10 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 An Englishman-19 A Scot -21 A group of primarily Englishmen -50 A Scot -62 An Englishman -62
But what does that tell us? That Scots generally prefer Scottish politicians? Wow! Groundbreaking. Of course Portuguese respondents prefer Spanish politicians over their own. Serbians prefer Croatian politicians to thei home-bred ones. Jamaicans just love Cuban politicians. Scotland is the clear odd-man-out.
Someone asks us to deminstrate A/not A withotu gtiving the source for the data in question. Of course we can't answer. But this will do nicely.
The source was @StuartDickson’s post a couple of days ago showing that Johnson had a very low net score - I suspect it was this poll (or at least the Johnson score is similar so it will do).
Johnson’s polling has been horrific among all demographics and party preferences in Scotland, including Conservative voters. If you’re that bothered then surf onto the Survation (or other pollster) website and do your own research of the breaks. I can’t be arsed doing it for you. I strongly suspect that you don’t care about survey findings anyway; you just want to repeat a tired smear.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
Where does one get an English passport? And if so can I get a Welsh one!
Careful, the Welsh don't want their secret to leek out.
You'll have these puns dragon on....
Oh, Mark, Mark, Mark, how could you add the extra 'on?' What a waste of a perfect setup.
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
He was in the NUS? I shall have to degrade my opinion of him after all...
Telegraph: Boris Johnson has been reportedly "airbrushed" from the Conservatives' by-election campaign literature, with leaflets and online advertisements not mentioning the Prime Minister.
I thought there was a strand of thought that this census might be the last census anyway, as there were other ways and means of acquiring the data. I don't know if that's formally decided, but I definitely remember articles postulating it.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
That makes you a thief
Incidentally, I never replied to your question. I never said I watch any BBC programmes or any others. I don't own a television and never will.
But thanks for sitting in State Judgement on me ...
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Censuses are absolutely rubbish, in terms of value for money. And why should taxpayers fund genealogical services? Go fund your own daft hobbies. Do knitting clubs get a multi-million pound database paid by taxpayers every tenth year?
Most states are moving away from censuses. Sweden last had one in 1990, and there is zero intention to ever hold one again.
Wikipedia says: “More countries are switching to using administrative data to hold a census. This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time.”
Governments (or anyone else) linking databases is not necessarily good news, privacy-wise. Ask China.
That’s to do with trust. For obvious reasons Nordic people generally trust their governments, therefore censuses are unnecessary. Chinese people, understandably, do not.
My guess is Starmer won't be fined but if he was that Streeting would be elected to succeed him. Nandy got just 16% in the 2020 Labour leadership election, not only miles behind Starmer but even behind Long Bailey.
You're an expert now on the Labour Party as well?
Sorry to be facetious but I will treat your 'guess' with a little scepticism.
Of the three women on whom I have outstanding bets (all over 100/1) Rachel Reeves is the likeliest. A very good background and she has been effective in Parliament.
And with that tip I shall head off to do some admin work.
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
He was in the NUS? I shall have to degrade my opinion of him after all...
NUS President. The Labour equivalent of Oxford Union President, but (only) slightly more grown up.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
That makes you a thief
A whole different level to someone who occasionally breaks the speed limit
Unless you kill a child ... in which case it makes you a murderer.
See? Easy innit.
You lost. Not so easy is it?
This is descending into the kind of willy-waving that drives those of us without them away ...
I suggest you look more carefully though at my replies. And don't call me a 'thief' when you don't have command of the facts.
Also as a general point it's not a clever idea to accuse others on here, whom you don't know, of things.
I misread your reply, so got it wrong. I apologise of course.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
Dixon of Dock Green is on your case.
I missed your answer a few threads ago on how SNP voters view the set of English politicians. Would you remind me of the answer?
"English" - you're deliberately distorting the question. Ask a racially loaded question ... Do you mean
- English born? - English educated? - Holding an ENglish passport? - supporting England at cricket? - British?
When the real issue is one or more of those two:
- not in Scottish constituencies, Mr Jack and a few Scottish MPs and the MSPs apart? - part of the Conservative administration which lacks other than minority support in Scotland?
His original post was “the ratings for Boris Johnson are uniquely terrible”
I just asked him to disaggregate whether that was Boris Johnson as an individual (which is possible) or whether a proportion of SNP voters down mark anyone they perceive as “English”. Let’s try non-SNP Westminster as an initial definition.
It really was originally an attempt to understand data. But the fact that all of the SNP folks on here definitively avoided answering made me curious…
I don’t recall any such question, on what was an extremely long thread, where one doofus claimed that “England does not exist”, and the only ones to contradict him were Scots (which is plain weird).
No idea if this helps, but I found this from January:
Net favourability
Sturgeon 13% Scottish Government 7% Anas Sarwar 1% Keir Starmer -10 Patrick Harvie -15 Alex Cole-Hamilton -15 Lorna Slater -15 Rishi Sunak -19 Douglas Ross -21 UK Government -50 Alex Salmond -62 Boris Johnson -62
A Scot +13 A group of Scots +7 A Scot +1 An Englishman -10 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 A Scot -15 An Englishman-19 A Scot -21 A group of primarily Englishmen -50 A Scot -62 An Englishman -62
But what does that tell us? That Scots generally prefer Scottish politicians? Wow! Groundbreaking. Of course Portuguese respondents prefer Spanish politicians over their own. Serbians prefer Croatian politicians to thei home-bred ones. Jamaicans just love Cuban politicians. Scotland is the clear odd-man-out.
Someone asks us to deminstrate A/not A withotu gtiving the source for the data in question. Of course we can't answer. But this will do nicely.
The source was @StuartDickson’s post a couple of days ago showing that Johnson had a very low net score - I suspect it was this poll (or at least the Johnson score is similar so it will do).
Johnson’s polling has been horrific among all demographics and party preferences in Scotland, including Conservative voters. If you’re that bothered then surf onto the Survation (or other pollster) website and do your own research of the breaks. I can’t be arsed doing it for you. I strongly suspect that you don’t care about survey findings anyway; you just want to repeat a tired smear.
I’m not that interested to be honest. You made a point and I asked a question in response to dig into the data.
It then struck me as curious that despite @uniondivvie and @Carnyx replying to the post neither of them answered it, while you didn’t response.
But I don’t have an agenda - I just like to understand what data is really showing.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
I thought there was a strand of thought that this census might be the last census anyway, as there were other ways and means of acquiring the data. I don't know if that's formally decided, but I definitely remember articles postulating it.
It was floated, due to the eyewatering cost of the census. Not convinced, personally. The surveys from ONS etc are good and get you some of the info, but they rely on the census, in part, for sampling and extrapolation. The ONS mid-year population estimates between census sweeps are often not that great in retrospect, which highlights th importance of actually doing a full population survey.
Still, if the latest census is seen to be a failure, that might hasten a switch. Not much point spending all that money if you still miss a lot and get an unrepresentative sample.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Do you use any services that require you to have a TV licence?
No one uses any services that 'require' them to have a poll tax licence
“Require” in the sense that it is a legal requirement to have a license.
It's also a legal requirement to stick to the speed limit but I guess you, and everyone else on here, breaks it when it suits them?
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
Oh, I don't know. There is an election on. The article discusses each of the main candidates. As you'd expect, the Tory is a featherbedded public sector employee and the Labour hopeful a thrusting entrepreneur.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Censuses are absolutely rubbish, in terms of value for money. And why should taxpayers fund genealogical services? Go fund your own daft hobbies. Do knitting clubs get a multi-million pound database paid by taxpayers every tenth year?
Most states are moving away from censuses. Sweden last had one in 1990, and there is zero intention to ever hold one again.
Wikipedia says: “More countries are switching to using administrative data to hold a census. This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time.”
Governments (or anyone else) linking databases is not necessarily good news, privacy-wise. Ask China.
That’s to do with trust. For obvious reasons Nordic people generally trust their governments, therefore censuses are unnecessary. Chinese people, understandably, do not.
Sweden etc have administrative data that probably do make a census unimportant. Centrally held, linked across purposes. The kind of thing you could do with a national ID number used across services (as would happen with an ID card system, although the card itself is not necessary). Works well in populations that trust their governments with those kind of data.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
Genealogical services rely on the census, birth certs, marriage certs, wills etc,. held by HMG for rUK (it's effectively been privatised). In Scotland the govewrnment IS the main genealogical service for domestic users.
No I was referring to sites like FamilyDNA based in the US (which is very good) and Ancestry.com. Nothing to do with UK or any Gov't services here. You supply blood, pay your money, decide on your levels of privacy, and they run the tests.
Not a good idea… the FBI screens DNA samples against those databases…
Some police in the US have been comparing DNA from unidentified murder victims against these databases in order to see if they match to other family members so they can narrow down their search for their identity which is a beneficial use.
I think I also read or saw that they are also using them to try and match DNA from potential unidentified suspects to find familial links to narrow down the search as well.
"Rail strikes will punish millions, says government" declares the main headline on the BBC.
I felt like "and that's our job" was left off by mistake.
What kind of english is the use of "punish" there in that quote?
You get punished as a consequence of doing something wrong. What have the travelling public done wrong?
I think many people would say their experience of punishment does not require they have done something wrong. Merely that someone has the capability of punishing them and uses that capability.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
I'm fine with the census. It produces very useful, anonymised data.
The Information Commissioner's Office £40 tax for any business that handles personal data, however, can do one. The ICO is a chocolate teapot of an institution and it's an outrage that they choose to fund themselves through a universal tax on SMEs, rather than by fining the Googles and Facebooks of this world who are the ones really abusing personal data.
The Cameron govenrnent made great play of reducing the annual Companies House fee from £25 to £16 during austerity, only for the next government to introduce the ICO fee. Stinks.
I thought there was a strand of thought that this census might be the last census anyway, as there were other ways and means of acquiring the data. I don't know if that's formally decided, but I definitely remember articles postulating it.
I thought they said that about the previous one, though, we were going to move to ONS surveys. One problem is of course that no Government department has a database of all citizens. At the DWP I can think of three databases that don't talk to each other and a few more that only share partial data for a specific purpose.
Thanks to whoever posted the Monkhouse link. Wonderful start to Father’s Day watching that in bed with a cuppa. Still waiting for the chambermaid to walk in…
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Geneaological services are already accessed through private sites.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
Genealogical services rely on the census, birth certs, marriage certs, wills etc,. held by HMG for rUK (it's effectively been privatised). In Scotland the govewrnment IS the main genealogical service for domestic users.
No I was referring to sites like FamilyDNA based in the US (which is very good) and Ancestry.com. Nothing to do with UK or any Gov't services here. You supply blood, pay your money, decide on your levels of privacy, and they run the tests.
Not a good idea… the FBI screens DNA samples against those databases…
Some police in the US have been comparing DNA from unidentified murder victims against these databases in order to see if they match to other family members so they can narrow down their search for their identity which is a beneficial use.
I think I also read or saw that they are also using them to try and match DNA from potential unidentified suspects to find familial links to narrow down the search as well.
Yep - your second paragraph was what I was referring to
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
Why wouldn't you complete the census? It doesn't take long, it allows the government to provide the correct amount of funding for services in your area, and in a hundred years it will be a genealogical resource for your ancestors. It really is the duty of everyone to fill it in, I am surprised that responsible people wouldn't do it.
Censuses are absolutely rubbish, in terms of value for money. And why should taxpayers fund genealogical services? Go fund your own daft hobbies. Do knitting clubs get a multi-million pound database paid by taxpayers every tenth year?
Most states are moving away from censuses. Sweden last had one in 1990, and there is zero intention to ever hold one again.
Wikipedia says: “More countries are switching to using administrative data to hold a census. This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time.”
Governments (or anyone else) linking databases is not necessarily good news, privacy-wise. Ask China.
That’s to do with trust. For obvious reasons Nordic people generally trust their governments, therefore censuses are unnecessary. Chinese people, understandably, do not.
Sweden etc have administrative data that probably do make a census unimportant. Centrally held, linked across purposes. The kind of thing you could do with a national ID number used across services (as would happen with an ID card system, although the card itself is not necessary). Works well in populations that trust their governments with those kind of data.
The card is the useful bit - the objections most people had to Labour’s ID card scheme was the breadth of the data being collected and the fact it seemed that everyone would have access to all of it.
It’s worth saying here that come October it’s very likely that not having a passport will restrict you employment opportunities as the online system requires a passport and is way easier and less risky than the manual process.
He’s a master craftsman who hand carves obsidian daggers with handles made out of deer jaws (I bought two) from a little stall next to a 12th century Silk Road caravanserai in the high Armenian Caucasus (8000 feet up)
To celebrate our new friendship he just gave me a cup of mulberry brandy
He’s a master craftsman who hand carves obsidian daggers with handles made out of deer jaws (I bought two) from a little stall next to a 12th century Silk Road caravanserai in the high Armenian Caucasus (8000 feet up)
To celebrate our new friendship he just gave me a cup of mulberry brandy
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
If you look at recent centre left winners globally, Biden, Scholz and Albanese for example, they were all at least as dull and boring as Starmer. In each case it was more the rightwing government that lost it than they that won it
There won't be a snap election in October, when things will probably be even worse, and if one was held he'd lose.
He'll try and ride all the way to the back end of 2024 in the hope that Ukraine, Covid-19 aftershocks, inflation etc all abate so he can give "dividends" prior to dissolution.
Punters agree with you, as do I. A 2022 GE would be madness, but then there is the non insignificant risk that Boris Johnson is actually mentally unstable. Long covid? All the years of private and public deceit and cheating? Copious mendacity (what was the true story again?) Open contempt for his person? It must be extremely wearing on a man’s psyche. Errors of judgment become the norm.
A strong parliamentary Conservative Party could counter this, but this is the most spineless group of Tory MPs in living memory.
The rational-crazy reason for an October election is in order to lose it.
Think of the Johnson government as the crew in a heist movie. We've now reached the stage where they are about to do a runner for the airport, fake passports in hand, while the police chase them.
Crazy in many ways, and harsh justice for the mugs in the Conservative Party who fell for him. But hey ho. And Johnson does have form for running away when things go sour.
Under the new rules, are there any checks on a PM who goes mad and decides "I want a General Election and I want it now?"
That’s “rational-crazy” reasoning for madman Johnson, but is the Conservative Party mad too? Perhaps. Brexit seems to have flipped their lids.
No sane party *wants* to be in opposition. There is no such thing as “a good election to lose”. Yes, defeats must be accepted and processed, but they should never be wilfully encouraged.
Yes, but if Johnson does a May by getting out his podium in Downing St to announce a surprise election, does the Cabinet or Party have the opportunity to stop it?
I think he would be daft to do it, but then he is well known to be daft!
He's worse than daft.
He's utterly selfish, which is why being a politician is such a bad fit for him.
It has often been noted that the skills and characteristics useful or necessary to succeed as a politician, at least a front bench politician, and win an election, can often be hindrances to governing well.
Self confidence, ego, manipulation, style over substance, etc, all needed to get ahead, but so easily going too far and making governance a difficulty.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has appealed to Labour and Green party supporters to vote tactically in Thursday’s crucial West Country byelection – to help deliver a “knockout” blow to Boris Johnson’s premiership.
The Lib Dems believe they have a realistic chance of causing one of the biggest byelection shocks of recent times by coming from third place to win in the normally safe Conservative stronghold of Tiverton and Honiton.
However, Lib Dem and Tory activists are reporting the race is too close to call, with four days of campaigning to go, despite widespread anger about Partygate and concern in the rural community that the Tories are not doing enough to help farmers or tackle the cost of living crisis.
On the ground, Lib Dem organisers are saying it has become harder to win over Tory voters to their cause in the last week and a half, as the Conservatives have emphasised what are called “wedge issues” – immigration, opposition to rail strikes, and Brexit – in order to try to persuade their supporters not to desert.
“There has definitely been a hardening among those Tory voters and it has become more difficult in the last few days,” said a Liberal Democrat source. “It is going to be very tight and the majority to overturn is very big.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has appealed to Labour and Green party supporters to vote tactically in Thursday’s crucial West Country byelection – to help deliver a “knockout” blow to Boris Johnson’s premiership.
The Lib Dems believe they have a realistic chance of causing one of the biggest byelection shocks of recent times by coming from third place to win in the normally safe Conservative stronghold of Tiverton and Honiton.
However, Lib Dem and Tory activists are reporting the race is too close to call, with four days of campaigning to go, despite widespread anger about Partygate and concern in the rural community that the Tories are not doing enough to help farmers or tackle the cost of living crisis.
On the ground, Lib Dem organisers are saying it has become harder to win over Tory voters to their cause in the last week and a half, as the Conservatives have emphasised what are called “wedge issues” – immigration, opposition to rail strikes, and Brexit – in order to try to persuade their supporters not to desert.
“There has definitely been a hardening among those Tory voters and it has become more difficult in the last few days,” said a Liberal Democrat source. “It is going to be very tight and the majority to overturn is very big.”
I'd almost like to see the Tories cling on just to see how over the top the candidate and Boris go in declaring how it shows the public want to move on and back the big man to take decisions on things that matter (the standard by-election fluff from any side even if is a safe seat), even though it is defending a 24k majority and even in times of common government by-election losses it should not really be under threat.
If they win with wuite a bit to spare it will be more notable.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
I'm fine with the census. It produces very useful, anonymised data.
The Information Commissioner's Office £40 tax for any business that handles personal data, however, can do one. The ICO is a chocolate teapot of an institution and it's an outrage that they choose to fund themselves through a universal tax on SMEs, rather than by fining the Googles and Facebooks of this world who are the ones really abusing personal data.
The Cameron govenrnent made great play of reducing the annual Companies House fee from £25 to £16 during austerity, only for the next government to introduce the ICO fee. Stinks.
(£30 if you set up a Direct Debit, by the way)
Is there anything worse than being forced to pay over a fee knowing it funds a useless operation? On the ICO rubbish i got a letter a couple of years ago from them saying I need to pay the said fee due to a small limited company I operate on the margins of my life - I ignored it and so far nothing come back -
Leaving aside the fact it is Apple (boo, hiss), I do wonder why some large and immensely rich American companies are so against unions and unionisation. Whether Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Google etc are all rather anti-union.
Starbucks/Howard Shultz is having complete 'mare. Bitterly opposed to unions, spending millions to stop them yet store after store is voting to unionise.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
If you look at recent centre left winners globally, Biden, Scholz and Albanese for example, they were all at least as dull and boring as Starmer. In each case it was more the rightwing government that lost it than they that won it
You could also say the same for Hollande's win over Sarkozy in 2012
I have always been challenging of the need for census . Its partly that I dont like state power , partly that it is seemingly a waste of money and just done because we have always done it. Yes there are some advantages but speaking as somebody who loves family history I dont think helping that is enough. What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
I have never filled in a census form. Ridiculous to think that the state doesn't know I exist, still less that it doesn't already have a mass of information on me.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
He’s a master craftsman who hand carves obsidian daggers with handles made out of deer jaws (I bought two) from a little stall next to a 12th century Silk Road caravanserai in the high Armenian Caucasus (8000 feet up)
To celebrate our new friendship he just gave me a cup of mulberry brandy
I shall now proceed to Lake Sevan
Did you pay in money, or in kind with artisinally knapped dildos?
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
It is by now almost customary for the comparison to be made, but I do not see Johnson as 'Britain Trump'.
The UK's Trump was, in my view, Corbyn (a reactionary old fart who mixes with racists and loves the Russian government).
Johnson is actually quite comparable to Biden (blundering around like a drugged elephant by the seat of his pants, often landing somewhere lucky, but with no real vision for government) with a great deal of Bill Clinton thrown in ('it depends on your definition of 'is'').
The closest international comparison regarding the UK's Conservative Party is not the American Republican Party but the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan.
All that said, to make any kind of substantial political strategy based on international comparisons seems doomed to failure. I remember when Francois Hollande was the Great Red Hope for the future and went on a victory tour with Ed Miliband.
Everyone knows the £1000 fine for the census isn't credible, particularly given just how many low-income households haven't done it.
I don't know why that is the case. Robertson blamed people being too busy. And the Ukraine crisis. And cost of living.
I refused on principle to complete the census. Similar reason why I refuse to pay the BBC poll tax.
I'm a libertarian.
Was the £1000 fine ever imposed on anybody? I never completed it. Told them to fuck off (and more) when they came to the house but nothing ever happened.
Well done you.
I haven't been fined and I don't know anyone who has. I wish more people would tell them and the BBC poll taxman to fuck off.
I'm fine with the census. It produces very useful, anonymised data.
The Information Commissioner's Office £40 tax for any business that handles personal data, however, can do one. The ICO is a chocolate teapot of an institution and it's an outrage that they choose to fund themselves through a universal tax on SMEs, rather than by fining the Googles and Facebooks of this world who are the ones really abusing personal data.
The Cameron govenrnent made great play of reducing the annual Companies House fee from £25 to £16 during austerity, only for the next government to introduce the ICO fee. Stinks.
(£30 if you set up a Direct Debit, by the way)
Is there anything worse than being forced to pay over a fee knowing it funds a useless operation? On the ICO rubbish i got a letter a couple of years ago from them saying I need to pay the said fee due to a small limited company I operate on the margins of my life - I ignored it and so far nothing come back -
I've had multiple demands for money for a company that doesn't handle personal data yet for my other company (that collects shedloads of personal data) I've had nothing but hassle with ICO as they are useless and their website lost the company details between page 1 and page 2 of their application form (and because they don't have a final are these details correct form you don't know until its too late after which you need to deal with them in person).
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
The prospectus, or the programme it represents, matters. Ed Miliband lost when his Edstone revealed no more than that Labour was probably, broadly speaking, in favour of motherhood and apple pie. In 2019, Labour stuffed its prospectus with every random thought that had ever crossed Seamus Milne's cortex, which created the same confusion about what Labour would actually do (since it could not do everything).
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Yes, but the fact that every one of the items you quote from Johnson turned out to be fake or dishonest makes the point. At least Blair's list was mostly achievable and they did make some sort of an effort to deliver most of it.
In an era of managerial politics, taking a sensible 'what works' approach to policy produces stacks of proposals not one of which is going to excite any voter, despite being the right thing to do. Whereas the ideas that catch the attention of voters turn out to be unachievable or not thought through, or do more harm than good.
Btw, you can get 100/1 on Lisa Nandy at Corals and Ladbrokes
The two Labour favourites to succeed Starmer are Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting but those odds were before yesterday's hideous Streeting tweets came to light.
Going into an election with that sort of vile, nasty, background would be suicidal for Labour. Streeting's goose is cooked.
And if he does ever reach Number 10, Streeting would be the first Prime Minister who has discussed violence towards journalists since [are we still allowed to say *checks notes* or is that another banned pb cliché?] Boris Johnson.
If you don't like what Boris has said about journalists in the past (and rightly so), then you should not excuse Streeting's comments.
Both are indefensible. I'd argue Streetings are worse, as (AIUI) they were made whilst he was an MP….
They weren’t. He was at the NUS at the time.
Does it make much difference that Streeting's comments about pushing Jan Moir under a train were in 2009, whilst Boris Johnson's comments about Stuart Collier were in 1990? Both were 26 at the time.
I like Wes Streeting in general. He seems to be the last sane person to leave the NUS before someone turned the lights out.
My last flight was to Germany with Lufthansa, can't remember which class it was but the flight out included the lounge which as Casino Royale points out makes the whole flying experience much nicer. Worse flying experience was the one where I'm fairly certain the shoulders of my skeleton wouldn't have fitted in the wretchedly small chair.
My credit card gives me lounge access as one of the add-on benefits. I really wouldn't be without that, especially in a big airport.
I had that for a bit via Amex Plat, but it was rather expensive in fee terms :-).
Boris needs to lead the Tories into another election. Think this is very unlikely. SKS has to not lead Labour into that election. Very unlikely too. One of these no marks has to become Labour's leader. Surely they could do better. Rachel Reeves for one.
3 very unlikely requirements all have to come off for this to land. There is a reason that betting companies are so keen on Accas. They win nearly every time.
My guess is Starmer won't be fined but if he was that Streeting would be elected to succeed him. Nandy got just 16% in the 2020 Labour leadership election, not only miles behind Starmer but even behind Long Bailey.
I also doubt there will be an autumn election unless another VONC is agreed to by the 1922 cttee for later in the year and Johnson sees it as the only way to save his leadership if he thinks he has even less chance of winning another VONC than another general election
That would be an incredible scenario.
What would HMQ do if faced by a PM who was about to be ejected by his own party and asked her to dissolve parliament win a desperate bid to save his own bacon? Surely she'd say 'sod orff' or words to that effect?
Then again, say she feels she has no choice but to grant Johnson his dissolution... How do Tory candidates campaign for re-election under Johnson when everyone knows the election is only occurring because they don't want Johnson as their leader.
It's such a ridiculously unlikely situation. It therefore might just happen.
Another stunning Uvalde development: The door to the classroom where a gunman killed the students and teachers was probably unlocked all along. Footage shows officers didn't try to open it until SWAT arrived. https://twitter.com/Sheppard_David/status/1538276627012001792
Comments
I also had an 'I'll have an 'E' please Bob' t-shirt (based on the TV show Blockbusters). Despite never knowingly taking drugs...
My mum mysteriously 'lost' the t-shirt when she washing it during a trip home.
He was at the NUS at the time.
No idea if this helps, but I found this from January:
Net favourability
Sturgeon 13%
Scottish Government 7%
Anas Sarwar 1%
Keir Starmer -10
Patrick Harvie -15
Alex Cole-Hamilton -15
Lorna Slater -15
Rishi Sunak -19
Douglas Ross -21
UK Government -50
Alex Salmond -62
Boris Johnson -62
(Savanta ComRes/The Scotsman; 14-18 January; 1,004)
So:
A Scot +13
A group of Scots +7
A Scot +1
An Englishman -10
A Scot -15
A Scot -15
A Scot -15
An Englishman-19
A Scot -21
A group of primarily Englishmen -50
A Scot -62
An Englishman -62
But what does that tell us? That Scots generally prefer Scottish politicians? Wow! Groundbreaking. Of course Portuguese respondents prefer Spanish politicians over their own. Serbians prefer Croatian politicians to their home-bred ones. Jamaicans just love Cuban politicians. Scotland is the clear odd-man-out.
I object on principle to any State prying into my private life, for similar reasons to why I use a VPN if you recall. I am anti spying whether that's by big business or big government. As I've mentioned a number of times, a significant part of me would like to go 'off grid'. I am anti-State in a libertarian left way.
They don't own me and it is not my 'duty' to conform like some programmed dystopian robot.
Screw them.
It's actually a good point that there is no definition of English - but NB the same is true also of Scottish or Welsh - in current UK practice, except for
(a) birth
(b) residence
of which (a) is functionally meaningless in current UK practice except to tell you where to buy a copy of the birth certificate. And (b) determines such matters as election participation, student fees, etc.
I couldn't care-a-less how they are funded. Not my problem. That's up to them to sort out in a free market. If they can't work it out and they go bust, so be it.
Though I expect you also have a mildly idiosyncratic approach towards the tax system.
The Information Commissioner's Office £40 tax for any business that handles personal data, however, can do one. The ICO is a chocolate teapot of an institution and it's an outrage that they choose to fund themselves through a universal tax on SMEs, rather than by fining the Googles and Facebooks of this world who are the ones really abusing personal data.
On the internet subject, pet topic of mine, the other day over lunch I was discussing an amazing place in Germany. 10 minutes later I received an email from that very organisation, somewhere that hadn't contacted me for nearly three years.
I've had this happen several times recently: discussions have led to online adverts within minutes.
Cover your camera and switch off your phones! They're watching and listening the whole time ...
https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-census-and-sampling.html
Most states are moving away from censuses. Sweden last had one in 1990, and there is zero intention to ever hold one again.
Wikipedia says: “More countries are switching to using administrative data to hold a census. This allows a simulated census to be conducted by linking several different administrative databases at an agreed time.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_and_housing_censuses_by_country
He's utterly selfish, which is why being a politician is such a bad fit for him.
Losing a 2022 election is bad for the future Conservatives, but they're not Boris Johnson, so screw 'em.
(I don't think he'll do it, if it all goes really sour, he'll just hide in a fridge and dare his backbenchers to overthrow him, but if he does- that will be the logic.)
I gather a minor "Brexit dividend" is that the Government is going to waive the requirement to ask about cookies, instead leaving it to individuals to set their browsers to "always accept", "never accepr" or "ask me". We agreed that would suit all of us, but the less tech-savvy might be challenged unless the default is "ask me". Does anyone here know the details?
I suspect there is a group of SNP voters who will put negative to any Westminster politician regardless of their political alignment.
I don’t think your analogy is correct - in Spain/Portugal I suspect that most voters don’t know/don’t care vs actively putting negative.
ETA I regret throwing out my official government heroin chic posters (unless they're still in the attic).
I don't pay the licence fee poll tax and haven't done for a decade. The idea of a heavy-handed State-owned broadcaster requiring every one of its households to pay a flat rate compulsory tax is pretty repulsive to me. There's another issue here. I try not to bash the BBC but you can see all the flaws with its State ownership. It falls over itself to project what it sees as balance but in so doing totally skews and screws up perspective. Case in point the latest article on the by-election at T&H. This isn't 'balance' at all. It's just balderdash.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61841318
Generally I am pretty anti-State, especially when the law is an ass.
LOL at the T-shirt story.
I felt like "and that's our job" was left off by mistake.
I refuse all cookies always.
And I don't just use an anoymised VPN, I also use a browser system called Gener8 on privacy mode which strips out adverts. I clear cache and broswing history regularly too.
I find the spying on us by both big business and Government deeply disturbing.
A whole different level to someone who occasionally breaks the speed limit
See? Easy innit.
(And I know two people who killed by a driver who had been drinking)
You lost. Not so easy is it?
But thanks for sitting in State Judgement on me ...
In practice I'm not sure the UK government has much leverage to change anything -- websites mostly deal with an international audience (so the EU cookie requirements resulted in US people also getting asked about cookies, for instance).
For a country with public funded healthcare it makes sense.
I suggest you look more carefully though at my replies. And don't call me a 'thief' when you don't have command of the facts.
Also as a general point it's not a clever idea to accuse others on here, whom you don't know, of things.
I also doubt there will be an autumn election unless another VONC is agreed to by the 1922 cttee for later in the year and Johnson sees it as the only way to save his leadership if he thinks he has even less chance of winning another VONC than another general election
You get punished as a consequence of doing something wrong. What have the travelling public done wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Streeting#National_Union_of_Students
Sorry to be facetious but I will treat your 'guess' with a little scepticism.
Of the three women on whom I have outstanding bets (all over 100/1) Rachel Reeves is the likeliest. A very good background and she has been effective in Parliament.
And with that tip I shall head off to do some admin work.
The Labour equivalent of Oxford Union President, but (only) slightly more grown up.
It then struck me as curious that despite @uniondivvie and @Carnyx replying to the post neither of them answered it, while you didn’t response.
But I don’t have an agenda - I just like to understand what data is really showing.
..nowhere was the Trump defeat more warmly welcomed than among supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, the polar opposite of a populist. His people interpreted the 2020 American election as a turn in the global political tide away from the cheap, nasty and dangerous theatrics of nationalist demagogues towards cautious characters offering moderation, competence and a respect for integrity.
As Britain grew exhausted with the trashy pantomime of the Johnson regime, so, I was often told by supporters of the Labour leader, voters would be drawn to no-drama Starmer. The boring-is-best school received another morale boost when Olaf Scholz won Germany’s election last year to become his country’s first Social Democratic leader in 16 years. The trouble with this proposition is that its proponents have to go either abroad or back in British history more than 70 years to find an example of an uninspirational progressive leader winning power against a rightwing opponent. So a lot of Labour people are unpersuaded that it is a formula for success.
One member of the shadow cabinet recently told me that Sir Keir should be greatly commended for making Labour less repulsive to voters, including rooting out the antisemitism that poisoned the party during the Corbyn years and re-establishing Labour’s credentials on security and patriotism. But this senior frontbencher went on to say that “there is a widespread feeling in the party that Keir has done as much as he can”.
Labour needs more...emblematic ideas that make the political weather, discomfit their opponents, engage the public and offer guidance about what to expect from a Labour government. Each policy should contribute to an overarching theme about renewing Britain. That is the way to look like a credible party of power with a clear and engaging plan for the country.
The lesson of...history may be this. A charismatic leader with the capacity to generate excitement can win from the centre-left with a cautious programme, as Tony Blair demonstrated in 1997. A dramatic manifesto of social and economic change fronted by a self-effacing leader can also be a successful blend, as Attlee proved in 1945. What doesn’t work is a radical project presented by an alarming leader, as Jeremy Corbyn confirmed in 2019.
The combination of an uninspirational leader with a lacklustre prospectus doesn’t look like a promising formula either.
Still, if the latest census is seen to be a failure, that might hasten a switch. Not much point spending all that money if you still miss a lot and get an unrepresentative sample.
I think I also read or saw that they are also using them to try and match DNA from potential unidentified suspects to find familial links to narrow down the search as well.
(£30 if you set up a Direct Debit, by the way)
What I really object to is the trend to ask intrusive questions about religion and sexual orientation though which goes along with this obsession we have in modern society to label everything and everyone
It’s worth saying here that come October it’s very likely that not having a passport will restrict you employment opportunities as the online system requires a passport and is way easier and less risky than the manual process.
To celebrate our new friendship he just gave me a cup of mulberry brandy
I shall now proceed to Lake Sevan
Self confidence, ego, manipulation, style over substance, etc, all needed to get ahead, but so easily going too far and making governance a difficulty.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has appealed to Labour and Green party supporters to vote tactically in Thursday’s crucial West Country byelection – to help deliver a “knockout” blow to Boris Johnson’s premiership.
The Lib Dems believe they have a realistic chance of causing one of the biggest byelection shocks of recent times by coming from third place to win in the normally safe Conservative stronghold of Tiverton and Honiton.
However, Lib Dem and Tory activists are reporting the race is too close to call, with four days of campaigning to go, despite widespread anger about Partygate and concern in the rural community that the Tories are not doing enough to help farmers or tackle the cost of living crisis.
On the ground, Lib Dem organisers are saying it has become harder to win over Tory voters to their cause in the last week and a half, as the Conservatives have emphasised what are called “wedge issues” – immigration, opposition to rail strikes, and Brexit – in order to try to persuade their supporters not to desert.
“There has definitely been a hardening among those Tory voters and it has become more difficult in the last few days,” said a Liberal Democrat source. “It is going to be very tight and the majority to overturn is very big.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/19/tactical-vote-pm-lib-dems-poll-race-ed-davey-labour-green
If they win with wuite a bit to spare it will be more notable.
Compare with the two great campaigns of recent years. Tony Blair with the pledge card setting out half a dozen actions; Boris without an actual pledge card but with the same handful of pledges — get Brexit done, new coppers, new doctors, new hospitals.
Rawnsley is wrong. The point is not that Blair's programme was cautious but that he had one at all.
Invest in defence
Invest in renewables
Invest in health
The UK's Trump was, in my view, Corbyn (a reactionary old fart who mixes with racists and loves the Russian government).
Johnson is actually quite comparable to Biden (blundering around like a drugged elephant by the seat of his pants, often landing somewhere lucky, but with no real vision for government) with a great deal of Bill Clinton thrown in ('it depends on your definition of 'is'').
The closest international comparison regarding the UK's Conservative Party is not the American Republican Party but the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan.
All that said, to make any kind of substantial political strategy based on international comparisons seems doomed to failure. I remember when Francois Hollande was the Great Red Hope for the future and went on a victory tour with Ed Miliband.
It would be cheaper to fill the form in again.
In an era of managerial politics, taking a sensible 'what works' approach to policy produces stacks of proposals not one of which is going to excite any voter, despite being the right thing to do. Whereas the ideas that catch the attention of voters turn out to be unachievable or not thought through, or do more harm than good.
I like Wes Streeting in general. He seems to be the last sane person to leave the NUS before someone turned the lights out.
Boris needs to lead the Tories into another election. Think this is very unlikely.
SKS has to not lead Labour into that election. Very unlikely too.
One of these no marks has to become Labour's leader. Surely they could do better. Rachel Reeves for one.
3 very unlikely requirements all have to come off for this to land. There is a reason that betting companies are so keen on Accas. They win nearly every time.
What would HMQ do if faced by a PM who was about to be ejected by his own party and asked her to dissolve parliament win a desperate bid to save his own bacon? Surely she'd say 'sod orff' or words to that effect?
Then again, say she feels she has no choice but to grant Johnson his dissolution... How do Tory candidates campaign for re-election under Johnson when everyone knows the election is only occurring because they don't want Johnson as their leader.
It's such a ridiculously unlikely situation. It therefore might just happen.
https://twitter.com/Sheppard_David/status/1538276627012001792