This isn't a Pincher issue but a Boris issue. These scenarios are always going to arise. In normal times Pincher would be resigning as a whip for inappropriate action while drunk. If not a one off through alcohol then he needs help and shouldn't be an MP.
None of this should impact Johnson directly, but it does. Why?
Because Boris continues to constantly lie and has no moral compass so not only didn't deal with the issue initially but rewarded this behaviour.
The issue is Boris not Pincher whereas it should be Pincher not Boris.
I guess the question for Conservative MPs/ministers is whether the remedy for the lie that Lord McDonald alleges has been told is procedural (he has written to the standards commissioner) or political (they do something about the person McDonald says has told the lie) https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1544220418583760896
Interesting that the civil service having been shat on so many times by Johnson's clownshow, may now be circling back in for the kill.
Do have to laugh though. Yet another scandal which is "Downing Street are lying" with the actual issue almost a side note. When they are lying about what could be written off as narrow political points, I can understand how that allows them to shake it off. But this one? Much harder.
If we end up with action being taken by civil servants I anticipate Dorries or Braverman being sent out to attack them. That what they are saying just isn't true, who do these people think they are etc etc. then when being offered to be shown the actual clip of it Dorries will just refuse again.
And yet 20k+ people are willing to vote for these MPs. "Yes, this lying moron is exactly who will best represent me and my interests".
Well, I for one can't *wait* for the today's clip of the PM jauntily telling his Cabinet how well he's doing. [a recent PR innovation is he allows cameras in every week to record and broadcast his opening remarks to Cabinet] https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1544225118951391233
Another massive increase in gas futures again this morning: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market-data 17% in a single day. Its a volatile market but it is now well above the peaks of June. The inflationary implications of this should be concerning the government greatly.
I get that people get fed up with the lies, the dissembling and the tolerence of dreadful behaviour but I really wish the media would give more attention to our very real problems and the government's failure to address them rather than the latest bit of sleeze.
As I just posted in relation to Pinchergate, the sleaze is directly related to the genuine crisis because: 1. This government is incapable of assessing reality, and 2. This government doesn't give a rat fuck about anyone
If we focus only on the coming riots, we let the government off the hook. There is no solution / Labour would be worse / LOOK AT WHAT DIANE ABBOTT JUST SAID!!! etc. So we focus on the stuff that helps highlight our two problems, using Pinchergate as a proxy:
1. Johnson appears to have directly lied to his deputy before Raaaaab was sent out to do the media. We have a Tory peer and ex-minister in this government writing to the Standards Commissioner saying that Downing Street is lying and *knows* that it is lying. 2. There appear to be growing numbers of scandals caused by what at best is an HR issue and at worst is sexual assault / harassment / worse in the Palace of Westminster. With the attitude being protect the alleged perp and ignore their victims.
Hopefully with each massive scandal we get another step further over the cliff until eventually this lot fall. And then we can tackle the other issues. Because we can do nothing about them whilst this lot remain in government denying there are issues.
Pincher has not been proteced, the whip has been withdrawn and he is now sitting as an independent with no chance of being in the next Parliament even if he survives this one. The media have moved on to why such a notorious sex pest was appointed in the first place and the answer seems to be incompetence combined with lying about what was known. But this is, in the scheme of things, completely trivial once again. A somewhat self-entitled sex pest with a slightly dodgy history (although promoted by May) was made...deputy chief whip. Big deal.
In the meantime we are facing serious macro-economic issues (along with much of the west) aggravated by past failures to create or maintain adequate storage for gas in the UK. We have soaring inflation and government policies that (5p off fuel duty apart) seem to add to the problem rather than reduce it. We have just been through nearly 6 months of paralysis on the back of a few drinks being consumed in Downing Street. The media are desperate to write and talk about this stuff to the exclusion of all else which makes effective government impossible. It's easy to blame Boris but we seem simply incapable of having a serious conversation anymore.
Up to a point. Two things can be true at the same time. There is a genuine and continuing popular story - at least PBers find it interesting - about who is lying to whom at the top and what should be done about it. Whatever you make of Simon McDonald's intervention this morning, it is not morally trivial.
As to the serious 'conversation' which 'we' are incapable of having. What's a conversation and who is 'we'? It all depends where you look.
Beyond the headlines it seems to me that fairly serious conversation goes on in these places among others:
Guardian Times FT Economist LRB TLS (Lit types got Rogoff on inflation just this week) New Statesman and very intermittently the Spectator IFS Eurointelligence TBIGC RUSI IFG PB (intermittently).........
Good morning everyone! Another fine summer morning!
On topic. it's not surely just MPs who will becoming restive; I wonder how much the disaster in Tiverton was due to concern about morality in Downing Street affecting Conservative party workers. It cannot be motivating for them, surely. When the Liberal party had the 'problems'with Jeremy Thorpe it certainly caused party workers to reduce their activity to put it mildly!
Can I also hope that if Mr Seal spost today he feels in a better ]state of mind than he did yesterday. I wish him well!
A T and H Tory "What's the point in me working my arse off when our MPs cannot get rid of the reason we are going to lose. Let them come down here and get the abuse."
Edit: actually there were a few more expletives but you get the idea.
🎻 They voted for him as leader, knowing full well he was a lying scumbag who was utterly unfit to lead this great country. They deserve all the abuse coming their way, and then some.
Well, I for one can't *wait* for the today's clip of the PM jauntily telling his Cabinet how well he's doing. [a recent PR innovation is he allows cameras in every week to record and broadcast his opening remarks to Cabinet] https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1544225118951391233
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I always repeat this - but what do the cabinet think they are gaining by standing by a man who continually throws them under the bus
Their ministerial salaries, which are gone forever the day BoZo goes
While this is true, I suspect there is also the element of not wanting to give you enemies a victory. So when Starmer called for Johnson to resign it makes it harder to resign as it is vindicates Starmer. Politics is intensely tribal, an element that is missed when trying to rationally understand why a cabinet minister would abase themselves in the way we see.
I always repeat this - but what do the cabinet think they are gaining by standing by a man who continually throws them under the bus
I would say that a good number of them depend on Johnson for their cabinet positions hence the Dorries, JRM and others who are not fit to be anywhere near government but know the ship is going down and they want the next two years in a cabinet position before the electorate eject them
I really hope that someone in the cabinet is going to do the right thing and resign saying they are not prepared to attempt to justify the unjustifiable
The conservative party's only way out of this mess is for 180 +1 to do the right thing and remove Johnson
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 6m One thing I think we need to be clear on. It's not "No.10" that's lying now. It's Boris personally who's lying. Either he has lied to No.10 officials. Or he has told the truth to No.10 officials, and instructed them to lie on his behalf. Either way, the lies are his.
Another helpful potential system to store energy. This sort of thing (a sand battery) has been talked about for yonks; it'll be interesting to see if it is as efficient and helpful as they claim.
For some reason I have visions of it overheating and Thunderbirds being called in ... it all seems so futuristic but at the same time as absurdly cheap and simple as a Gerry Anderson model ...
This sort of system has been talked about for ages, including some using molten metals. It's interesting that this system is very simple, and is purposefully not being used to generate electricity, and instead providing home heating. The energy density must be rather low, although with sand as a medium that might not matter much.
I wonder if we should bring back ice houses in back gardens rather than use freezers.
Surely ice houses were a feature of grand houses owned by rich aristocrats. Ice cream was for the posh.
They were; but they also worked.
Generate ice with excess power in the summer, and use it to keep an underground store cold, opened infrequently. An issue is that this goes totally against modern logistics, where things come in and out every minute.
Could this be tapped as a form of air-conditioning, a sort of reverse ground-source heat pump?
Yes: but it is not necesarily an efficient or workable way to do so. If you only have a few months of warm weather, perhaps. If you have a great a/c demand for much of the year... less so.
Interestingly, data centres require massive amounts of cooling. Microsoft did an interesting trial of placing a data centre under water, and use the water to cool it. Apparently it worked rather well. I do feel sorry for the on-site admin, though, especially with the nitrogen atmosphere....
Yes, if I were the First Minister of Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, I should be thinking of attracting datacentres to naturally cooler or wetter parts of my country.
Leaving aside the actual events (which are serious enough themselves), are Tory MPs, members and voters not worried that the day after Starmer puts on record some unpalatable but necessary truths re a future Labour govt, we're straight back to talking about the PM's misconduct? https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1544227208390213633
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
I always repeat this - but what do the cabinet think they are gaining by standing by a man who continually throws them under the bus
I would say that a good number of them depend on Johnson for their cabinet positions hence the Dorries, JRM and others who are not fit to be anywhere near government but know the ship is going down and they want the next two years in a cabinet position before the electorate eject them
I really hope that someone in the cabinet is going to do the right thing and resign saying they are not prepared to attempt to justify the unjustifiable
The conservative party's only way out of this mess is for 180 +1 to do the right thing and remove Johnson
Yep.
I would suggest to JRM that he considers spending more time in Somerset defending his seat which is now predicted by latest detailed polling to fall to Liberals.
Still, I'm looking forward to the 'were you still up for Mogg?' moment in Jan 2025.
Starmer follows Keynes's formula: when the fact change I change my mind … But as Münchau says, situations keep changing all the time. And Labour's likely need to go into coalition with Brexit naysayers makes the Brexit pledge dubious tstl.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Another massive increase in gas futures again this morning: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market-data 17% in a single day. Its a volatile market but it is now well above the peaks of June. The inflationary implications of this should be concerning the government greatly.
I get that people get fed up with the lies, the dissembling and the tolerence of dreadful behaviour but I really wish the media would give more attention to our very real problems and the government's failure to address them rather than the latest bit of sleeze.
As I just posted in relation to Pinchergate, the sleaze is directly related to the genuine crisis because: 1. This government is incapable of assessing reality, and 2. This government doesn't give a rat fuck about anyone
If we focus only on the coming riots, we let the government off the hook. There is no solution / Labour would be worse / LOOK AT WHAT DIANE ABBOTT JUST SAID!!! etc. So we focus on the stuff that helps highlight our two problems, using Pinchergate as a proxy:
1. Johnson appears to have directly lied to his deputy before Raaaaab was sent out to do the media. We have a Tory peer and ex-minister in this government writing to the Standards Commissioner saying that Downing Street is lying and *knows* that it is lying. 2. There appear to be growing numbers of scandals caused by what at best is an HR issue and at worst is sexual assault / harassment / worse in the Palace of Westminster. With the attitude being protect the alleged perp and ignore their victims.
Hopefully with each massive scandal we get another step further over the cliff until eventually this lot fall. And then we can tackle the other issues. Because we can do nothing about them whilst this lot remain in government denying there are issues.
Pincher has not been proteced, the whip has been withdrawn and he is now sitting as an independent with no chance of being in the next Parliament even if he survives this one. The media have moved on to why such a notorious sex pest was appointed in the first place and the answer seems to be incompetence combined with lying about what was known. But this is, in the scheme of things, completely trivial once again. A somewhat self-entitled sex pest with a slightly dodgy history (although promoted by May) was made...deputy chief whip. Big deal.
In the meantime we are facing serious macro-economic issues (along with much of the west) aggravated by past failures to create or maintain adequate storage for gas in the UK. We have soaring inflation and government policies that (5p off fuel duty apart) seem to add to the problem rather than reduce it. We have just been through nearly 6 months of paralysis on the back of a few drinks being consumed in Downing Street. The media are desperate to write and talk about this stuff to the exclusion of all else which makes effective government impossible. It's easy to blame Boris but we seem simply incapable of having a serious conversation anymore.
It's not either/or though, is it? The cost of living crisis, the state of the economy, and Ukraine seem to me to get lots of coverage in the media, alongside, but not instead of, sleaze in the Tory party.
And if there's paralysis in government, and effective government is impossible, whose fault is this? I'll tell you - it's the PM's, because he spends most of his time firefighting his ludicrous lies and dissembling and trying to get a grip on an out of control parliamentary party, rather than getting on with good governance and "the people's priorities" (sic). Don't blame the messenger.
It must be utterly soul-destroying working at Number 10 or being a minister getting wheeled out to the TV and radio studios at the moment.
The PM not only lies habitually, but makes a liar of you.
Poor Will Quince, for instance. He knows as a junior minister that he'll sometimes need to go out there and bat on a sticky wicket. But when you can't trust the briefing you're given, you've essentially been handed a broken bat and been told not to bother wearing a box.
It's a totally unsustainable situation, and for ministers to hang around is borderline Stockholm Syndrome.
Another helpful potential system to store energy. This sort of thing (a sand battery) has been talked about for yonks; it'll be interesting to see if it is as efficient and helpful as they claim.
For some reason I have visions of it overheating and Thunderbirds being called in ... it all seems so futuristic but at the same time as absurdly cheap and simple as a Gerry Anderson model ...
This sort of system has been talked about for ages, including some using molten metals. It's interesting that this system is very simple, and is purposefully not being used to generate electricity, and instead providing home heating. The energy density must be rather low, although with sand as a medium that might not matter much.
I wonder if we should bring back ice houses in back gardens rather than use freezers.
Surely ice houses were a feature of grand houses owned by rich aristocrats. Ice cream was for the posh.
They were; but they also worked.
Generate ice with excess power in the summer, and use it to keep an underground store cold, opened infrequently. An issue is that this goes totally against modern logistics, where things come in and out every minute.
Could this be tapped as a form of air-conditioning, a sort of reverse ground-source heat pump?
Yes: but it is not necesarily an efficient or workable way to do so. If you only have a few months of warm weather, perhaps. If you have a great a/c demand for much of the year... less so.
Interestingly, data centres require massive amounts of cooling. Microsoft did an interesting trial of placing a data centre under water, and use the water to cool it. Apparently it worked rather well. I do feel sorry for the on-site admin, though, especially with the nitrogen atmosphere....
Yes, if I were the First Minister of Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, I should be thinking of attracting datacentres to naturally cooler or wetter parts of my country.
Another massive increase in gas futures again this morning: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market-data 17% in a single day. Its a volatile market but it is now well above the peaks of June. The inflationary implications of this should be concerning the government greatly.
I get that people get fed up with the lies, the dissembling and the tolerence of dreadful behaviour but I really wish the media would give more attention to our very real problems and the government's failure to address them rather than the latest bit of sleeze.
As I just posted in relation to Pinchergate, the sleaze is directly related to the genuine crisis because: 1. This government is incapable of assessing reality, and 2. This government doesn't give a rat fuck about anyone
If we focus only on the coming riots, we let the government off the hook. There is no solution / Labour would be worse / LOOK AT WHAT DIANE ABBOTT JUST SAID!!! etc. So we focus on the stuff that helps highlight our two problems, using Pinchergate as a proxy:
1. Johnson appears to have directly lied to his deputy before Raaaaab was sent out to do the media. We have a Tory peer and ex-minister in this government writing to the Standards Commissioner saying that Downing Street is lying and *knows* that it is lying. 2. There appear to be growing numbers of scandals caused by what at best is an HR issue and at worst is sexual assault / harassment / worse in the Palace of Westminster. With the attitude being protect the alleged perp and ignore their victims.
Hopefully with each massive scandal we get another step further over the cliff until eventually this lot fall. And then we can tackle the other issues. Because we can do nothing about them whilst this lot remain in government denying there are issues.
Pincher has not been proteced, the whip has been withdrawn and he is now sitting as an independent with no chance of being in the next Parliament even if he survives this one. The media have moved on to why such a notorious sex pest was appointed in the first place and the answer seems to be incompetence combined with lying about what was known. But this is, in the scheme of things, completely trivial once again. A somewhat self-entitled sex pest with a slightly dodgy history (although promoted by May) was made...deputy chief whip. Big deal.
In the meantime we are facing serious macro-economic issues (along with much of the west) aggravated by past failures to create or maintain adequate storage for gas in the UK. We have soaring inflation and government policies that (5p off fuel duty apart) seem to add to the problem rather than reduce it. We have just been through nearly 6 months of paralysis on the back of a few drinks being consumed in Downing Street. The media are desperate to write and talk about this stuff to the exclusion of all else which makes effective government impossible. It's easy to blame Boris but we seem simply incapable of having a serious conversation anymore.
Starmer and Rayner's inevitable FPNs make the Pincher stuff go away.
As to Government inertia being the fault of the media, had the misbehaviour not occured in the first place they would have nothing to see and write about. If Government were not busy lying about what happened to cover their tracks they might be able to look at some of the more pressing issues in hand. But that is the fault of Government, not a largely ( to this Government) benign press.
On your analysis a non-Tory Government despised by the media would be hamstrung from day one. Perhaps that is the only reason left to vote Conservative.
Sir Norfolk, this reminds me a bit of an unfortunate psychological stat. People are less likely to help someone who's in trouble the more people are around. If you're by yourself and see someone apparently struggling to keep their head above water you're way more likely to help than if there are dozens of others around.
The Cabinet will want someone to do something and be aware that it could be any of them, which reduces rather than increases the chances of any one individual doing it because they have hope someone else will commit the act of denouncing the PM and save them the trouble.
I always repeat this - but what do the cabinet think they are gaining by standing by a man who continually throws them under the bus
I would say that a good number of them depend on Johnson for their cabinet positions hence the Dorries, JRM and others who are not fit to be anywhere near government but know the ship is going down and they want the next two years in a cabinet position before the electorate eject them
I really hope that someone in the cabinet is going to do the right thing and resign saying they are not prepared to attempt to justify the unjustifiable
The conservative party's only way out of this mess is for 180 +1 to do the right thing and remove Johnson
Yep.
I would suggest to JRM that he considers spending more time in Somerset defending his seat which is now predicted by latest detailed polling to fall to Liberals.
Still, I'm looking forward to the 'were you still up for Mogg?' moment in Jan 2025.
Ah - that is one I’ll be looking forward to the most I think
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
If only Pincher's wandering hands and the repeated lies about who knew what, when and who did or did not when and to whom could be connected to the National Grid we wouldn't have an energy crisis.
The mystery to me is why any Minister would agree to an interview or, if they do one, why they don't simply respond by saying "Don't ask me. Ask No. 10" and then shut up.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
Generally speaking I work on the principle that the less we hear from Ukraine the less well it's going.
I don't think it's that simple, but it's clearly true that Ukraine is being overmatched in the battles in the east. Much depends on how much heavy artillery is delivered to Ukraine over the next month or so. Half a dozen HIMARS or equivalent won't turn the tide. Several dozen might well.
It may well be too late now. The Ukranian army has been crushed by artillery fire for more than a month now with very heavy casualties. The units in the Donbas were described as their best and they will be largely ineffective now. Will there be enough forces left by the time that the artillery is equalised? It's looking doubtful. Now that the Russians have learned from their painfully inept tactics in the first weeks of the war the laws of numbers are reasserting themselves and have been since late May.
With respect, I don't think there's any evidence for that, As far as numbers are concerned, the only significant disparity is in artillery. Something the west could fix within weeks if it were sufficiently determined.
So easy.
To put in place the logistics processes to deliver, supply and operate artillery systems of whatever kind would require a significant effort on the part of Western and Ukrainian forces that there might not be the desire or determination as you note respectively to do.
Generally speaking I work on the principle that the less we hear from Ukraine the less well it's going.
I don't think it's that simple, but it's clearly true that Ukraine is being overmatched in the battles in the east. Much depends on how much heavy artillery is delivered to Ukraine over the next month or so. Half a dozen HIMARS or equivalent won't turn the tide. Several dozen might well.
It may well be too late now. The Ukranian army has been crushed by artillery fire for more than a month now with very heavy casualties. The units in the Donbas were described as their best and they will be largely ineffective now. Will there be enough forces left by the time that the artillery is equalised? It's looking doubtful. Now that the Russians have learned from their painfully inept tactics in the first weeks of the war the laws of numbers are reasserting themselves and have been since late May.
With respect, I don't think there's any evidence for that, As far as numbers are concerned, the only significant disparity is in artillery. Something the west could fix within weeks if it were sufficiently determined.
As the retired generals on twitter say, just because you retreat under fire from one contested area does not mean the war is lost.
I doubt the UK generals on twitter ever say retreat. The British Army, for example, does not retreat. It withdraws.
...Viazovska and her collaborators emerged from the sphere-packing work with a higher ambition. Mathematicians had long suspected that E8 and the Leech lattice are much more than just the best way to pack spheres. These two lattices, mathematicians hypothesized, are “universally optimal,” meaning that they are the best arrangements according to a host of criteria — for example, the lowest-energy way to position mutually repelling electrons in space or twisty polymers in a solution.... ...The resulting paper, said Sylvia Serfaty of New York University, is on a par with the great breakthroughs of the 19th century, when mathematicians solved many of the problems that had confounded their predecessors for centuries. “This paper is really a great advancement of science,” she told Quanta at the time. “To know that the human brain is able to produce a proof of something like that, to me it’s a really remarkable fact.”
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
In this instance Johnson could rightly claim to be "World beating", and it appears voters are final in agreement.
The "all politicians are liars" defence is very weak when every word smirkingly (made up word) uttered is total BS, which appears to be the case.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
This is the Trump/Johnson approach. Drag everyone into the same gutter... in the land of the liar, the longest nosed man is king.
I think Labour are broadly moving to the right line on this, which is not "what an appalling liar that man is" (which is true but nit that effective) but instead "Government is paralysed by all this and cannot act on cost of living etc".
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
Yep. I'd scrap the whole stupid thing and remake something fit for the future. "The Right Honourable and Learned Gentlemen", "the other place", bishops making laws, the Black Rod nonsense. And thats before we get to parliament sitting stupid hours, the subsidised bars etc etc.
Lets be brutally honest about this. Sessions that go on well into the evening, MPs who have to hang around the palace waiting for a late division - of course they are going to get drunk. Which in turn leads to mental, physical and sexual abuse.
Anyway, I hope everybody has read Simon McDonald's letter to the Parliamentary Commissioner. It's a cracker. Whatever people may say about the shortcomings of senior civil servants, they can still write a brilliantly concise hatchet job.
Being an MP must be an awful job. I've always thought that, and the more you look at the details the more it appears to be brutalising. Away all week. In a shark pool of "must compete" and "must be seen to toe the line". With 24 hour scrutiny and often abuse from the public.
No wonder they get drunk / high and then do other things.
In Matthew Parris' book _Great Parliamentary Scandals_ he says he thinks that people who become MPs often have a streak of attention-seeking in their personalities which shades over into bravado and exhibitionism, and are predisposed to being risk-takers (a Commons career is not the most stable or easy to attain), and then are put into this situation where they're doing a frequently rather dull and boring job. Which doesn't excuse anybody's behaviour but does perhaps explain why they get up to shit more often than the general population.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
They should take advantage of the Westminster refurbishment and its spiralling costs to reassess the whole situation. It would probably be far cheaper to renovate the Palace of Westminster as a heritage site and build a new parliament building somewhere else - my preferred site is inside the Catford gyratory - with features like a House of Commons that is big enough to actually accommodate all MPs. Have more creches than bars. Proper working hours. No more dressing up. No more barracking. No more fucking Oxford Union bullshit. Time to grow up.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
If only Pincher's wandering hands and the repeated lies about who knew what, when and who did or did not when and to whom could be connected to the National Grid we wouldn't have an energy crisis.
The mystery to me is why any Minister would agree to an interview or, if they do one, why they don't simply respond by saying "Don't ask me. Ask No. 10" and then shut up.
Whips office by repute is filled with bulging files filled with misdeeds of MPs (and others) chronicling their misdeeds, perversions, etc., etc. For purpose of keeping subjects of these dossiers in line, and toeing same.
Mind boggles at what scene looks like under Big Dog regime. Last scene of "Citizen Kane"?
Plenty reason for ministers & etc. to keep on defending the indefensible rather than take your sage advice?
Its easy to mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
I don't really buy this, having been immersed in it for 13 years. The formalities are just background - you're barely aware they're there, and My Honourable Friend etc. is just like saying Mit herzlichem Gruss in a German letter - you don't actually mean you're sending hearty greetings, it's just the usual form. As for the hours, the basic fact is that you work all day, every day, unless you explicitly carve out relaxation time, and whatever you do it won't be all you wanted to do. The morning has 100 emails and committee meetings twice a week. Then there's question times for each ministry, then there's more committee and more debates, then there's all-party meetings and yet more debate, then there's votes, and you have to fit in research and eating and whatever else you want. In those 13 years I went to the theatre once.
A minority of MPs react to all this by giving up and getting pissed every night. Most MPs just enjoy it - they're the ones you don't read about. I didn't have time to spend in the Strangers' Bar groping people even if I'd wanted to - there was always something interesting to do.
Generally speaking I work on the principle that the less we hear from Ukraine the less well it's going.
I don't think it's that simple, but it's clearly true that Ukraine is being overmatched in the battles in the east. Much depends on how much heavy artillery is delivered to Ukraine over the next month or so. Half a dozen HIMARS or equivalent won't turn the tide. Several dozen might well.
It may well be too late now. The Ukranian army has been crushed by artillery fire for more than a month now with very heavy casualties. The units in the Donbas were described as their best and they will be largely ineffective now. Will there be enough forces left by the time that the artillery is equalised? It's looking doubtful. Now that the Russians have learned from their painfully inept tactics in the first weeks of the war the laws of numbers are reasserting themselves and have been since late May.
With respect, I don't think there's any evidence for that, As far as numbers are concerned, the only significant disparity is in artillery. Something the west could fix within weeks if it were sufficiently determined.
The Ukranians seemed to withdraw from Lysychansk in good order, and the Russians have not been parading loads of prisoners, like they did at Mariopol. That is not a sign of a rout like defeat.
I think the problem of the artillery is mostly one of ammo and logistics. Big guns and rocket systems need a lot of supply. A couple of HIMARS could cover the whole Kherson front in terms of range, and they reload fairly quickly, but the numbers of rocket six-packs needed is huge.
Interesting twitter thread here on the destruction of Russian supply dumps, and the Donetsk railway station and Melitopol airfield, all it seems by HIMARS.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
Yep. I'd scrap the whole stupid thing and remake something fit for the future. "The Right Honourable and Learned Gentlemen", "the other place", bishops making laws, the Black Rod nonsense. And thats before we get to parliament sitting stupid hours, the subsidised bars etc etc.
Lets be brutally honest about this. Sessions that go on well into the evening, MPs who have to hang around the palace waiting for a late division - of course they are going to get drunk. Which in turn leads to mental, physical and sexual abuse.
Moving the seat of Government including the HoC to a business park in Wednesbury might help too.
Anyway, I hope everybody has read Simon McDonald's letter to the Parliamentary Commissioner. It's a cracker. Whatever people may say about the shortcomings of senior civil servants, they can still write a brilliantly concise hatchet job.
What is brilliant about it is what he leaves unsaid right at the end - after saying that Pincher should not be allowed to continue with his predatory behaviour - the phrase "and nor should No 10 be allowed to continue with its lies" is left unsaid but in the thoughts of anyone reading.
Generally speaking I work on the principle that the less we hear from Ukraine the less well it's going.
I don't think it's that simple, but it's clearly true that Ukraine is being overmatched in the battles in the east. Much depends on how much heavy artillery is delivered to Ukraine over the next month or so. Half a dozen HIMARS or equivalent won't turn the tide. Several dozen might well.
It may well be too late now. The Ukranian army has been crushed by artillery fire for more than a month now with very heavy casualties. The units in the Donbas were described as their best and they will be largely ineffective now. Will there be enough forces left by the time that the artillery is equalised? It's looking doubtful. Now that the Russians have learned from their painfully inept tactics in the first weeks of the war the laws of numbers are reasserting themselves and have been since late May.
With respect, I don't think there's any evidence for that, As far as numbers are concerned, the only significant disparity is in artillery. Something the west could fix within weeks if it were sufficiently determined.
So easy.
To put in place the logistics processes to deliver, supply and operate artillery systems of whatever kind would require a significant effort on the part of Western and Ukrainian forces that there might not be the desire or determination as you note respectively to do.
There certainly is on the part of Ukraine. They've been begging for just that for months now.
While I wouldn't trivialise the effort required to deliver large amounts of heavy weapons, it's pretty clear that hasn't been the limiting factor during that time. More significant, I think, is a reluctance on the part of western armed forces to part with operational as opposed to redundant weapons. I think that extremely short sighted, given that the only adversary it's likely to be used against anyway is Russia.
If only Pincher's wandering hands and the repeated lies about who knew what, when and who did or did not when and to whom could be connected to the National Grid we wouldn't have an energy crisis.
The mystery to me is why any Minister would agree to an interview or, if they do one, why they don't simply respond by saying "Don't ask me. Ask No. 10" and then shut up.
It was the MO during the pandemic.
Morning interview rounds: Minister says X won't/will happen. Afternoon: X happens/doesn't happen.
If any cabinet minister wants to be PM, then when they arrive in Downing Street this morning they should walk over to the cameras and resign live on air.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
Leaving aside the actual events (which are serious enough themselves), are Tory MPs, members and voters not worried that the day after Starmer puts on record some unpalatable but necessary truths re a future Labour govt, we're straight back to talking about the PM's misconduct? https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1544227208390213633
The default position among my *Conservative* friends in the Blue Wall (and I have quite a few) is that they definitely aren't going to vote Tory at the moment. They are mostly willing to consider voting for Starmer, when and if he comes up with details; otherwise they'll go LibDem or stay at home. They are actually more tolerant of Starmer than my Labour friends, who are just about containing their impatience with him and reluctantly see why he needs to be cautious, but they're far from enthusiastic.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
Yep. I'd scrap the whole stupid thing and remake something fit for the future. "The Right Honourable and Learned Gentlemen", "the other place", bishops making laws, the Black Rod nonsense. And thats before we get to parliament sitting stupid hours, the subsidised bars etc etc.
Lets be brutally honest about this. Sessions that go on well into the evening, MPs who have to hang around the palace waiting for a late division - of course they are going to get drunk. Which in turn leads to mental, physical and sexual abuse.
I'm not really sure about this. There have actually been quite a few reforms in recent decades which have reduced the number of late divisions, while Parliamentary recesses remain fairly long and frequent. MPs are rarely expected to be there on a Friday, and most can get there on a Monday morning.
I'm not saying it isn't a relatively demanding job, but it isn't uniquely so. I tend to think it isn't the job that causes the bad behaviour in what remains a minority of MPs - it's that the type of people attracted by, in particular, the status, the veneer of importance, and the precariousness of it. It tends to attract ludicrous, vain risk-takers disproportionately (as well as many well intentioned and passionate people). Fabbers, of all people, should know that.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
Is this the vague beginnings of a new art form? Or an uncanny simulacrum of a DMT trip? Can’t decide
Incidentally the initiating image is the first photo ever taken. Which is neat
Perhaps we'll all be able to have our own perfect images - tuned using a neural feedback loop to be the best possible individual fit.
Quite possibly. It’s spellbinding
Some new DALLE-2 thoughts
1 the best users of the machine, so far, tend to be artists, designers, architects. So there may still be a role for human creativity, but it will be tutorly, or parental, guiding and prompting the bot
2 I’m starting to see DALLE-2 as (amongst other things) a kind of 7 year old Mozart of images. Almost infinite talent and astounding skill, but needs Mozart’s father to coax and coach. And take it around European courts
3 I have discovered people - mainly artists - on Instagram and TikTok etc, who say the first thing they do in the morning now is reach for the phone and see what DALLE-2 has produced in the night, with a mixture of delight and amazement, tinged with fear. So I’m not alone
4 Anyone who thinks this machine is just “shitting out album cover art” is really not paying attention. Some recent images it has produced:
It makes thousands more every day. The only limit seems to be the prompts it is given
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
They should take advantage of the Westminster refurbishment and its spiralling costs to reassess the whole situation. It would probably be far cheaper to renovate the Palace of Westminster as a heritage site and build a new parliament building somewhere else - my preferred site is inside the Catford gyratory - with features like a House of Commons that is big enough to actually accommodate all MPs. Have more creches than bars. Proper working hours. No more dressing up. No more barracking. No more fucking Oxford Union bullshit. Time to grow up.
Agreed, except they should follow the Amazon model. Giant hanger just off the M5, north of Worcester, I’d suggest.
Leaving aside the actual events (which are serious enough themselves), are Tory MPs, members and voters not worried that the day after Starmer puts on record some unpalatable but necessary truths re a future Labour govt, we're straight back to talking about the PM's misconduct? https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1544227208390213633
The default position among my *Conservative* friends in the Blue Wall (and I have quite a few) is that they definitely aren't going to vote Tory at the moment. They are mostly willing to consider voting for Starmer, when and if he comes up with details; otherwise they'll go LibDem or stay at home. They are actually more tolerant of Starmer than my Labour friends, who are just about containing their impatience with him and reluctantly see why he needs to be cautious, but they're far from enthusiastic.
Is exactly my position (of your Conservative friends, that is).
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
This is the Trump/Johnson approach. Drag everyone into the same gutter... in the land of the liar, the longest nosed man is king.
I think Labour are broadly moving to the right line on this, which is not "what an appalling liar that man is" (which is true but nit that effective) but instead "Government is paralysed by all this and cannot act on cost of living etc".
Secret of Putinist political success, is tapping into public disdain, disgust and worse for politicians.
Which since I was a kid in Civic class has expanded exponentially in United States. And just about everywhere else in the West as far as I can tell.
Foul factory-farmed chickens coming home to roost.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
In this instance Johnson could rightly claim to be "World beating", and it appears voters are final in agreement.
The "all politicians are liars" defence is very weak when every word smirkingly (made up word) uttered is total BS, which appears to be the case.
Surely a "world beating liar" is one who convinces people? Johnson is a terrible liar as he us caught out so frequently and easily. His only distinction is the volume of his lies and his shamelessness when caught out. His contempt for the truth is so total that he just shrugs it off, and tells more lies to obfuscate.
I would like to clarify that when I said I "almost felt sorry" for ministers dragged out in front of the cameras on the broadcast rounds over the past few months to defend a Downing Street line that was certain to change and humiliate them, this does not apply to Dominic Raab https://twitter.com/RMCunliffe/status/1544232837880086528
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
Yep. I'd scrap the whole stupid thing and remake something fit for the future. "The Right Honourable and Learned Gentlemen", "the other place", bishops making laws, the Black Rod nonsense. And thats before we get to parliament sitting stupid hours, the subsidised bars etc etc.
Lets be brutally honest about this. Sessions that go on well into the evening, MPs who have to hang around the palace waiting for a late division - of course they are going to get drunk. Which in turn leads to mental, physical and sexual abuse.
There aren't other professions where people routinely work late, but don't go out, get drunk and commit sexual assaults?
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
Is this the vague beginnings of a new art form? Or an uncanny simulacrum of a DMT trip? Can’t decide
Incidentally the initiating image is the first photo ever taken. Which is neat
Perhaps we'll all be able to have our own perfect images - tuned using a neural feedback loop to be the best possible individual fit.
Quite possibly. It’s spellbinding
Some new DALLE-2 thoughts
1 the best users of the machine, so far, tend to be artists, designers, architects. So there may still be a role for human creativity, but it will be tutorly, or parental, guiding and prompting the bot
2 I’m starting to see DALLE-2 as (amongst other things) a kind of 7 year old Mozart of images. Almost infinite talent and astounding skill, but needs Mozart’s father to coax and coach. And take it around European courts
3 I have discovered people - mainly artists - on Instagram and TikTok etc, who say the first thing they do in the morning now is reach for the phone and see what DALLE-2 has produced in the night, with a mixture of delight and amazement, tinged with fear. So I’m not alone
4 Anyone who thinks this machine is just “shitting out album cover art” is really not paying attention. Some recent images it has produced:
It makes thousands more every day. The only limit seems to be the prompts it is given
The UFO phase of the cycle is going to be a blessed relief.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
In this instance Johnson could rightly claim to be "World beating", and it appears voters are final in agreement.
The "all politicians are liars" defence is very weak when every word smirkingly (made up word) uttered is total BS, which appears to be the case.
Surely a "world beating liar" is one who convinces people? Johnson is a terrible liar as he us caught out so frequently and easily. His only distinction is the volume of his lies and his shamelessness when caught out. His contempt for the truth is so total that he just shrugs it off, and tells more lies to obfuscate.
I had in mind quantity and frequency rather than quality.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
If any cabinet minister wants to be PM, then when they arrive in Downing Street this morning they should walk over to the cameras and resign live on air.
If two of them did it, BoZo would be out by tea
But none will because they don't have a backbone between them and the only way they could remain in cabinet is by keeping Bozo in place - no one else would put them in a position of power.
Leaving aside the actual events (which are serious enough themselves), are Tory MPs, members and voters not worried that the day after Starmer puts on record some unpalatable but necessary truths re a future Labour govt, we're straight back to talking about the PM's misconduct? https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1544227208390213633
The default position among my *Conservative* friends in the Blue Wall (and I have quite a few) is that they definitely aren't going to vote Tory at the moment. They are mostly willing to consider voting for Starmer, when and if he comes up with details; otherwise they'll go LibDem or stay at home. They are actually more tolerant of Starmer than my Labour friends, who are just about containing their impatience with him and reluctantly see why he needs to be cautious, but they're far from enthusiastic.
If you've got to the point where Labour members are far from enthusiastic about winning an election after so long, then you must be almost at the verge of power...
Although who'd want to run the country and get landed with all the accumulated past mistakes plus everything coming down the line....?
Leaving aside the actual events (which are serious enough themselves), are Tory MPs, members and voters not worried that the day after Starmer puts on record some unpalatable but necessary truths re a future Labour govt, we're straight back to talking about the PM's misconduct? https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1544227208390213633
The default position among my *Conservative* friends in the Blue Wall (and I have quite a few) is that they definitely aren't going to vote Tory at the moment. They are mostly willing to consider voting for Starmer, when and if he comes up with details; otherwise they'll go LibDem or stay at home. They are actually more tolerant of Starmer than my Labour friends, who are just about containing their impatience with him and reluctantly see why he needs to be cautious, but they're far from enthusiastic.
Nick,
Any breakdown on your 'Blue Wall friends' depending upon whether they are in Con/Lab or Con/LD seats or is it just random?
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
If any cabinet minister wants to be PM, then when they arrive in Downing Street this morning they should walk over to the cameras and resign live on air.
If two of them did it, BoZo would be out by tea
No, Johnson is the unflushable turd. He would just replace them with another of his numpties. The 1922 funked it and we are stuck with him.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
In this instance Johnson could rightly claim to be "World beating", and it appears voters are final in agreement.
The "all politicians are liars" defence is very weak when every word smirkingly (made up word) uttered is total BS, which appears to be the case.
Surely a "world beating liar" is one who convinces people? Johnson is a terrible liar as he us caught out so frequently and easily. His only distinction is the volume of his lies and his shamelessness when caught out. His contempt for the truth is so total that he just shrugs it off, and tells more lies to obfuscate.
I had in mind quantity and frequency rather than quality.
But beyond a certain point, pure relentless quantity works. After all, he's still there, isn't he?
You know Johnson lies. I know Johnson lies. We all know Johnson lies in ways that ought to have ended his career years ago. Even the Cabinet know this. Perhaps, in his quieter moments, even Johnson knows this.
But at some level, perhaps because the flow of fibs is so continuous, it's impossible to point to any one incident and say "that's it- that's the one that's a sacking offence". And so he goes on.
If any cabinet minister wants to be PM, then when they arrive in Downing Street this morning they should walk over to the cameras and resign live on air.
If two of them did it, BoZo would be out by tea
But none will because they don't have a backbone between them and the only way they could remain in cabinet is by keeping Bozo in place - no one else would put them in a position of power.
But they drag down their reputation the longer they stand by him? Wallace - for example - seems a decent bloke. Vaguely competent. So what is he gaining?
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
I have backed Raab as next leader and have found him (alone, perhaps) to be an impressive - and coherent - performer throughout.
Not today. Today the overwhelming message which came out of his interview is that he is part of a government that is full of lying scumbags.
I mean not that this is a surprise, just that I had thought Raab better than some at covering it up hitherto.
Raab was on holiday when Afghanstan blow up and did nothing to help. He also didn't understand how important Dover was (something that I imagine would have caused his (and my) Geography teachers to turn in their graves).
Interestingly, data centres require massive amounts of cooling. Microsoft did an interesting trial of placing a data centre under water, and use the water to cool it. Apparently it worked rather well. I do feel sorry for the on-site admin, though, especially with the nitrogen atmosphere....
Did Facebook not build one above the Arctic circle?
Quite a few companies are doing this. Cooling can be 1/3rd of the power bill for a data centre. IIRC there is a big one being built in Norway, with the power supplied by a hydroelectric facility - so offering zero carbon compute.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
Yep. I'd scrap the whole stupid thing and remake something fit for the future. "The Right Honourable and Learned Gentlemen", "the other place", bishops making laws, the Black Rod nonsense. And thats before we get to parliament sitting stupid hours, the subsidised bars etc etc.
Lets be brutally honest about this. Sessions that go on well into the evening, MPs who have to hang around the palace waiting for a late division - of course they are going to get drunk. Which in turn leads to mental, physical and sexual abuse.
There aren't other professions where people routinely work late, but don't go out, get drunk and commit sexual assaults?
True, but not all at the same time, unless it was shift work, and then they would actually be doing WORK.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
There’s a bit, maybe a lot more than a bit, of mood music that Johnson is a liar.
Sure. But: “all politicians are liars”.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
In this instance Johnson could rightly claim to be "World beating", and it appears voters are final in agreement.
The "all politicians are liars" defence is very weak when every word smirkingly (made up word) uttered is total BS, which appears to be the case.
I have backed Raab as next leader and have found him (alone, perhaps) to be an impressive - and coherent - performer throughout.
Not today. Today the overwhelming message which came out of his interview is that he is part of a government that is full of lying scumbags.
I mean not that this is a surprise, just that I had thought Raab better than some at covering it up hitherto.
Raab was on holiday when Afghanstan blow up and did nothing to help. He also didn't understand how important Dover was (something that I imagine would have caused his (and my) Geography teachers to turn in their graves).
Yes the holiday thing was bad. As for Dover I think he knew perfectly well but would rather have been thought of as incompetent rather than the likely truth which is that he knew exactly the strategic importance of Dover.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
Is this the vague beginnings of a new art form? Or an uncanny simulacrum of a DMT trip? Can’t decide
Incidentally the initiating image is the first photo ever taken. Which is neat
Perhaps we'll all be able to have our own perfect images - tuned using a neural feedback loop to be the best possible individual fit.
I would be unamazed by a big reveal that Mad God is all done by Dalle. I'd certainly rely on it to do a sequel.
I thought the big reveal was going to be that Leon was actually an AI.
It would account for so much.
The regular personality/name changes as it tries to develop its own unique outlook on the world and understand human interactions.
The obsession with seemingly random and pointless issues like UFOs.
The weird cover stories (I mean what normal rational human would come up with the claim that they are a lithic dildo sculptor).
The claims to be travelling the world to cover up for the fact that no one has actually ever met him/it.
And finally the desperate attempts to convince us that AI really is here.
Leon is Pinocchio - the inanimate object desperately trying to become human.
Yes. Except that to be a true bot/AI creation you need to pepper your PB posts with "mate" which the programmers think is a mark of authenticity and I haven't seen it in @Leon's posts.
...Viazovska and her collaborators emerged from the sphere-packing work with a higher ambition. Mathematicians had long suspected that E8 and the Leech lattice are much more than just the best way to pack spheres. These two lattices, mathematicians hypothesized, are “universally optimal,” meaning that they are the best arrangements according to a host of criteria — for example, the lowest-energy way to position mutually repelling electrons in space or twisty polymers in a solution.... ...The resulting paper, said Sylvia Serfaty of New York University, is on a par with the great breakthroughs of the 19th century, when mathematicians solved many of the problems that had confounded their predecessors for centuries. “This paper is really a great advancement of science,” she told Quanta at the time. “To know that the human brain is able to produce a proof of something like that, to me it’s a really remarkable fact.”
The story of another of this year's Field's Medallists is rather more remarkable.
No one IRL has ever heard of this deputy whip and won’t remember the story at all at the next election. But there’s a bit of mood music developing that parliament is filled with a bunch of wronguns.
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I think its important to remember that in recent times scandals have hit both the Tories AND Labour. The Tories seem to be sex related, the Labour ones things such as bullying/stalking etc. But the focus is purely and simply on Johnson because of everything else that has gone on.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
Yep. I'd scrap the whole stupid thing and remake something fit for the future. "The Right Honourable and Learned Gentlemen", "the other place", bishops making laws, the Black Rod nonsense. And thats before we get to parliament sitting stupid hours, the subsidised bars etc etc.
Lets be brutally honest about this. Sessions that go on well into the evening, MPs who have to hang around the palace waiting for a late division - of course they are going to get drunk. Which in turn leads to mental, physical and sexual abuse.
I'm not really sure about this. There have actually been quite a few reforms in recent decades which have reduced the number of late divisions, while Parliamentary recesses remain fairly long and frequent. MPs are rarely expected to be there on a Friday, and most can get there on a Monday morning.
I'm not saying it isn't a relatively demanding job, but it isn't uniquely so. I tend to think it isn't the job that causes the bad behaviour in what remains a minority of MPs - it's that the type of people attracted by, in particular, the status, the veneer of importance, and the precariousness of it. It tends to attract ludicrous, vain risk-takers disproportionately (as well as many well intentioned and passionate people). Fabbers, of all people, should know that.
I would suspect that a major part of the problem is that MPs are treated as semi-self employed. They get a salary, true, but in many other ways they run their own little domain, just how they like. Which goes to explain the outrage at having to submit expenses to a central authority and have them vetted, for example.
They are used to being the Big Cheese in their own little company - the boss who own 100% of the 5 person outfit....
The Boris fans are fascinating to listen to. "Thank goodness for Boris. When he's gone you'll realise what you had. The country is doing great." Says 5 Live caller. He's a big personality with a big majority appears to be the sum of it. The psychology is interesting.
I have backed Raab as next leader and have found him (alone, perhaps) to be an impressive - and coherent - performer throughout.
Not today. Today the overwhelming message which came out of his interview is that he is part of a government that is full of lying scumbags.
I mean not that this is a surprise, just that I had thought Raab better than some at covering it up hitherto.
Raab was on holiday when Afghanstan blow up and did nothing to help. He also didn't understand how important Dover was (something that I imagine would have caused his (and my) Geography teachers to turn in their graves).
Yes the holiday thing was bad. As for Dover I think he knew perfectly well but would rather have been thought of as incompetent rather than the likely truth which is that he knew exactly the strategic importance of Dover.
But his biggest flaw in what he said was not that he didn't know where Dover/Calais was (mind boggling as that may seem) but he clearly had no idea what JIT was. He genuinely thought it was about getting fruit and flowers to the customer before they rot/wilt.
And these were the people making decisions on Brexit!
The extraordinary nature of this cannot be overemphasised.
It means, not only that Downing Street lied to the press - we are sadly used to that. But it also means that No. 10 sent out three ministers, up to the Deputy PM, having deliberately misled them. ~AA https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1544240778179928067
I’m not sure Johnson’s press team can survive this. No. 10 will find itself without anyone to do the press round. PMs fall in all sorts of ways. Running out of cabinet willing to defend you, is one of them. ~AA
Certainly, the timing of this is awful. The upcoming 1922 Committee elections were always going to be a proxy war on the PM, but they looked, at least, competitive. There will now be a landslide for anti-Johnson candidates. Wouldn’t be surprised if they took all 18 seats. ~AA
Generally speaking I work on the principle that the less we hear from Ukraine the less well it's going.
I don't think it's that simple, but it's clearly true that Ukraine is being overmatched in the battles in the east. Much depends on how much heavy artillery is delivered to Ukraine over the next month or so. Half a dozen HIMARS or equivalent won't turn the tide. Several dozen might well.
It may well be too late now. The Ukranian army has been crushed by artillery fire for more than a month now with very heavy casualties. The units in the Donbas were described as their best and they will be largely ineffective now. Will there be enough forces left by the time that the artillery is equalised? It's looking doubtful. Now that the Russians have learned from their painfully inept tactics in the first weeks of the war the laws of numbers are reasserting themselves and have been since late May.
With respect, I don't think there's any evidence for that, As far as numbers are concerned, the only significant disparity is in artillery. Something the west could fix within weeks if it were sufficiently determined.
The Ukranians seemed to withdraw from Lysychansk in good order, and the Russians have not been parading loads of prisoners, like they did at Mariopol. That is not a sign of a rout like defeat.
I think the problem of the artillery is mostly one of ammo and logistics. Big guns and rocket systems need a lot of supply. A couple of HIMARS could cover the whole Kherson front in terms of range, and they reload fairly quickly, but the numbers of rocket six-packs needed is huge.
Interesting twitter thread here on the destruction of Russian supply dumps, and the Donetsk railway station and Melitopol airfield, all it seems by HIMARS.
The big issue is that the West was expecting to be supporting an insurgency by now, so instead they're having to make things up as they go along. As Ukraine uses its stocks of Soviet-era equipment and ammunition it requires a lot of support from the West just to stand still.
The recent announcement of British military training for Ukrainian troops is an example of this, where we clearly didn't expect Ukraine to require conventional military training. Air defence and armoured vehicles are other obvious gaps where they are capability required by a conventional military, but not by an insurgency, and this is why support in those areas is still a bit haphazard.
I think things are generally moving in the right direction, but there's a lot of fighting left in the Russians and this isn't going to be over by Christmas (Western or Orthodox).
...Viazovska and her collaborators emerged from the sphere-packing work with a higher ambition. Mathematicians had long suspected that E8 and the Leech lattice are much more than just the best way to pack spheres. These two lattices, mathematicians hypothesized, are “universally optimal,” meaning that they are the best arrangements according to a host of criteria — for example, the lowest-energy way to position mutually repelling electrons in space or twisty polymers in a solution.... ...The resulting paper, said Sylvia Serfaty of New York University, is on a par with the great breakthroughs of the 19th century, when mathematicians solved many of the problems that had confounded their predecessors for centuries. “This paper is really a great advancement of science,” she told Quanta at the time. “To know that the human brain is able to produce a proof of something like that, to me it’s a really remarkable fact.”
The story of another of this year's Field's Medallists is rather more remarkable.
If you give DALLE-2 an image, then ask it to produce a variant, it will give you six. If you choose one of the six, then ask it to vary THAT, it will do so in the same way. If you repeat the process hundreds or thousands of times, then string the images together, you get this
Is this the vague beginnings of a new art form? Or an uncanny simulacrum of a DMT trip? Can’t decide
Incidentally the initiating image is the first photo ever taken. Which is neat
Perhaps we'll all be able to have our own perfect images - tuned using a neural feedback loop to be the best possible individual fit.
I would be unamazed by a big reveal that Mad God is all done by Dalle. I'd certainly rely on it to do a sequel.
I thought the big reveal was going to be that Leon was actually an AI.
It would account for so much.
The regular personality/name changes as it tries to develop its own unique outlook on the world and understand human interactions.
The obsession with seemingly random and pointless issues like UFOs.
The weird cover stories (I mean what normal rational human would come up with the claim that they are a lithic dildo sculptor).
The claims to be travelling the world to cover up for the fact that no one has actually ever met him/it.
And finally the desperate attempts to convince us that AI really is here.
Leon is Pinocchio - the inanimate object desperately trying to become human.
Yes. Except that to be a true bot/AI creation you need to pepper your PB posts with "mate" which the programmers think is a mark of authenticity and I haven't seen it in @Leon's posts.
So the travel reports and photos are all nicked from Rick Steves's blog?
The extraordinary nature of this cannot be overemphasised.
It means, not only that Downing Street lied to the press - we are sadly used to that. But it also means that No. 10 sent out three ministers, up to the Deputy PM, having deliberately misled them. ~AA https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1544240778179928067
I’m not sure Johnson’s press team can survive this. No. 10 will find itself without anyone to do the press round. PMs fall in all sorts of ways. Running out of cabinet willing to defend you, is one of them. ~AA
Certainly, the timing of this is awful. The upcoming 1922 Committee elections were always going to be a proxy war on the PM, but they looked, at least, competitive. There will now be a landslide for anti-Johnson candidates. Wouldn’t be surprised if they took all 18 seats. ~AA
The list of things which can't be survived reaches treble figures.
Comments
What is telling is what they attempted to do, what they'd do if they could - and the initial reaction was to take no further action.
None of this should impact Johnson directly, but it does. Why?
Because Boris continues to constantly lie and has no moral compass so not only didn't deal with the issue initially but rewarded this behaviour.
The issue is Boris not Pincher whereas it should be Pincher not Boris.
If we end up with action being taken by civil servants I anticipate Dorries or Braverman being sent out to attack them. That what they are saying just isn't true, who do these people think they are etc etc. then when being offered to be shown the actual clip of it Dorries will just refuse again.
And yet 20k+ people are willing to vote for these MPs. "Yes, this lying moron is exactly who will best represent me and my interests".
[a recent PR innovation is he allows cameras in every week to record and broadcast his opening remarks to Cabinet]
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1544225118951391233
As to the serious 'conversation' which 'we' are incapable of having. What's a conversation and who is 'we'? It all depends where you look.
Beyond the headlines it seems to me that fairly serious conversation goes on in these places among others:
Guardian
Times
FT
Economist
LRB
TLS (Lit types got Rogoff on inflation just this week)
New Statesman and very intermittently the Spectator
IFS
Eurointelligence
TBIGC
RUSI
IFG
PB (intermittently).........
It isn't all Rod Liddle and the Mail.
They voted for him as leader, knowing full well he was a lying scumbag who was utterly unfit to lead this great country. They deserve all the abuse coming their way, and then some.
"We all resign".
"Oh".
Whether this has an electoral impact will be determined by whether Starmer sticks his punches on this being a particularly Tory/govt problem. His challenge is that hardly anyone can be bothered to listen to him. I still think if Labour changes leader it will win a majority. If it doesn’t, it risks another Tory majority, if they change leader first.
I really hope that someone in the cabinet is going to do the right thing and resign saying they are not prepared to attempt to justify the unjustifiable
The conservative party's only way out of this mess is for 180 +1 to do the right thing and remove Johnson
@DPJHodges
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6m
One thing I think we need to be clear on. It's not "No.10" that's lying now. It's Boris personally who's lying. Either he has lied to No.10 officials. Or he has told the truth to No.10 officials, and instructed them to lie on his behalf. Either way, the lies are his.
https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1544227208390213633
I would suggest to JRM that he considers spending more time in Somerset defending his seat which is now predicted by latest detailed polling to fall to Liberals.
Still, I'm looking forward to the 'were you still up for Mogg?' moment in Jan 2025.
But as Münchau says, situations keep changing all the time. And Labour's likely need to go into coalition with Brexit naysayers makes the Brexit pledge dubious tstl.
Its easy to Mock Fabricant, who gave an interview on R5 this morning, outraging the audience (as curated by the BBC). He partially blamed the long hours. Long hours don't justify getting drunk and making a prat of yourself, but its time to ask if the Westminster culture is fit for a modern 21st century democracy. The nonsense around question time, the stupid formalities of 'right honorable' bullshit, the speakers outdated costume (that's what it is), the evening debates and votes - start earlier FFS.
Time to change.
https://twitter.com/QuantaMagazine/status/1544219453382074368
This really should be it but we have been here before.
And if there's paralysis in government, and effective government is impossible, whose fault is this? I'll tell you - it's the PM's, because he spends most of his time firefighting his ludicrous lies and dissembling and trying to get a grip on an out of control parliamentary party, rather than getting on with good governance and "the people's priorities" (sic). Don't blame the messenger.
The PM not only lies habitually, but makes a liar of you.
Poor Will Quince, for instance. He knows as a junior minister that he'll sometimes need to go out there and bat on a sticky wicket. But when you can't trust the briefing you're given, you've essentially been handed a broken bat and been told not to bother wearing a box.
It's a totally unsustainable situation, and for ministers to hang around is borderline Stockholm Syndrome.
https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/
As to Government inertia being the fault of the media, had the misbehaviour not occured in the first place they would have nothing to see and write about. If Government were not busy lying about what happened to cover their tracks they might be able to look at some of the more pressing issues in hand. But that is the fault of Government, not a largely ( to this Government) benign press.
On your analysis a non-Tory Government despised by the media would be hamstrung from day one. Perhaps that is the only reason left to vote Conservative.
Clearly neither he nor his staff (or his underlings) have a clue. But clearly considerable, as they keep going off at amazing rate.
Fire in the hole!
The Cabinet will want someone to do something and be aware that it could be any of them, which reduces rather than increases the chances of any one individual doing it because they have hope someone else will commit the act of denouncing the PM and save them the trouble.
Starmer hasn’t stuck the landing on this yet and I’m not sure he’s capable of it
The mystery to me is why any Minister would agree to an interview or, if they do one, why they don't simply respond by saying "Don't ask me. Ask No. 10" and then shut up.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CfCDYJyFS_T/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Is this the vague beginnings of a new art form? Or an uncanny simulacrum of a DMT trip? Can’t decide
Incidentally the initiating image is the first photo ever taken. Which is neat
To put in place the logistics processes to deliver, supply and operate artillery systems of whatever kind would require a significant effort on the part of Western and Ukrainian forces that there might not be the desire or determination as you note respectively to do.
...At the ceremony today, the IMU cited Viazovska’s many mathematical accomplishments, in particular her proof that an arrangement called the E8 lattice is the densest packing of spheres in eight dimensions...
...Viazovska and her collaborators emerged from the sphere-packing work with a higher ambition. Mathematicians had long suspected that E8 and the Leech lattice are much more than just the best way to pack spheres. These two lattices, mathematicians hypothesized, are “universally optimal,” meaning that they are the best arrangements according to a host of criteria — for example, the lowest-energy way to position mutually repelling electrons in space or twisty polymers in a solution....
...The resulting paper, said Sylvia Serfaty of New York University, is on a par with the great breakthroughs of the 19th century, when mathematicians solved many of the problems that had confounded their predecessors for centuries. “This paper is really a great advancement of science,” she told Quanta at the time. “To know that the human brain is able to produce a proof of something like that, to me it’s a really remarkable fact.”
The "all politicians are liars" defence is very weak when every word smirkingly (made up word) uttered is total BS, which appears to be the case.
I think Labour are broadly moving to the right line on this, which is not "what an appalling liar that man is" (which is true but nit that effective) but instead "Government is paralysed by all this and cannot act on cost of living etc".
Lets be brutally honest about this. Sessions that go on well into the evening, MPs who have to hang around the palace waiting for a late division - of course they are going to get drunk. Which in turn leads to mental, physical and sexual abuse.
Mind boggles at what scene looks like under Big Dog regime. Last scene of "Citizen Kane"?
Plenty reason for ministers & etc. to keep on defending the indefensible rather than take your sage advice?
A minority of MPs react to all this by giving up and getting pissed every night. Most MPs just enjoy it - they're the ones you don't read about. I didn't have time to spend in the Strangers' Bar groping people even if I'd wanted to - there was always something interesting to do.
I think the problem of the artillery is mostly one of ammo and logistics. Big guns and rocket systems need a lot of supply. A couple of HIMARS could cover the whole Kherson front in terms of range, and they reload fairly quickly, but the numbers of rocket six-packs needed is huge.
Interesting twitter thread here on the destruction of Russian supply dumps, and the Donetsk railway station and Melitopol airfield, all it seems by HIMARS.
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1543944760167202820?t=BHQmKGsux0go0t3hTpnLlw&s=19
They've been begging for just that for months now.
While I wouldn't trivialise the effort required to deliver large amounts of heavy weapons, it's pretty clear that hasn't been the limiting factor during that time.
More significant, I think, is a reluctance on the part of western armed forces to part with operational as opposed to redundant weapons. I think that extremely short sighted, given that the only adversary it's likely to be used against anyway is Russia.
Morning interview rounds: Minister says X won't/will happen.
Afternoon: X happens/doesn't happen.
If two of them did it, BoZo would be out by tea
I'm not saying it isn't a relatively demanding job, but it isn't uniquely so. I tend to think it isn't the job that causes the bad behaviour in what remains a minority of MPs - it's that the type of people attracted by, in particular, the status, the veneer of importance, and the precariousness of it. It tends to attract ludicrous, vain risk-takers disproportionately (as well as many well intentioned and passionate people). Fabbers, of all people, should know that.
Some new DALLE-2 thoughts
1 the best users of the machine, so far, tend to be artists, designers, architects. So there may still be a role for human creativity, but it will be tutorly, or parental, guiding and prompting the bot
2 I’m starting to see DALLE-2 as (amongst other things) a kind of 7 year old Mozart of images. Almost infinite talent and astounding skill, but needs Mozart’s father to coax and coach. And take it around European courts
3 I have discovered people - mainly artists - on Instagram and TikTok etc, who say the first thing they do in the morning now is reach for the phone and see what DALLE-2 has produced in the night, with a mixture of delight and amazement, tinged with fear. So I’m not alone
4 Anyone who thinks this machine is just “shitting out album cover art” is really not paying attention. Some recent images it has produced:
It makes thousands more every day. The only limit seems to be the prompts it is given
Which since I was a kid in Civic class has expanded exponentially in United States. And just about everywhere else in the West as far as I can tell.
Foul factory-farmed chickens coming home to roost.
What would it look like had DALLE-2 made its own choices ?
https://twitter.com/RMCunliffe/status/1544232837880086528
Even better, get GPT3 to choose. Two AIs bouncing off each other. Leave them to it for a day. Imagine
Although who'd want to run the country and get landed with all the accumulated past mistakes plus everything coming down the line....?
Any breakdown on your 'Blue Wall friends' depending upon whether they are in Con/Lab or Con/LD seats or is it just random?
How are you finding it in SW Surrey?
That's the one my dog would have chosen.
You know Johnson lies. I know Johnson lies. We all know Johnson lies in ways that ought to have ended his career years ago. Even the Cabinet know this. Perhaps, in his quieter moments, even Johnson knows this.
But at some level, perhaps because the flow of fibs is so continuous, it's impossible to point to any one incident and say "that's it- that's the one that's a sacking offence". And so he goes on.
Not today. Today the overwhelming message which came out of his interview is that he is part of a government that is full of lying scumbags.
I mean not that this is a surprise, just that I had thought Raab better than some at covering it up hitherto.
I appreciate most of this is totally lost on PB-ers, but I’m happy to educate
He also didn't understand how important Dover was (something that I imagine would have caused his (and my) Geography teachers to turn in their graves).
It would account for so much.
The regular personality/name changes as it tries to develop its own unique outlook on the world and understand human interactions.
The obsession with seemingly random and pointless issues like UFOs.
The weird cover stories (I mean what normal rational human would come up with the claim that they are a lithic dildo sculptor).
The claims to be travelling the world to cover up for the fact that no one has actually ever met him/it.
And finally the desperate attempts to convince us that AI really is here.
Leon is Pinocchio - the inanimate object desperately trying to become human.
Utterly OT, here's a nice bit of Blake's 7.
https://twitter.com/MakingBlakes7/status/1544214104591810561
Though the maths means little or nothing to me, it's a very interesting account of how a mind works.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/
They are used to being the Big Cheese in their own little company - the boss who own 100% of the 5 person outfit....
"Thank goodness for Boris. When he's gone you'll realise what you had. The country is doing great." Says 5 Live caller.
He's a big personality with a big majority appears to be the sum of it.
The psychology is interesting.
And these were the people making decisions on Brexit!
It means, not only that Downing Street lied to the press - we are sadly used to that. But it also means that No. 10 sent out three ministers, up to the Deputy PM, having deliberately misled them. ~AA https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1544240778179928067
I’m not sure Johnson’s press team can survive this. No. 10 will find itself without anyone to do the press round. PMs fall in all sorts of ways. Running out of cabinet willing to defend you, is one of them. ~AA
Certainly, the timing of this is awful. The upcoming 1922 Committee elections were always going to be a proxy war on the PM, but they looked, at least, competitive. There will now be a landslide for anti-Johnson candidates. Wouldn’t be surprised if they took all 18 seats. ~AA
The recent announcement of British military training for Ukrainian troops is an example of this, where we clearly didn't expect Ukraine to require conventional military training. Air defence and armoured vehicles are other obvious gaps where they are capability required by a conventional military, but not by an insurgency, and this is why support in those areas is still a bit haphazard.
I think things are generally moving in the right direction, but there's a lot of fighting left in the Russians and this isn't going to be over by Christmas (Western or Orthodox).
Suddenly it all becomes clear...