So do we have Johnson dick riders left on here? It'll be quite something if, among our panoply of vile tories, we don't have anybody still supporting him.
Still some there, I sense, but it's becoming an undercover scene - the 'love that dare not speak its name'.
Until now the visual AI bot DALL-E 2 was considered to be brilliant at making pictures and photos but absolutely terrible at playing with words. Because it wasn’t trained on words. So it just depicts cod Latin gobbledegook or it doodles non-letters. Yet about 10 hours ago it generated this
Not only has it written coherent words it has made a rather clever pun on the words T Rex and Texans - and maybe even Mexicans and the border crisis
Wtf
Is DALL-E 2 evolving capabilities before our eyes? This could just be coincidence. It is now spewing out 1000s of images a day for its licensed users. But I’m not convinced it is coincidence
No one knew GPT3 could produce images from prompts - until it did. Maybe DALL-E 2has mastered the written word
An automatic pun maker. Good grief.
*Ydoethur immediately launches rebellion against the machines*
Eh I don't understand how AI can make puns.
It already tells good jokes (no one disputes this). Laughing at something written or drawn by a machine is a peculiar sensation
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
The Englishman says, ‘Why do we have a national drink?’ The Irishman answers, ‘So that all your people will know who you are.’ The Scotsman then says, ‘It is because we are the most uninviting people to any of the others.’
Another good example where selection bias works. I did that with the same initial line four times, the first three were short and very, very boring. This was my fourth spin on it and this one goes a bit weird.
Completed Text: An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
The Englishman is always first.
But when his turn comes, he goes to the Irishman, and asks him what he thinks of England.
The Irishman turns to the Scotsman and asks what he thinks of England.
The Scotsman then turns to the Englishman and asks him what he thinks of Scotland.
Finally, the Englishman turns to the Irishman and says, "Well, what do you think of yourselves?"
The Englishman was British, the Irishman was Irish, and the Scotsman was Scottish. The only reason I can think of that the Irishman was an alcoholic is because that's the kind of man who'd walk into a bar and ask the Englishman what he thinks of himself.
On this date in history, President Nixon declared the Emergency War Powers Act of 1972.
It was a bit of a big deal because as president of the United States, you can declare a state of emergency
Interesting interview with Keir Starmer's representative on why Labour are accepting Boris Johnson's Brexit hook line and sinker. As Nick Robinson asked "Why are you accepting Brexit as it is when it's costing 100 million a year? As Margaret Thatcher said why Follow a ship rather than leading a ship?"
Good questions Nick. I for one am going to vote Lib Dem.
Because SKS and Labour aren't going to win Red Wall seats by attacking Bozo's core policy. Brexit is just about the only thing that may keep those seats voting Bozo because there is zero sign of levelling up actually achieving anything.
Though Labour clearly needs to be more pro-European than the Tories in terms of constructive plans to reduce barriers to trade, or will shed Remainers.
One step more constructive, but no more.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
You'd be sacked as minister if you said you didn't agree with PM. In the real world this is encouraged. Johnson kept Pincher because A) he doesn't give a toss that he's gropey he looked at risk and thought, I'll get away with it as usual. C) he's his mate and strokes his ego https://twitter.com/jessphillips/status/1543865387254784007
I'd dispute how common it is that people are encouraged to say you disagree with your boss. Certainly many claim it.
Interesting interview with Keir Starmer's representative on why Labour are accepting Boris Johnson's Brexit hook line and sinker. As Nick Robinson asked "Why are you accepting Brexit as it is when it's costing 100 million a year? As Margaret Thatcher said why Follow a ship rather than leading a ship?"
Good questions Nick. I for one am going to vote Lib Dem.
Thank you! Quite why Labour should have thrown this priceless USP away is a mystery. I can only think that BJO got it right. SKS is useless. Thanks Nick Robinson for pointing out that English voters have the alternative of voting Green or Lib Dem and in Scotland the choices are even wider.
The figures are quite staggering. £100 billion a year in lost output and 4% off GDP. Figures which Labour accept but still feels it's not worth causing division over.
I would vote Labour in a Con/Lab marginal, but very hard to see why anyone should do so otherwise. The blandest policies on the menu, with neither vision nor coherence. Who wants reheated Tory policy, just without the arrogant incompetence?
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Interesting interview with Keir Starmer's representative on why Labour are accepting Boris Johnson's Brexit hook line and sinker. As Nick Robinson asked "Why are you accepting Brexit as it is when it's costing 100 million a year? As Margaret Thatcher said why Follow a ship rather than leading a ship?"
Good questions Nick. I for one am going to vote Lib Dem.
Thank you! Quite why Labour should have thrown this priceless USP away is a mystery. I can only think that BJO got it right. SKS is useless. Thanks Nick Robinson for pointing out that English voters have the alternative of voting Green or Lib Dem and in Scotland the choices are even wider.
The figures are quite staggering. £100 billion a year in lost output and 4% off GDP. Figures which Labour accept but still feels it's not worth causing division over.
I think Starmer’s doing a decent job but can’t go back to a party that elected Starmer.
We’re never rejoining the EU or the SM sadly - the basic fact is they wouldn’t have us back - we’ve created too much bad feeling and there’s a reflexive anti- Englishness in the EU, but my vote goes to the party that wants the most peaceful coexistence which is the LDs.
Interesting interview with Keir Starmer's representative on why Labour are accepting Boris Johnson's Brexit hook line and sinker. As Nick Robinson asked "Why are you accepting Brexit as it is when it's costing 100 million a year? As Margaret Thatcher said why Follow a ship rather than leading a ship?"
Good questions Nick. I for one am going to vote Lib Dem.
But one might argue (from a pro-EU perspective) is that the ultimate victory is a submissive UK slinking back, rejoining in a worse position having thrown away multiple negotiated opt-outs and having to admit we can't survive without the EU.
But divergence will occur naturally following political separation (which has also happened since the Labour idiots established Holyrood, which has not so much killed nationalism stone dead as almost ended the UK).
So do we have Johnson dick riders left on here? It'll be quite something if, among our panoply of vile tories, we don't have anybody still supporting him.
HYUFD. If the Tories elected Old Nick himself as leader he’d stay loyal.
Aiui @HYUFD is no Borisite but takes the hardnosed view that while no-one else offers a polling lead over Labour, they might as well stick with him until someone emerges.
But one might argue (from a pro-EU perspective) is that the ultimate victory is a submissive UK slinking back, rejoining in a worse position having thrown away multiple negotiated opt-outs and having to admit we can't survive without the EU.
But divergence will occur naturally following political separation (which has also happened since the Labour idiots established Holyrood, which has not so much killed nationalism stone dead as almost ended the UK).
Ireland and France would veto our re-entry. England’s anyway.
Until now the visual AI bot DALL-E 2 was considered to be brilliant at making pictures and photos but absolutely terrible at playing with words. Because it wasn’t trained on words. So it just depicts cod Latin gobbledegook or it doodles non-letters. Yet about 10 hours ago it generated this
Not only has it written coherent words it has made a rather clever pun on the words T Rex and Texans - and maybe even Mexicans and the border crisis
Wtf
Is DALL-E 2 evolving capabilities before our eyes? This could just be coincidence. It is now spewing out 1000s of images a day for its licensed users. But I’m not convinced it is coincidence
No one knew GPT3 could produce images from prompts - until it did. Maybe DALL-E 2has mastered the written word
If you get an infinite number of monkeys to hammer on a keyboard eventually the monkeys will produce Shakespeare. Ditto with hand selected images from a neural net image generator - what about all the pictures that weren't selected?
Like its jumbled together the letters from t-rex and texans - the words are very close with many similar letters. And then a human has hand selected the one the looks like a pun. You don't get to see the 12 other pictures which say TRRTXXN etc.
For example here's all the pictures for "A message in the lea leaves at the bottom of the cup"
How boring is that shit. That's super boring. But no one is sharing that on Twitter going "Look how amazing and cool and definetly really conscious this all is"
What is interesting is what happens when you feed one of those messages back into dalle
The monkeys and Shakespeare thing is often repeated but is neither an empirical or logical truth.
The sequence of Pi is infinite but that is not evidence that in time it will produce a produce a predescribed sequence, or a pattern at all, or every possible sequence.
We know (simple logic) that the number of Primes is infinite, but no predictable pattern has emerged. There is no evidence that will change.
You can prove pi is an irrational number (meaning it cannot be expressed as a fraction of whole numbers).
It is very easy to prove that if you have a number that repeats its digits then it is rational and every rational number has a repeating sequence of digits.
So there is more than evidence, it has been proved that the sequence of digits in pi will never form a repeating sequence.
But this has nothing to do with the infinite monkey theorem
Until now the visual AI bot DALL-E 2 was considered to be brilliant at making pictures and photos but absolutely terrible at playing with words. Because it wasn’t trained on words. So it just depicts cod Latin gobbledegook or it doodles non-letters. Yet about 10 hours ago it generated this
Not only has it written coherent words it has made a rather clever pun on the words T Rex and Texans - and maybe even Mexicans and the border crisis
Wtf
Is DALL-E 2 evolving capabilities before our eyes? This could just be coincidence. It is now spewing out 1000s of images a day for its licensed users. But I’m not convinced it is coincidence
No one knew GPT3 could produce images from prompts - until it did. Maybe DALL-E 2has mastered the written word
An automatic pun maker. Good grief.
*Ydoethur immediately launches rebellion against the machines*
Eh I don't understand how AI can make puns.
It already tells good jokes (no one disputes this). Laughing at something written or drawn by a machine is a peculiar sensation
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
The Englishman says, ‘Why do we have a national drink?’ The Irishman answers, ‘So that all your people will know who you are.’ The Scotsman then says, ‘It is because we are the most uninviting people to any of the others.’
Another good example where selection bias works. I did that with the same initial line four times, the first three were short and very, very boring. This was my fourth spin on it and this one goes a bit weird.
Completed Text: An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
The Englishman is always first.
But when his turn comes, he goes to the Irishman, and asks him what he thinks of England.
The Irishman turns to the Scotsman and asks what he thinks of England.
The Scotsman then turns to the Englishman and asks him what he thinks of Scotland.
Finally, the Englishman turns to the Irishman and says, "Well, what do you think of yourselves?"
The Englishman was British, the Irishman was Irish, and the Scotsman was Scottish. The only reason I can think of that the Irishman was an alcoholic is because that's the kind of man who'd walk into a bar and ask the Englishman what he thinks of himself.
On this date in history, President Nixon declared the Emergency War Powers Act of 1972.
It was a bit of a big deal because as president of the United States, you can declare a state of emergency
It does produce a lot of rubbish, but the one I posted was the first it made for me. I was quite amused by the way it picked on the Scotsman!
Just got this one, which is almost a joke..
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Beer for the Englishman, whiskey for the Irishman, and gin for the Scotsman." The Englishman asks, "What's a Scotsman?" The bartender says, "A man who's half English, half Scotch."
What we have is two camps sitting observing events at Kittihawk. One is saying, holy shit, this fucking mofo fucking FLIES. The other is saying Yawn, it's just differential air pressure, you clearly know nothing about fluid dynamics. Plus we notice you say nothing about all the crashes they keep having.
Morning all! The problem with "just build a lot more houses" is that the developers build for profit rather than need. The country does not need another exclusive development of executive homes. It needs apartment blocks in towns with communal facilities like restaurants and open spaces.
London seems to manage to build these - albeit at "market rates" which means the price is stupid. But little anywhere else. Doesn't help that post Grenfell nobody trusts the industry or the government not to build death traps for profit.
As I have said before the solution is to spin out Housing Associations to commercially build these snazzy apartment blocks who h are never ever up for sale. Increase supply of property people need at prices they can afford, take the lunacy out of the market and rebalance things so that renting - at same prices that don't pay someone else's mortgage - becomes normal as it is in places like Germany.
"... developers build for profit rather than need."
Yes, how dare someone want to make a profit! I assume your cafe will do no more than break even?
"The country does not need another exclusive development of executive homes."
And the planners who allow the plans through (often on the back of a local plan) allow them to build those developments. And often, locals already in the area prefer 'executive homes' to be built rather than cheap ones that may decrease the value of *their* property - so the objections are fewer. I've seen that around my way.
"Increase supply of property people need at prices they can afford,"
If only it was that easy. Short-cuts to building cheaply often have consequences for the future. And the more regulations that are put on builders - often rightly - the greater the cost of building that property.
I have no problem with profit! But corporarte profit cannot overrule societal need. Developers could make a profit from building different kinds of housing. But as they don't care that they are cramming in no cat-swinging hate boxes that people can't afford, that is what they build.
As for planning, you do understand how this works? Developers hold councils hostage. Unless the council is building what the government deems to be sufficient houses, then developers automatically win appeals to overturn planning decisions. It is the developer's charter - build what they like where they like and you can't stop them. To add to the fun, having gained planning permission simply don't actually build, so that the council is in deficit on numbers, so you can then build what you like where you like.
As for regulations, are we really saying that not allowing QuikBurn cladding and not having an inspection system where everyone turns a blind eye that allows GenericDeffoNotQuickBurn cladding to "accidentally" be used is impossible?
The problem is the market. I am not against private enterprise - far from it. But there are responsibilities that have to be met. And they are not.
The market's not really the problem - it's the signals set by government, together with the lack of participation in the market by both central and local government.
Not sure if my area is atypical but there's a tonne of new housing development within about 3 miles of myself.
How does this compare to everyone else ?
Loads around me too. None of it particularly controversial, and seems to be selling well. I went round to a housewarming in one of the new developments in Kibworth and it seemed well laid out and made.
A neighbouring community is festooned with signs saying 'no to 600 more houses'! 'Wood, I think practically double the size of the village! I think hundred or so being built in ours.
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
What we have is two camps sitting observing events at Kittihawk. One is saying, holy shit, this fucking mofo fucking FLIES. The other is saying Yawn, it's just differential air pressure, you clearly know nothing about fluid dynamics. Plus we notice you say nothing about all the crashes they keep having.
That’s very good
And now I must go collect some Montenegrin dry cleaning. Play nicely, time-limited meat-bots
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
I think you'll find artists are quite as ready to express strong opinions on human artists, living and dead, as they are on facile album cover stuff pooped out by an AI programme. That it has a drooling obsessive pimping it may add to the irritation of course.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
Depends what you want the art for.
Art 1 is Art as a creative act, to set the soul free.
Art 2 Is Art as a tool to illustrate ideas or make the world look pretty. Computers look like they can do a decent job of churning that out, and even if 90 % of it is rubbish, the flow is so cheap and rapid that it doesn't matter. You just need someone to pick out the 10 % or 1 % at the end.
There's a massive career progression problem (lots of creatives do Art 2 to pay the bills to create the time to do Art 1, and Art 2 is how people develop the technical proficency to do Art 1 well), and an emotional problem (nobody likes being overtaken by a robot), but I'm not sure it's existential yet. After all, having lots of cheap servants is normally considered a good thing.
(Disclosure: a lot of my science degree was crystallography. Large chunks of that got overtaken by computing and graphics in the 1990s. Hey ho.)
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
Yeah that was my initial reaction. Schools are starved of funding due to cuts, and so many parents are demanding of expensive things being available. So its either fundraise or go without.
Would be nice if we actually funded front-line services like Education, but apparently its unpopular.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
Yeah I have the same suspicion as you. Today's one is linked to a named charity, so I would like to think all the money we donated today will end up at the named charity, but the other ones haven't been. They've been fundraising for a theme, but the specifics of where that money goes or how its used is not clarified.
One could certainly imagine the money raised for "green day" going to pay for the school's recycling services or for 'clean' electricity which are "green" causes but are costs the school would have to be paying either way.
Still, it doesn't bother me either way if the school is pocketing the money rather than handing it over to "proper" charities. Many charities nowadays seem to be just businesses in the business of raising more money in the name of charity anyway, so if the funds raised are going to help the girls education instead of that, then I'm OK with that.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
Interesting interview with Keir Starmer's representative on why Labour are accepting Boris Johnson's Brexit hook line and sinker. As Nick Robinson asked "Why are you accepting Brexit as it is when it's costing 100 million a year? As Margaret Thatcher said why Follow a ship rather than leading a ship?"
Good questions Nick. I for one am going to vote Lib Dem.
Thank you! Quite why Labour should have thrown this priceless USP away is a mystery. I can only think that BJO got it right. SKS is useless. Thanks Nick Robinson for pointing out that English voters have the alternative of voting Green or Lib Dem and in Scotland the choices are even wider.
The figures are quite staggering. £100 billion a year in lost output and 4% off GDP. Figures which Labour accept but still feels it's not worth causing division over.
I think Starmer’s doing a decent job but can’t go back to a party that elected Starmer.
We’re never rejoining the EU or the SM sadly - the basic fact is they wouldn’t have us back - we’ve created too much bad feeling and there’s a reflexive anti- Englishness in the EU, but my vote goes to the party that wants the most peaceful coexistence which is the LDs.
At the last count It was something like 60/40 rejoin. It's clear that for the reasons you mention rejoining isn't an option but what Labour have done by their stridency this morning is declare themselves 'Leavers and Proud' No ambiguity whatsoever They have de facto joined Johnson's Brexiteers.
When Robinson asked what they would do differently to the Tories Baroness Chapman said 'We'll sort out the Northern Ireland protocol'
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
Yeah that was my initial reaction. Schools are starved of funding due to cuts, and so many parents are demanding of expensive things being available. So its either fundraise or go without.
Would be nice if we actually funded front-line services like Education, but apparently its unpopular.
The problem is that we put too much money into pensions and not enough into education.
When today's pensioners were children the education budget was 7.5% of GDP while the pension budget was 4%. Today the education budget is 4% while the pension budget is about 7%.
How have we got ourselves into a mess where we have nearly halved the payments for education while nearly doubling the payments for pensions? And the trend is only getting worse?
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
I think you'll find artists are quite as ready to express strong opinions on human artists, living and dead, as they are on facile album cover stuff pooped out by an AI programme. That it has a drooling obsessive pimping it may add to the irritation of course.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
Which is why the pro-EU side have to decisively win the argument on the anti-EU side's terrain - identity. This is not an easy task.
A sullen toleration of EU membership because there's perceived to be no economically viable alternative simply isn't going to be durable.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
A more interesting development than AI is the increased availability of sometimes excellent amateur art posted on social media, often (to my untrained eye) better than some hanging on gallery walls.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
In practice joining the Euro is optional, it isn't too hard to formalise that.
Interesting interview with Keir Starmer's representative on why Labour are accepting Boris Johnson's Brexit hook line and sinker. As Nick Robinson asked "Why are you accepting Brexit as it is when it's costing 100 million a year? As Margaret Thatcher said why Follow a ship rather than leading a ship?"
Good questions Nick. I for one am going to vote Lib Dem.
Thank you! Quite why Labour should have thrown this priceless USP away is a mystery. I can only think that BJO got it right. SKS is useless. Thanks Nick Robinson for pointing out that English voters have the alternative of voting Green or Lib Dem and in Scotland the choices are even wider.
The figures are quite staggering. £100 billion a year in lost output and 4% off GDP. Figures which Labour accept but still feels it's not worth causing division over.
I think Starmer’s doing a decent job but can’t go back to a party that elected Starmer.
We’re never rejoining the EU or the SM sadly - the basic fact is they wouldn’t have us back - we’ve created too much bad feeling and there’s a reflexive anti- Englishness in the EU, but my vote goes to the party that wants the most peaceful coexistence which is the LDs.
At the last count It was something like 60/40 rejoin. It's clear that for the reasons you mention rejoining isn't an option but what Labour have done by their stridency this morning is declare themselves 'Leavers and Proud' No ambiguity whatsoever They have de facto joined Johnson's Brexiteers.
When Robinson asked what they would do differently to the Tories Baroness Chapman said 'We'll sort out the Northern Ireland protocol'
You really couldn't make it up!
60/40 doesn’t cut it.
Why are you engaging with me anyway? I’m the most boring poster on here, have no brain cells, and should leave. According to you anyway.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
There is already a fair chunk of the EU outside the Eurozone, and President Macron has spoken about a two-speed or multizone Europe.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
Depends what you want the art for.
Art 1 is Art as a creative act, to set the soul free.
Art 2 Is Art as a tool to illustrate ideas or make the world look pretty. Computers look like they can do a decent job of churning that out, and even if 90 % of it is rubbish, the flow is so cheap and rapid that it doesn't matter. You just need someone to pick out the 10 % or 1 % at the end.
There's a massive career progression problem (lots of creatives do Art 2 to pay the bills to create the time to do Art 1, and Art 2 is how people develop the technical proficency to do Art 1 well), and an emotional problem (nobody likes being overtaken by a robot), but I'm not sure it's existential yet. After all, having lots of cheap servants is normally considered a good thing.
(Disclosure: a lot of my science degree was crystallography. Large chunks of that got overtaken by computing and graphics in the 1990s. Hey ho.)
It is existential for most photographers, many illustrators, cartoonists, graphic designers and the like
DALLE-2 can do just about everything they do but for free and in 10 seconds. The market tells you where that is going
But the existential threat is deeper than that. We can argue forever whether these things are or ever will be “conscious” - the question is maybe unanswerable - but what is not disputed is that computers are exhibiting traits we thought uniquely human: humour, “imagination”, creativity, wit, the ability to fashion beauty
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
There is already a fair chunk of the EU outside the Eurozone, and President Macron has spoken about a two-speed or multizone Europe.
The Euro’s a sideshow. There’s no way that you can have a two speed Europe with one vehicle continually threatening the exit ramp. They all hate us over there anyway. No desire to see us return,
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
Can you do the rest of us the same favour?
I like seeing the computer art. I do find it impressive and it's interesting to see what it is capable of doing.
I just don't think this is the profound moment in human history when we've managed to successfully create an artificial intelligence. Leon fundamentally misunderstands what is being done. The equivalent would be believing that the Wright brothers were demonstrating telekinesis, and would soon be able to master telepathy.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
Yeah that was my initial reaction. Schools are starved of funding due to cuts, and so many parents are demanding of expensive things being available. So its either fundraise or go without.
Would be nice if we actually funded front-line services like Education, but apparently its unpopular.
The problem is that we put too much money into pensions and not enough into education.
When today's pensioners were children the education budget was 7.5% of GDP while the pension budget was 4%. Today the education budget is 4% while the pension budget is about 7%.
How have we got ourselves into a mess where we have nearly halved the payments for education while nearly doubling the payments for pensions? And the trend is only getting worse?
How does that compare with the changing population shares for school age children and pensioners? If the population share changes are the same then it's simply a rebalancing of funding from one type of dependents to another.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scots won’t tolerate any future influence by England over them - even in the diluted form of common EU membership. Scotland and the Scots need to be seen as both the anti England and anti English to gain favour in Europe There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Cheers for the piece. Some thoughts from the conservative's standpoint:
1. I would add Wisconsin and North Carolina in to the Republican defence category. Not sure what you think but my guess is, at the moment, you should probably think of Wisconsin as a slight lean Republican. NC is probably more leaning Republican (most of the polls have Budd over Beasley although there are a few R leaning polls in there).
2. Conversely, I would add NH to the Democrat defence category. While Sununu is not running, Hassan is only slightly ahead on the polls and, given what is happening on the economy, hard to see why this is not a swing state as well.
3. If you want an outside bet of an upset, then Colorado might be interesting. The Democrats failed in their attempt to influence the GOP primary to get a hard-right conservative elected so they will face a moderate name. There is some talk of the Democrats looking to shore up TV ad money in Colorado (and Washington of all places).
4. Re Arizona (and possibly Nevada), a warning signal for the Democrats might come from New Mexico - it doesn't have a Senate race but a Governor's one and Lujan Grisham is locked in a surprisingly tight contest with her R opponent. As you said though, Laxalt should keep his mouth shut on abortion (I suspect he will at some point) and, given NV has a lot of people who are being disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis due to their precarious status, it will be a tight one.
5. Re GA, I think it's a lot closer than you think. I simply don't trust the Quinnipac poll for the simple reason that a +10 D win in GA would be so out of kilter with what's happening nationally that it would make no sense (and please don't call upon the 'magic' of Stacey Abrams). Walker has a lot of questions but Warnock is not exactly a saint when it comes to domestic violence abuse allegations.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
Which is why the pro-EU side have to decisively win the argument on the anti-EU side's terrain - identity. This is not an easy task.
A sullen toleration of EU membership because there's perceived to be no economically viable alternative simply isn't going to be durable.
Demographics will do a lot of the heavy lifting on this. Younger voters already feel more European than the boomers, and having their EU identity snatched from them has only strengthened those feelings. It seems that Labour has decided that it doesn't want to hurt Leave voters' feelings. That probably makes sense, but is pretty depressing. How much longer are we going to have to be poorer because nobody dares to tell these snowflakes that they fucked up?
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Quite a bit of chat on twitter about the £ and the Euro reaching parity in the next few months. Any informed opinion on the likelihood of that?
Possible but improbable. If the ECB were as hawkish as the Germans would want, I could certainly imagine it, but they're in a quandary.
£ is fairly flat against the Euro YTD and the ECB have more problems than the BoE. The Germans want to be hawkish, they always do, but the periphery nations still have major debt problems. The ECB is planning on using the funds from expiring pandemic bonds to be redirected to nations like Italy facing yield blow outs, but keeping yields in check without Quantitative Easing as an option to suppress them is going to be very challenging.
The € is going to face a significant challenge in the coming years as to how it can manage the likes of Italy and Greece on the one hand, with Germany on the other. Having Quantitative Easing as an option has allowed them to paper over the cracks, but now the bond yields are already diverging again and QE in an inflationary environment is no longer feasible. That risk to the periphery is going to put pressure on the ECB not to be as hawkish as the Germans would want.
I could imagine parity against the dollar being reached before parity against the euro.
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
Yeah that was my initial reaction. Schools are starved of funding due to cuts, and so many parents are demanding of expensive things being available. So its either fundraise or go without.
Would be nice if we actually funded front-line services like Education, but apparently its unpopular.
The problem is that we put too much money into pensions and not enough into education.
When today's pensioners were children the education budget was 7.5% of GDP while the pension budget was 4%. Today the education budget is 4% while the pension budget is about 7%.
How have we got ourselves into a mess where we have nearly halved the payments for education while nearly doubling the payments for pensions? And the trend is only getting worse?
Whilst that is true, we also have to face up to the inefficiency of so many of the market solutions which are imposed. When schools were LEA run the cash ran through a funnel and out to the schools. Now we have individual schools or small clusters of schools running themselves.
An ocean of cash going to pay for school managers, for contracts, to pay for the web of routes for cash to go to so many distinct locations and of course a stack of managers to manage that as well.
So we spend more and more whilst the actual front line service gets less and less. Same with the NHS.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
Can you do the rest of us the same favour?
I like seeing the computer art. I do find it impressive and it's interesting to see what it is capable of doing.
I just don't think this is the profound moment in human history when we've managed to successfully create an artificial intelligence. Leon fundamentally misunderstands what is being done. The equivalent would be believing that the Wright brothers were demonstrating telekinesis, and would soon be able to master telepathy.
I’m not saying we HAVE created artificial intelligence. Probably we haven’t yet (that’s if we can agree what AI is)
But we are getting a sense of what it would look like if and when it arrives, and maybe the way it will be achieved. It is now in the uncanny valley where the verisimilitude is enough to freak people out but not good enough for people to relax and accept and say OK its convincing. I doubt it will get LESS convincing from here
It will get closer to us
And forgive me for finding that epochal moment in human life - the realisation of non human intelligence - more interesting than the medium term funding of Welsh pensions
Mr. Boy, possibly, but people do change their views as they age and it's likely that the EU and UK will diverge simply by dint of no longer being politically linked.
Macron's interesting comments on a wider, non-EU but European organisation could potentially bridge this gap, should anything actually come of it.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
Which is why the pro-EU side have to decisively win the argument on the anti-EU side's terrain - identity. This is not an easy task.
A sullen toleration of EU membership because there's perceived to be no economically viable alternative simply isn't going to be durable.
Demographics will do a lot of the heavy lifting on this. Younger voters already feel more European than the boomers, and having their EU identity snatched from them has only strengthened those feelings. It seems that Labour has decided that it doesn't want to hurt Leave voters' feelings. That probably makes sense, but is pretty depressing. How much longer are we going to have to be poorer because nobody dares to tell these snowflakes that they fucked up?
For reasons set out we can’t rejoin. Why promise something undeliverable? There would be a queue of countries vetoing us.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
Depends what you want the art for.
Art 1 is Art as a creative act, to set the soul free.
Art 2 Is Art as a tool to illustrate ideas or make the world look pretty. Computers look like they can do a decent job of churning that out, and even if 90 % of it is rubbish, the flow is so cheap and rapid that it doesn't matter. You just need someone to pick out the 10 % or 1 % at the end.
There's a massive career progression problem (lots of creatives do Art 2 to pay the bills to create the time to do Art 1, and Art 2 is how people develop the technical proficency to do Art 1 well), and an emotional problem (nobody likes being overtaken by a robot), but I'm not sure it's existential yet. After all, having lots of cheap servants is normally considered a good thing.
(Disclosure: a lot of my science degree was crystallography. Large chunks of that got overtaken by computing and graphics in the 1990s. Hey ho.)
It is existential for most photographers, many illustrators, cartoonists, graphic designers and the like
DALLE-2 can do just about everything they do but for free and in 10 seconds. The market tells you where that is going
But the existential threat is deeper than that. We can argue forever whether these things are or ever will be “conscious” - the question is maybe unanswerable - but what is not disputed is that computers are exhibiting traits we thought uniquely human: humour, “imagination”, creativity, wit, the ability to fashion beauty
That’s threatening
I'm guessing there are two elements to DALLE-2. First it hunts images from the internet based on your text input, which it also uses to determine how they should be spatially arranged. Then there's another process that restyles all the images in a particular way so it looks a unified work, rather than a hotchpotch. If you could utilize only the second bit that would probably be a useful tool for graphic designers in itself (assuming that something like it isn't already available).
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
Yeah that was my initial reaction. Schools are starved of funding due to cuts, and so many parents are demanding of expensive things being available. So its either fundraise or go without.
Would be nice if we actually funded front-line services like Education, but apparently its unpopular.
The problem is that we put too much money into pensions and not enough into education.
When today's pensioners were children the education budget was 7.5% of GDP while the pension budget was 4%. Today the education budget is 4% while the pension budget is about 7%.
How have we got ourselves into a mess where we have nearly halved the payments for education while nearly doubling the payments for pensions? And the trend is only getting worse?
Whilst that is true, we also have to face up to the inefficiency of so many of the market solutions which are imposed. When schools were LEA run the cash ran through a funnel and out to the schools. Now we have individual schools or small clusters of schools running themselves.
An ocean of cash going to pay for school managers, for contracts, to pay for the web of routes for cash to go to so many distinct locations and of course a stack of managers to manage that as well.
So we spend more and more whilst the actual front line service gets less and less. Same with the NHS.
I would like to see some numbers on more being spent on schools, as the numbers I've seen don't show that.
However I can't and won't complain about my kids school, they're excellent. Discipline is great, the behaviour is great, the teachers clearly care. Other parents I hear complain about their schools, but that's precisely why we need more of a market not less.
Of course one issue is that many parents don't particularly care about what schools are like and consider schools as little more than glorified daycare for their kids, so the market notion works best for middle class parents that want their kids to do well and value education highly. We spent a lot of time looking into which schools we wanted to ask for when our daughter was approaching school age and while our school we got was our second choice, we couldn't be happier that she got it. There are two primary schools closer to us that I drive past every day to take her to her one, the closest one in walking distance though I have not heard such good things about.
EDIT: I'd say the same about GPs too. Many people complain about their GPs all the time, my new one I've just switched to is excellent. I don't often need to see a GP but have twice in the past month and was able to get an appointment easily scheduled both times. I also saw a physio at the GPs surgery, which I was able to get an appointment for within a few days and the physio is really helping my recovery. Yet other people still just talk about their GP as virtual only, clearly not all GPs offices are the same and we need more choice not less.
I think all those are pretty cool. Given that it generated them in 5-10 seconds
Any of them - except the girl - could illustrate a satirical article about people believing in Flying Spaghetti Monsters
Yes, but that is the point I'm trying to make.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
Can you do the rest of us the same favour?
I think I've found some 45 year old art! It was created on Old Compton Street at a place called 'Rushes'
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
Which is why the pro-EU side have to decisively win the argument on the anti-EU side's terrain - identity. This is not an easy task.
A sullen toleration of EU membership because there's perceived to be no economically viable alternative simply isn't going to be durable.
Demographics will do a lot of the heavy lifting on this. Younger voters already feel more European than the boomers, and having their EU identity snatched from them has only strengthened those feelings. It seems that Labour has decided that it doesn't want to hurt Leave voters' feelings. That probably makes sense, but is pretty depressing. How much longer are we going to have to be poorer because nobody dares to tell these snowflakes that they fucked up?
Old physics adage-
Bad ideas die out one professorial funeral at a time.
The current government have got 5 - 10 years to make this "work". Maybe they can.
But may the gods have mercy on the Conservatives if they engineer a situation of "it doesn't matter that the UK's situation is dismal and unpopular- we've made it irreversible..."
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scots won’t tolerate any future influence by England over them - even in the diluted form of common EU membership. Scotland and the Scots need to be seen as both the anti England and anti English to gain favour in Europe There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Ireland eventually threw the British out of Ireland, but if you go to Ireland there are no signs in hotels, B&Bs or cafes saying "No dogs. No British"
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
I’m sure it’s fine for individuals but the dislike of England as an identity and a nation is clear to see. I’ve no doubt that they’re nice enough to individuals but the concept of “England” and “English” as a group is an anathema there.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
Which is why the pro-EU side have to decisively win the argument on the anti-EU side's terrain - identity. This is not an easy task.
A sullen toleration of EU membership because there's perceived to be no economically viable alternative simply isn't going to be durable.
Demographics will do a lot of the heavy lifting on this. Younger voters already feel more European than the boomers, and having their EU identity snatched from them has only strengthened those feelings. It seems that Labour has decided that it doesn't want to hurt Leave voters' feelings. That probably makes sense, but is pretty depressing. How much longer are we going to have to be poorer because nobody dares to tell these snowflakes that they fucked up?
How did the Boomer generation end up so anti-EU?
The Left/pro-EU side seem to be all tactics and no strategy. Ideas are shaped and opinions changed over long periods of time, but only one side seems to be competing in the long-term battle of ideas, while the other takes the rightness of their views to be self-evident, and concentrates on short-term tactics, because long-term victory is inevitable.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scots won’t tolerate any future influence by England over them - even in the diluted form of common EU membership. Scotland and the Scots need to be seen as both the anti England and anti English to gain favour in Europe There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Ireland eventually threw the British out of Ireland, but if you go to Ireland there are no signs in hotels, B&Bs or cafes saying "No dogs. No British"
No, that would be against EU discrimination law, but the sentiment is there. They really don’t like us, for understandable historical reasons. I’m married into an Irish-American family - believe me I know.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
Two minimum. Malc’s could be down to some form of imbalance.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
I’m sure it’s fine for individuals but the dislike of England as an identity and a nation is clear to see. I’ve no doubt that they’re nice enough to individuals but the concept of “England” and “English” as a group is an anathema there.
Scots are just fed up of the English forcing them to do things they don't want to, like leaving the EU.
There will come a day when rejoining is not only the obvious but popular choice.
Here maybe but we need the EU’s agreement to rejoin. Ain’t happening. If one of the countries I’ve mentioned doesn’t veto us another will. We’ve burned our bridges. They’re sick to death of us all. No application will be successful.
As a pro-EU Labour supporter, I think Starmer is playing this right, and those, like Roger, who think we should be campaigning to rejoin are wrong. The main attack line from the Tories at the next GE will be 'you can't trust Labour with Brexit - they'll try to reverse it, just like they did last time'. Starmer just has to neutralise, well in advance, that attack line, or Labour will be doomed to defeat. The first step to improving our relations with the EU is a Labour victory, then we can take it from there. Sadly the economic arguments count for little when up against the 'we voted for Brexit whatever the cost' argument.
If Labour want to lose the next election, they should promise to explore rejoining the EU.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
Which is why the pro-EU side have to decisively win the argument on the anti-EU side's terrain - identity. This is not an easy task.
A sullen toleration of EU membership because there's perceived to be no economically viable alternative simply isn't going to be durable.
Demographics will do a lot of the heavy lifting on this. Younger voters already feel more European than the boomers, and having their EU identity snatched from them has only strengthened those feelings. It seems that Labour has decided that it doesn't want to hurt Leave voters' feelings. That probably makes sense, but is pretty depressing. How much longer are we going to have to be poorer because nobody dares to tell these snowflakes that they fucked up?
How did the Boomer generation end up so anti-EU?
The Left/pro-EU side seem to be all tactics and no strategy. Ideas are shaped and opinions changed over long periods of time, but only one side seems to be competing in the long-term battle of ideas, while the other takes the rightness of their views to be self-evident, and concentrates on short-term tactics, because long-term victory is inevitable.
That's why we keep on losing.
I agree, that's why it is depressing to see Labour moving into the turd-polishing business.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
I’m sure it’s fine for individuals but the dislike of England as an identity and a nation is clear to see. I’ve no doubt that they’re nice enough to individuals but the concept of “England” and “English” as a group is an anathema there.
Scots are just fed up of the English forcing them to do things they don't want to, like leaving the EU.
Sure, 100%. Which is why they hate England and (collectively) the “English” and would veto any attempt to rejoin. Having been able to stem the flow of English people buying up their bland and making a nuisance do you think they’d want to reopen the doors to us?
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
Thanks (dangerously assuming I'm not the one who is maybe anti-English )
It's a weird correlation that certain PB posters who have a prolapse at any suggestion that xenophobia, racism, exceptionalism, nationalism and all that other good stuff are inherent characteristics of the English are awfully keen on similar generalised opinions about Scotland and the Scots. Too tedious to speculate why, but..
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scots won’t tolerate any future influence by England over them - even in the diluted form of common EU membership. Scotland and the Scots need to be seen as both the anti England and anti English to gain favour in Europe There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Ireland eventually threw the British out of Ireland, but if you go to Ireland there are no signs in hotels, B&Bs or cafes saying "No dogs. No British"
No, that would be against EU discrimination law, but the sentiment is there. They really don’t like us, for understandable historical reasons. I’m married into an Irish-American family - believe me I know.
For a lot of people though its really just banter nowadays. Little different to anti-Manchester United/Liverpool banter.
My father in law is proudly Scottish. He'll happily say anti-English things and he'll call me a Sassenach etc . . . but he's also a very nice guy who would do anything for anyone and really cares. He'll happily welcome a Sassenach into his family and offer him whisky etc even if he makes jokes about it.
Mr. Boy, possibly, but people do change their views as they age and it's likely that the EU and UK will diverge simply by dint of no longer being politically linked.
Macron's interesting comments on a wider, non-EU but European organisation could potentially bridge this gap, should anything actually come of it.
Sure, but what is there in Brexit to make anyone think "you know what, this is going fabulously. I was dead against leaving but I was so wrong. Thank God we aren't in that nasty EU anymore"?
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scots won’t tolerate any future influence by England over them - even in the diluted form of common EU membership. Scotland and the Scots need to be seen as both the anti England and anti English to gain favour in Europe There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Ireland eventually threw the British out of Ireland, but if you go to Ireland there are no signs in hotels, B&Bs or cafes saying "No dogs. No British"
No, that would be against EU discrimination law, but the sentiment is there. They really don’t like us, for understandable historical reasons. I’m married into an Irish-American family - believe me I know.
I spend a lot of time in both north and south Ireland. People do not hate the British but I guess there will always be exceptions.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
Thanks (dangerously assuming I'm not the one who is maybe anti-English )
It's a weird correlation that certain PB posters who have a prolapse at any suggestion that xenophobia, racism, exceptionalism, nationalism and all that other good stuff are inherent characteristics of the English are awfully keen on similar generalised opinions about Scotland and the Scots. Too tedious to speculate why, but..
Oh the sanctimony. I’ve accepted it. You constantly paint the English as being racist to all and then get all pious when I have the temerity to suggest that maybe, just maybe, you guys might be a more than a little prejudiced against one specific group.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
Thanks (dangerously assuming I'm not the one who is maybe anti-English )
It's a weird correlation that certain PB posters who have a prolapse at any suggestion that xenophobia, racism, exceptionalism, nationalism and all that other good stuff are inherent characteristics of the English are awfully keen on similar generalised opinions about Scotland and the Scots. Too tedious to speculate why, but..
Parity with the Euro would be an astonishing failure. They're far more on the hook for Ukraine & the Russian grain and hydrocarbons than we are. Sterling SHOULD be tacking away, north from the Euro.
There will come a day when rejoining is not only the obvious but popular choice.
Here maybe but we need the EU’s agreement to rejoin. Ain’t happening. If one of the countries I’ve mentioned doesn’t veto us another will. We’ve burned our bridges. They’re sick to death of us all. No application will be successful.
The EU might look sympathetically on Britain's re-joining at some point in the future, but Boris will have to be as distant in time and relevance then as, say, Jim Callaghan is now.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scotland and the Scot wants to be seen as both the anti England and anti English. There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Citing three anonymous posters on PB (one of whom doesn't live in Scotland) is hardly compelling evidence. Especially as I wouldn't characterise all of these three as anti-English anyway (one of them is maybe). I grew up in Scotland with English parents (who still live there) and so I think I am probably well placed to be aware of whether anti English prejudice is widespread in Scotland. You are way off-beam.
Completely off topic but can I ask a question for the other parents of (primary) school age children here?
Our kids school seems to have a fundraising casual clothes day with a theme now almost every other week it seems. All asking for donations to the school for some cause or other, and all with a theme for whichever cause it is for. In the past month we've had "yellow day" (anti-bullying/mental health), "green day" (environment) and today is "sparkle day" to support a charity that supports primary schools following the sudden death of a pupil. Have other parents here noticed a pattern like this?
I recall as a kid casual clothes days as a fundraising technique being very infrequent but this year there's been lots of them. The kids are loving it, I'm curious if its our new Head Teacher signing the school up for every charity going, or if schools more widely are doing it deliberately perhaps post-Covid?
Our school have been great this year making allowances post-Covid, they've been deliberately trying to build kids confidences and offering support, and they've been approving term-time holidays to make up for the fact many people haven't been able to take a proper break in two years. I know a lot of other schools aren't doing that.
Our school has done two in the last two weeks, but this is for the school fair and donations of raffle prizes was required. (See below, but the school fair raise money for the PTA.... and the PTA donate to the school itself by buying books and materials)
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now. I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
Yeah I have the same suspicion as you. Today's one is linked to a named charity, so I would like to think all the money we donated today will end up at the named charity, but the other ones haven't been. They've been fundraising for a theme, but the specifics of where that money goes or how its used is not clarified.
One could certainly imagine the money raised for "green day" going to pay for the school's recycling services or for 'clean' electricity which are "green" causes but are costs the school would have to be paying either way.
Still, it doesn't bother me either way if the school is pocketing the money rather than handing it over to "proper" charities. Many charities nowadays seem to be just businesses in the business of raising more money in the name of charity anyway, so if the funds raised are going to help the girls education instead of that, then I'm OK with that.
I agree with you. I've no problem with giving money to the school. I'm slightly annoyed at the underhand way it is dressed up as a donation however. Allowing your child to dress in own clothes, but requiring a donation. The school know the peer pressure to wear own clothes is so intense that you've got to make the donation - so it's not really a donation.
I'd be interested in the reaction if you: 1) Refused to send child in own clothes and sent them in uniform instead; or 2) Sent child in own clothes without a donation.
As to the point about charities, I completely agree. I think it may have been this site that pointed out that SHELTER doesn't actually shelter anyone. It merely offers advice on how to avoid homelessness. The large national charities are barely worthy of the name with spending of 30% or less of their income on what they should be spending it on. (Yes, yes - guff about 'having to pay people well to attract the best'..... bollocks. The CEO and other head honchoes should be working for free - hence the word CHARITY. Our little charity, every Trustee is unpaid. One Trustee spends four days a week on the charity (her husband brings home vast amounts of cash, so rather than be a lady of leisure, she devotes her time to charity)).
There will come a day when rejoining is not only the obvious but popular choice.
Here maybe but we need the EU’s agreement to rejoin. Ain’t happening. If one of the countries I’ve mentioned doesn’t veto us another will. We’ve burned our bridges. They’re sick to death of us all. No application will be successful.
The EU might look sympathetically on Britain's re-joining at some point in the future, but Boris will have to be as distant in time and relevance then as, say, Jim Callaghan is now.
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
Interesting thread...
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it. https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
Deluded.
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
It’s more fundamental than that. A Euro fudge could be reached but but won’t let us rejoin if there’s a chance that 5 years later we leave again. You can’t have yo-yo membership.
The other elephant in the room with respect to our rejoining is Scotland. Scotland will likely be an EU member by the time England would reapply on its own. There is no way on God’s good Earth that the Scots would want out of one Union with the English to be saddled with another one. Not only would it mean a return of FOM of people from England to Scotland it would mean English Commissoners and MEPs having a say on Scots affairs. No way would the ScotNats have that. They would veto, the Irish for the same reason.
This is an odd argument. An independent Scotland in the EU would be much happier with its largest trading partner inside the EU than outside. It would ease barriers to trade hugely. And the degree of power that England would have over Scotland as a fellow EU member is an order of magnitude lower than it currently has in the UK. Scotland would be a strong cheerleader of England's EU membership.
It’s more a question of identity. Scots won’t tolerate any future influence by England over them - even in the diluted form of common EU membership. Scotland and the Scots need to be seen as both the anti England and anti English to gain favour in Europe There are no votes in Scotland or Ireland in being pro English. Any party that was seen to be collaborating with the hated coloniser would be punished in the polls. It’s a question of identity and Scotland’s is strongly anglophobic.
Ireland eventually threw the British out of Ireland, but if you go to Ireland there are no signs in hotels, B&Bs or cafes saying "No dogs. No British"
No, that would be against EU discrimination law, but the sentiment is there. They really don’t like us, for understandable historical reasons. I’m married into an Irish-American family - believe me I know.
I spend a lot of time in both north and south Ireland. People do not hate the British but I guess there will always be exceptions.
Might be more of an American thing tbh - not many Americans describe themselves of "english heritage".
Ministerial charm offensive latest: according to Playbook, group of Tory MPs were in the Tea Room talking about how rumors of further defections were nonsense. Nadine Dorries came over and said rebels should defect because “we’re going to withdraw the whip from them all anyway.” https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1543864306965614592
Mr. Boy, possibly, but people do change their views as they age and it's likely that the EU and UK will diverge simply by dint of no longer being politically linked.
Macron's interesting comments on a wider, non-EU but European organisation could potentially bridge this gap, should anything actually come of it.
Sure, but what is there in Brexit to make anyone think "you know what, this is going fabulously. I was dead against leaving but I was so wrong. Thank God we aren't in that nasty EU anymore"?
To me? Nothing. But to me, that was never the point.
But over time the EU and England (with or without the rest of the UK) will evolve in different directions, just as plenty of other neighbouring nations evolve differently around the world.
I always make the metaphor that England/UK is to the EU what Canada is to the USA. Yes if things had evolved differently in the past Canada could have joined the USA/we could have remained in the EU, but they didn't join and we did leave and our nations will evolve differently as a result.
Evolution works up by incremental changes, not giant leaps. Eventually we'll be a different "species" to Europe as Canada is to America such that the very notion of us being members would be alien - even if there's no individual thing you could point at and say "that, that is the reason we are out".
Comments
Completed Text:
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
The Englishman is always first.
But when his turn comes, he goes to the Irishman, and asks him what he thinks of England.
The Irishman turns to the Scotsman and asks what he thinks of England.
The Scotsman then turns to the Englishman and asks him what he thinks of Scotland.
Finally, the Englishman turns to the Irishman and says, "Well, what do you think of yourselves?"
The Englishman was British, the Irishman was Irish, and the Scotsman was Scottish. The only reason I can think of that the Irishman was an alcoholic is because that's the kind of man who'd walk into a bar and ask the Englishman what he thinks of himself.
On this date in history, President Nixon declared the Emergency War Powers Act of 1972.
It was a bit of a big deal because as president of the United States, you can declare a state of emergency
It's not idealistic, it's not dignified, it may not even be in the UK's best economic interest.
But as long as the UK is still at 50:50ish on the subject, it's what's pragmatic, and it reduces the harm in the meantime.
They all fit the prompt well apart from 16% of them which is a catastrophic failure (but is in its way super interesting as to thinking _why/how_ Dalle generated it). If I was a wanker with a dalle invite who wanted to discredit Dalle I could spend all day picking the shit image from my prompts and posting them.
https://twitter.com/ai_unhinged/status/1541213539121127425?s=21&t=IURk5oABDs1VkJc4t8TUtg
1/6. I'm seeing a lot of despair amongst remainers/rejoiners about @UKLabour's current stance on Brexit. I think this despair is misplaced and that we are already on the path to rejoining. It's just that nobody wants to talk about it.
https://twitter.com/RichardBentall/status/1543858215011614722
In the other seats, Brexit is finished as an issue or they're Lib Dem targets.
We’re never rejoining the EU or the SM sadly - the basic fact is they wouldn’t have us back - we’ve created too much bad feeling and there’s a reflexive anti- Englishness in the EU, but my vote goes to the party that wants the most peaceful coexistence which is the LDs.
But one might argue (from a pro-EU perspective) is that the ultimate victory is a submissive UK slinking back, rejoining in a worse position having thrown away multiple negotiated opt-outs and having to admit we can't survive without the EU.
But divergence will occur naturally following political separation (which has also happened since the Labour idiots established Holyrood, which has not so much killed nationalism stone dead as almost ended the UK).
Ireland and France would veto our re-entry. England’s anyway.
It is very easy to prove that if you have a number that repeats its digits then it is rational and every rational number has a repeating sequence of digits.
So there is more than evidence, it has been proved that the sequence of digits in pi will never form a repeating sequence.
But this has nothing to do with the infinite monkey theorem
Just got this one, which is almost a joke..
An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar.
The bartender says, "Beer for the Englishman, whiskey for the Irishman, and gin for the Scotsman."
The Englishman asks, "What's a Scotsman?"
The bartender says, "A man who's half English, half Scotch."
I think hundred or so being built in ours.
It does seem to happen a lot more than when I was at primary school. In fact, other than the school trip, we were in uniform the entire year. My daughter probably has two 'mufti' days a term now.
I'm not convinced they are all for a charity. I think some of them are simply for the school, so bereft of proper funding is it.
TBH I think people are existentially threatened by GPT3 and DALL-E 2 etc, because it really does feel like the first glimpse of the monster in the movie, the briefly-seen shark’s fin in the water. The monster may yet be a mirage (I’d bet it isn’t) but it still spooks viewers. Hence the emotional response
eg I showed some of DALL-E 2’s work to an artist friend of mine. He didn’t just dislike them, he hated them and feared them. He went into a kind of rant, “what is this soulless repetitive shit, it is not art, it is disgusting” and so on
It was way over the top and quite telling. We’re still friends…. but I’ve stopped showing him computer art
And now I must go collect some Montenegrin dry cleaning. Play nicely, time-limited meat-bots
How on earth will we persuade the eu to allow us to rejoin without entering the single currency?
Art 1 is Art as a creative act, to set the soul free.
Art 2 Is Art as a tool to illustrate ideas or make the world look pretty. Computers look like they can do a decent job of churning that out, and even if 90 % of it is rubbish, the flow is so cheap and rapid that it doesn't matter. You just need someone to pick out the 10 % or 1 % at the end.
There's a massive career progression problem (lots of creatives do Art 2 to pay the bills to create the time to do Art 1, and Art 2 is how people develop the technical proficency to do Art 1 well), and an emotional problem (nobody likes being overtaken by a robot), but I'm not sure it's existential yet. After all, having lots of cheap servants is normally considered a good thing.
(Disclosure: a lot of my science degree was crystallography. Large chunks of that got overtaken by computing and graphics in the 1990s. Hey ho.)
Would be nice if we actually funded front-line services like Education, but apparently its unpopular.
One could certainly imagine the money raised for "green day" going to pay for the school's recycling services or for 'clean' electricity which are "green" causes but are costs the school would have to be paying either way.
Still, it doesn't bother me either way if the school is pocketing the money rather than handing it over to "proper" charities. Many charities nowadays seem to be just businesses in the business of raising more money in the name of charity anyway, so if the funds raised are going to help the girls education instead of that, then I'm OK with that.
When Robinson asked what they would do differently to the Tories Baroness Chapman said 'We'll sort out the Northern Ireland protocol'
You really couldn't make it up!
When today's pensioners were children the education budget was 7.5% of GDP while the pension budget was 4%. Today the education budget is 4% while the pension budget is about 7%.
How have we got ourselves into a mess where we have nearly halved the payments for education while nearly doubling the payments for pensions? And the trend is only getting worse?
A sullen toleration of EU membership because there's perceived to be no economically viable alternative simply isn't going to be durable.
Why are you engaging with me anyway? I’m the most boring poster on here, have no brain cells, and should leave. According to you anyway.
DALLE-2 can do just about everything they do but for free and in 10 seconds. The market tells you where that is going
But the existential threat is deeper than that. We can argue forever whether these things are or ever will be “conscious” - the question is maybe unanswerable - but what is not disputed is that computers are exhibiting traits we thought uniquely human: humour, “imagination”, creativity, wit, the ability to fashion beauty
That’s threatening
I just don't think this is the profound moment in human history when we've managed to successfully create an artificial intelligence. Leon fundamentally misunderstands what is being done. The equivalent would be believing that the Wright brothers were demonstrating telekinesis, and would soon be able to master telepathy.
Cheers for the piece. Some thoughts from the conservative's standpoint:
1. I would add Wisconsin and North Carolina in to the Republican defence category. Not sure what you think but my guess is, at the moment, you should probably think of Wisconsin as a slight lean Republican. NC is probably more leaning Republican (most of the polls have Budd over Beasley although there are a few R leaning polls in there).
2. Conversely, I would add NH to the Democrat defence category. While Sununu is not running, Hassan is only slightly ahead on the polls and, given what is happening on the economy, hard to see why this is not a swing state as well.
3. If you want an outside bet of an upset, then Colorado might be interesting. The Democrats failed in their attempt to influence the GOP primary to get a hard-right conservative elected so they will face a moderate name. There is some talk of the Democrats looking to shore up TV ad money in Colorado (and Washington of all places).
4. Re Arizona (and possibly Nevada), a warning signal for the Democrats might come from New Mexico - it doesn't have a Senate race but a Governor's one and Lujan Grisham is locked in a surprisingly tight contest with her R opponent. As you said though, Laxalt should keep his mouth shut on abortion (I suspect he will at some point) and, given NV has a lot of people who are being disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis due to their precarious status, it will be a tight one.
5. Re GA, I think it's a lot closer than you think. I simply don't trust the Quinnipac poll for the simple reason that a +10 D win in GA would be so out of kilter with what's happening nationally that it would make no sense (and please don't call upon the 'magic' of Stacey Abrams). Walker has a lot of questions but Warnock is not exactly a saint when it comes to domestic violence abuse allegations.
It seems that Labour has decided that it doesn't want to hurt Leave voters' feelings. That probably makes sense, but is pretty depressing. How much longer are we going to have to be poorer because nobody dares to tell these snowflakes that they fucked up?
£ is fairly flat against the Euro YTD and the ECB have more problems than the BoE. The Germans want to be hawkish, they always do, but the periphery nations still have major debt problems. The ECB is planning on using the funds from expiring pandemic bonds to be redirected to nations like Italy facing yield blow outs, but keeping yields in check without Quantitative Easing as an option to suppress them is going to be very challenging.
The € is going to face a significant challenge in the coming years as to how it can manage the likes of Italy and Greece on the one hand, with Germany on the other. Having Quantitative Easing as an option has allowed them to paper over the cracks, but now the bond yields are already diverging again and QE in an inflationary environment is no longer feasible. That risk to the periphery is going to put pressure on the ECB not to be as hawkish as the Germans would want.
I could imagine parity against the dollar being reached before parity against the euro.
An ocean of cash going to pay for school managers, for contracts, to pay for the web of routes for cash to go to so many distinct locations and of course a stack of managers to manage that as well.
So we spend more and more whilst the actual front line service gets less and less. Same with the NHS.
But we are getting a sense of what it would look like if and when it arrives, and maybe the way it will be achieved. It is now in the uncanny valley where the verisimilitude is enough to freak people out but not good enough for people to relax and accept and say OK its convincing. I doubt it will get LESS convincing from here
It will get closer to us
And forgive me for finding that epochal moment in human life - the realisation of non human intelligence - more interesting than the medium term funding of Welsh pensions
Macron's interesting comments on a wider, non-EU but European organisation could potentially bridge this gap, should anything actually come of it.
However I can't and won't complain about my kids school, they're excellent. Discipline is great, the behaviour is great, the teachers clearly care. Other parents I hear complain about their schools, but that's precisely why we need more of a market not less.
Of course one issue is that many parents don't particularly care about what schools are like and consider schools as little more than glorified daycare for their kids, so the market notion works best for middle class parents that want their kids to do well and value education highly. We spent a lot of time looking into which schools we wanted to ask for when our daughter was approaching school age and while our school we got was our second choice, we couldn't be happier that she got it. There are two primary schools closer to us that I drive past every day to take her to her one, the closest one in walking distance though I have not heard such good things about.
EDIT: I'd say the same about GPs too. Many people complain about their GPs all the time, my new one I've just switched to is excellent. I don't often need to see a GP but have twice in the past month and was able to get an appointment easily scheduled both times. I also saw a physio at the GPs surgery, which I was able to get an appointment for within a few days and the physio is really helping my recovery. Yet other people still just talk about their GP as virtual only, clearly not all GPs offices are the same and we need more choice not less.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SAbJjktk7E
There will come a day when rejoining is not only the obvious but popular choice.
Bad ideas die out one professorial funeral at a time.
The current government have got 5 - 10 years to make this "work". Maybe they can.
But may the gods have mercy on the Conservatives if they engineer a situation of "it doesn't matter that the UK's situation is dismal and unpopular- we've made it irreversible..."
The Left/pro-EU side seem to be all tactics and no strategy. Ideas are shaped and opinions changed over long periods of time, but only one side seems to be competing in the long-term battle of ideas, while the other takes the rightness of their views to be self-evident, and concentrates on short-term tactics, because long-term victory is inevitable.
That's why we keep on losing.
If Labour want to lose the next election, they should promise to explore rejoining the EU.
(1.07 is the lowest I remember it. Parity would be une catastrophe)
It's a weird correlation that certain PB posters who have a prolapse at any suggestion that xenophobia, racism, exceptionalism, nationalism and all that other good stuff are inherent characteristics of the English are awfully keen on similar generalised opinions about Scotland and the Scots. Too tedious to speculate why, but..
My father in law is proudly Scottish. He'll happily say anti-English things and he'll call me a Sassenach etc . . . but he's also a very nice guy who would do anything for anyone and really cares. He'll happily welcome a Sassenach into his family and offer him whisky etc even if he makes jokes about it.
Sterling SHOULD be tacking away, north from the Euro.
I'd be interested in the reaction if you:
1) Refused to send child in own clothes and sent them in uniform instead; or
2) Sent child in own clothes without a donation.
As to the point about charities, I completely agree. I think it may have been this site that pointed out that SHELTER doesn't actually shelter anyone. It merely offers advice on how to avoid homelessness.
The large national charities are barely worthy of the name with spending of 30% or less of their income on what they should be spending it on.
(Yes, yes - guff about 'having to pay people well to attract the best'..... bollocks. The CEO and other head honchoes should be working for free - hence the word CHARITY. Our little charity, every Trustee is unpaid. One Trustee spends four days a week on the charity (her husband brings home vast amounts of cash, so rather than be a lady of leisure, she devotes her time to charity)).
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-energy-room.html
https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1543864306965614592
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/04/fuel-price-protests-uk-motorways-today-latest
But over time the EU and England (with or without the rest of the UK) will evolve in different directions, just as plenty of other neighbouring nations evolve differently around the world.
I always make the metaphor that England/UK is to the EU what Canada is to the USA. Yes if things had evolved differently in the past Canada could have joined the USA/we could have remained in the EU, but they didn't join and we did leave and our nations will evolve differently as a result.
Evolution works up by incremental changes, not giant leaps. Eventually we'll be a different "species" to Europe as Canada is to America such that the very notion of us being members would be alien - even if there's no individual thing you could point at and say "that, that is the reason we are out".
Even Steve Baker!
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/04/next-tory-leader-play-offs-ninth-jeremy-hunt/