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The Speccie speculates – “Rishi by Christmas?” – politicalbetting.com

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  • Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Your first paragraph is surprisingly harsh, from you, and somewhat unfair. You are imputing something to the poster that s/he really didn't say at all.
    Nope that is exactly what the post says that I objected to.

    "Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does."

    So we are not allowed to differentiate between good and bad government action?

    It was and is a stupid statement.
    There's a difference between libertarian and anarchist.

    There are good things the government should do.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    edited October 2022
    Pulpstar said:

    Here's one, colleague purchased a car on 0% at Nov-21. Car not been delivered yet, now the seller is saying they want to put the price up and not do it at 0%.
    Seems outrageous, can they do that ?

    That depends very much on what was meant by “purchased” a year ago.

    There’s a lot of sharp practices going on by car dealers, as used cars are selling for more than new ones thanks to supply shortages.

    A quick chat with trading standards usually fixes such ‘problems’.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Which party do Britons trust the most to manage the economy? (2 October)

    Labour 41% (+5)
    Conservative 18% (-6)
    Other Parties 15% (-1)
    Don't know 25% (–)

    Changes +/- 25 September

    This is a disaster! The Tories are nearly third in a two horse race, this has not been seen since 1997!

    For reference I believe Labour manage a peak of an 11% lead between 92-and-97 on this question.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,383

    Mr. Battery, it's a bit old school but some people do still use double spaces after a full stop.

    One thing that annoys me about modern stuff is when 'suggestions' are wrong but many will blindly follow them. I've had gaol flagged as a typo before. It is not.

    That depends. It is if you write "Haaland scores lots of gaols".
  • eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Quite. There's a mountain of evidence that putting downbeat messages on fag packets reduces smoking even when 100% of people know that smoking is really really bad for you.
    Continually nagging does, eventually, work
    If I've told my wife I'll do something then I'll do it. She doesn't need to remind me every six months that I said I'll do it. 😉
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    @edmundintokyo I thought of another authoritative English language writer on Russian politics. Leonid Bershidsky at Bloomberg. https://twitter.com/Bershidsky

  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    You can take my double spacing from my cold dead hands.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,829

    Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Your first paragraph is surprisingly harsh, from you, and somewhat unfair. You are imputing something to the poster that s/he really didn't say at all.
    Nope that is exactly what the post says that I objected to.

    "Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does."

    So we are not allowed to differentiate between good and bad government action?

    It was and is a stupid statement.
    There's a difference between libertarian and anarchist.

    There are good things the government should do.
    Yes and a public education campaign to prevent blackouts is one of them. The PM has blocked it despite most of the rest of the government (including JRM) being in favour.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Quite. There's a mountain of evidence that putting downbeat messages on fag packets reduces smoking even when 100% of people know that smoking is really really bad for you.
    Can I also point out that our Dear Leader may have given the impression previously that energy costs were capped at £2,500 - which if it were true, if you're a heavy user, you might as well go all out because the marginal cost to you is free?

    An information campaign might help address that.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Psychopaths
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Quite. There's a mountain of evidence that putting downbeat messages on fag packets reduces smoking even when 100% of people know that smoking is really really bad for you.
    Can I also point out that our Dear Leader may have given the impression previously that energy costs were capped at £2,500 - which if it were true, if you're a heavy user, you might as well go all out because the marginal cost to you is free?

    An information campaign might help address that.
    Hah yes, her answers have been err... less than helpful on that.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,592
    glw said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, according to his ministerial style guide.
    It comes from the era of typewriters, using double spaces to mimic wider spacing at the end of a sentence, so of course that bellend would be advocating it in 2022. Back on planet Earth where we all use computers this can be done automatically and correctly without any need to type a second space.

    And if you really, really care about this sort of thing you are probably using TeX anyway.
    My old Acorn technical publications style guide says the following: "Use a single space after commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops. Two spaces after a full stop (a common convention) often produces bad spacing effects in justified text." (p. 25)

    So there is a technical reason not to use them.

    One thing I do love is 1.5 or double-spaced lines, especially in long technical documents. I've seen that mandated in a style guide at Company Y.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    edited October 2022
    Guess what the morning email from the Staggers is about? Freddie Hayward comments (as well as on the blocking of the info campaign):

    'If households go without power, it will be the latest example of a broken promise from Liz Truss, and would further undermine her authority. During the leadership campaign the Prime Minister promised there would be no blackouts this winter.[...]

    Politically, the prospect of blackouts threatens to overshadow the government’s huge energy price guarantee. Since the fiasco of the fiscal statement, Liz Truss has tried to convince markets and voters that the price cap was the key part of the package. That strategy has been completely undermined by the chaotic messaging from her cabinet. Much as Rishi Sunak didn’t feel he received credit for his interventions to help people with the cost of living, Truss’s package hasn’t received the attention she would have liked. That is likely to remain the case – gratitude won’t be the primary emotion of those who are left sitting in the dark this winter.'
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Quite. There's a mountain of evidence that putting downbeat messages on fag packets reduces smoking even when 100% of people know that smoking is really really bad for you.
    Can I also point out that our Dear Leader may have given the impression previously that energy costs were capped at £2,500 - which if it were true, if you're a heavy user, you might as well go all out because the marginal cost to you is free?

    An information campaign might help address that.
    At least she didnt repeat that false claim in numerous different interviews........surely?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,362

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    People who were taught to do so at school in the early 90s, and haven't lost the habit.
  • Driver said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Would have been effective if everyone hadn't (quite understandably) spent the last two weeks turning the PM into a figure of ridicule.
    Nice try, but no. It's a problem that Truss and Rees-Mogg are both unpopular with the public, but the key communicators through Covid were the boffins. The politicians were really only there to introduce them. I don't know who the energy equivalent of Whitty and Van Tam are, but they must exist and should be having media training ASAP.

    It's a shame Professor Heinz Wolff is dead. This could have been his moment.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    edited October 2022
    Ghedebrav said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, according to his ministerial style guide.
    But then it's inconsistent with the rest of the Civil Service and UKG branding.

    OTOH branding is what you do on your horse to deter some ****** from stealing it, he probably thinks.

    Edit: or indeed on the thief.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    If you agree that there are good things a government does you then can't use "Government shouldn't do things" as a foundational stance on your objection to Government doing stuff.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Quite. There's a mountain of evidence that putting downbeat messages on fag packets reduces smoking even when 100% of people know that smoking is really really bad for you.
    Can I also point out that our Dear Leader may have given the impression previously that energy costs were capped at £2,500 - which if it were true, if you're a heavy user, you might as well go all out because the marginal cost to you is free?

    An information campaign might help address that.
    At least she didnt repeat that false claim in numerous different interviews........surely?
    I got the impression she did - for instance on the infamous local radio sausage-chain. But I don't want to be unfair to Ms T. Can anyone, indeed, actually confirm?
  • Carnyx said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Quite. There's a mountain of evidence that putting downbeat messages on fag packets reduces smoking even when 100% of people know that smoking is really really bad for you.
    Can I also point out that our Dear Leader may have given the impression previously that energy costs were capped at £2,500 - which if it were true, if you're a heavy user, you might as well go all out because the marginal cost to you is free?

    An information campaign might help address that.
    At least she didnt repeat that false claim in numerous different interviews........surely?
    I got the impression she did - for instance on the infamous local radio sausage-chain. But I don't want to be unfair to Ms T. Can anyone, indeed, actually confirm?
    Either lying about or having no understanding of her flagship policy (that she campaigned against anyway) on radio interviews is another of the areas that Truss is surprising on the upside, along with interest rates and Labour polling leads.
  • Alistair said:

    If you agree that there are good things a government does you then can't use "Government shouldn't do things" as a foundational stance on your objection to Government doing stuff.

    Nobody does. Straw man argument.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,370
    Carnyx said:

    Guess what the morning email from the Staggers is about? Freddie Hayward comments (as well as on the blocking of the info campaign):

    'If households go without power, it will be the latest example of a broken promise from Liz Truss, and would further undermine her authority. During the leadership campaign the Prime Minister promised there would be no blackouts this winter.[...]

    Politically, the prospect of blackouts threatens to overshadow the government’s huge energy price guarantee. Since the fiasco of the fiscal statement, Liz Truss has tried to convince markets and voters that the price cap was the key part of the package. That strategy has been completely undermined by the chaotic messaging from her cabinet. Much as Rishi Sunak didn’t feel he received credit for his interventions to help people with the cost of living, Truss’s package hasn’t received the attention she would have liked. That is likely to remain the case – gratitude won’t be the primary emotion of those who are left sitting in the dark this winter.'

    It didn't receive the attention she hoped for because they introduced other items at the same time that grabbed all the news...

    I would probably be crap at media management but even I know that if you want 1 particular story to get all the attention you don't add other possible stories into the mix. And the 45p tax cut was very much a story that could grab the headlines and did.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906

    glw said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, according to his ministerial style guide.
    It comes from the era of typewriters, using double spaces to mimic wider spacing at the end of a sentence, so of course that bellend would be advocating it in 2022. Back on planet Earth where we all use computers this can be done automatically and correctly without any need to type a second space.

    And if you really, really care about this sort of thing you are probably using TeX anyway.
    My old Acorn technical publications style guide says the following: "Use a single space after commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops. Two spaces after a full stop (a common convention) often produces bad spacing effects in justified text." (p. 25)

    So there is a technical reason not to use them.

    One thing I do love is 1.5 or double-spaced lines, especially in long technical documents. I've seen that mandated in a style guide at Company Y.
    There's nothing wrong with using wider spaces at the end of a sentence, but there's no need to type a double space. Either a uniform style can be applied automatically, or a more sophisticated style can be calculated taking account of position, line-breaks, fonts and so on. Actually typing double spaces is redundant, and was never the truly correct thing to do, as typesetters made more complicated decisions than simply whacking two spaces in everywhere.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,963

    Driver said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Having just been shown something by Twin A - can I just say no matter how stupid and thick you think the general public can be - it's possible for them to even stupider and thicker than you could ever imagine..

    Can't say anymore because technically I shouldn't have seen it but oh boy.....

    Think how stupid the average person can be - then remember that half of them are more stupid than that!

    Yes, there should be a public information campaign - more people than you might think, don’t know that there’s a correlation between the thermostat setting on the central heating, and the size of the gas bill.
    The arguments against the campaign presume that (a) all or nearly all adults in the UK are actively engaged in consuming and understanding a major media discussion, and (b) that the media in which the discussion is playing out is providing consistent, easy to understand and reliable information.

    (a) is a classic fallacy. Great swathes of people will at best be dimly aware that costs are increasing, but won't know/care about the context, or be actively consuming news media or social media in a way that increases the salience of the issue in their lives. Wall-to-wall coverage it may be - but even so, that doesn't mean it reaches everyone by any means.

    (b) pretty easy to show that this is not true; there will be conflicting advice and a plethora of unreliable sources.

    A big advertising campaign won't necessarily reach everyone either, but it will certainly get the message across to a lot more people than simply relying on media and the 'national conversation' - and in a pithier and more effective way.
    Would have been effective if everyone hadn't (quite understandably) spent the last two weeks turning the PM into a figure of ridicule.
    Nice try, but no. It's a problem that Truss and Rees-Mogg are both unpopular with the public, but the key communicators through Covid were the boffins.
    But only after the Boris "you must stay at home" piece to camera at the start. If that hadn't been credible, people wouldn't have listened to the modellers.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995
    Nice windy day today with a bit of sunshine. 14.5gw of wind power and 63% renewables energy mix (75% including nuclear).

    More days like this please, weather.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,829
    TimS said:

    Nice windy day today with a bit of sunshine. 14.5gw of wind power and 63% renewables energy mix (75% including nuclear).

    More days like this please, weather.

    Yes, mild and windy all winter please.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    glw said:

    glw said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, according to his ministerial style guide.
    It comes from the era of typewriters, using double spaces to mimic wider spacing at the end of a sentence, so of course that bellend would be advocating it in 2022. Back on planet Earth where we all use computers this can be done automatically and correctly without any need to type a second space.

    And if you really, really care about this sort of thing you are probably using TeX anyway.
    My old Acorn technical publications style guide says the following: "Use a single space after commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops. Two spaces after a full stop (a common convention) often produces bad spacing effects in justified text." (p. 25)

    So there is a technical reason not to use them.

    One thing I do love is 1.5 or double-spaced lines, especially in long technical documents. I've seen that mandated in a style guide at Company Y.
    There's nothing wrong with using wider spaces at the end of a sentence, but there's no need to type a double space. Either a uniform style can be applied automatically, or a more sophisticated style can be calculated taking account of position, line-breaks, fonts and so on. Actually typing double spaces is redundant, and was never the truly correct thing to do, as typesetters made more complicated decisions than simply whacking two spaces in everywhere.
    As noted below if you try to type double spaces on here Vanilla won't let you, it strips every space after the first before posting.
  • Not sure it has been mentioned on here, but it is official now.

    Aaron Bell has joined the government as PPS to Brandon Lewis and his MOJ team.

    https://twitter.com/BrandonLewis/status/1577942225694113792

    Working from within to bring a teeny mote of sanity back to the Tory Party?

    "Let's go Brandon to tell Liz that she's a walking, talking clusterfuck.'

    Or not as the case may be.
  • Support for rail strikes has risen since action first began in the summer

    Support: 45% (+8 from 21 June)
    Oppose: 42% (-3)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,339
    Everything is fine and we will be perfectly OK so people should just stop worrying and get on with doing things
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,724
    MaxPB said:

    TimS said:

    Nice windy day today with a bit of sunshine. 14.5gw of wind power and 63% renewables energy mix (75% including nuclear).

    More days like this please, weather.

    Yes, mild and windy all winter please.
    Anti-Vlad weather.

  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,507
    edited October 2022

    I would like to thank Liz Truss.

    For delivering the next Labour Government

    I have told you about this 😠

    If your over confidence and hubris leads to it not happening, it’s naughty step for you Horse, naughty step for a long time.

    Instead of feeling elated and excited and triumphant, you should be fearing what Truss is about to do to Welfare State and public funding and workers rights in order to balance the books as being loudly signalled to the markets.

    At same time Labour need to deliver on the nations problems in five years or the polls could switch and losing in 2029 could be 1979 all over again.
    Again, it was a JOKE - TONGUE IN CHEEK. Goodness me I need to start using emojis clearly. My bad.

    At leas you're not pretending anymore to not be a Tory. Welcome.
    The only thing opposition partys should be feeling right now is anger and dismay.

    The Tory’s are telling the world with a big confident smile they are all about balancing the books in the next financial statement, Labour triumphalism does not sit well with that

  • IshmaelZ said:

    glw said:

    glw said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, according to his ministerial style guide.
    It comes from the era of typewriters, using double spaces to mimic wider spacing at the end of a sentence, so of course that bellend would be advocating it in 2022. Back on planet Earth where we all use computers this can be done automatically and correctly without any need to type a second space.

    And if you really, really care about this sort of thing you are probably using TeX anyway.
    My old Acorn technical publications style guide says the following: "Use a single space after commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops. Two spaces after a full stop (a common convention) often produces bad spacing effects in justified text." (p. 25)

    So there is a technical reason not to use them.

    One thing I do love is 1.5 or double-spaced lines, especially in long technical documents. I've seen that mandated in a style guide at Company Y.
    There's nothing wrong with using wider spaces at the end of a sentence, but there's no need to type a double space. Either a uniform style can be applied automatically, or a more sophisticated style can be calculated taking account of position, line-breaks, fonts and so on. Actually typing double spaces is redundant, and was never the truly correct thing to do, as typesetters made more complicated decisions than simply whacking two spaces in everywhere.
    As noted below if you try to type double spaces on here Vanilla won't let you, it strips every space after the first before posting.
    That could be the browser: they render multiple white spaces as a single white space by default.
  • Leon said:

    Everything is fine and we will be perfectly OK so people should just stop worrying and get on with doing things

    Until the next CoD clip showing a nuclear tipped Iskander being deployed pops up on your twitter.
  • Not sure it has been mentioned on here, but it is official now.

    Aaron Bell has joined the government as PPS to Brandon Lewis and his MOJ team.

    https://twitter.com/BrandonLewis/status/1577942225694113792

    Working from within to bring a teeny mote of sanity back to the Tory Party?

    "Let's go Brandon to tell Liz that she's a walking, talking clusterfuck.'

    Or not as the case may be.
    Congrats to Aaron Bell (aka as Tissue Price).

  • Support for rail strikes has risen since action first began in the summer

    Support: 45% (+8 from 21 June)
    Oppose: 42% (-3)

    i wonder how that splits with actual rail users though
  • Support for rail strikes has risen since action first began in the summer

    Support: 45% (+8 from 21 June)
    Oppose: 42% (-3)

    i wonder how that splits with actual rail users though
    We're all middle class people, that's what I've been told before
  • Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    Everything is fine and we will be perfectly OK so people should just stop worrying and get on with doing things

    Who are you and what have you done with @leon?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,592
    Nigelb said:

    This kind of work, done by a trusted international broadcaster like the BBC, is immensely valuable.

    Since #MahsaAmini protests in Iran began, we across multiple BBC departments have been verifying videos on a daily basis, keeping a national heatmap, monitoring online hashtags and the impact of the internet shutdown. Here's what we've found
    https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1578000889226448896

    We should not be cutting funding for overseas reporting.

    The soft power of such things is amazing.

    I might have given this anecdote before, but when she was young Mrs J came over to live in London for a couple of years, and had to learn English quickly to fit in at primary school. When she went back home (via Tehran...) she used the British Council Library and read everything they had. This set her up well for her schooling at an English-language university in Ankara. (*)

    She loved the British Council Library, and it played a pivotal role in her life. We get rid of such things at our cost.

    (*) I do find it odd that a major university in a foreign country teaches in a foreign (for them) language...
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,507

    I would like to thank Liz Truss.

    For delivering the next Labour Government

    I have told you about this 😠

    If your over confidence and hubris leads to it not happening, it’s naughty step for you Horse, naughty step for a long time.

    Instead of feeling elated and excited and triumphant, you should be fearing what Truss is about to do to Welfare State and public funding and workers rights in order to balance the books as being loudly signalled to the markets.

    At same time Labour need to deliver on the nations problems in five years or the polls could switch and losing in 2029 could be 1979 all over again.
    Again, it was a JOKE - TONGUE IN CHEEK. Goodness me I need to start using emojis clearly. My bad.

    At leas you're not pretending anymore to not be a Tory. Welcome.
    Joke? You want humour do you?


  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073

    Leon said:

    Everything is fine and we will be perfectly OK so people should just stop worrying and get on with doing things

    Who are you and what have you done with @leon?
    Locked him in a nuclear bunker.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Psychopaths
    Erm....I have to confess I use three. :( What does that make me? Or shouldn't I ask?
  • .

    glw said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, according to his ministerial style guide.
    It comes from the era of typewriters, using double spaces to mimic wider spacing at the end of a sentence, so of course that bellend would be advocating it in 2022. Back on planet Earth where we all use computers this can be done automatically and correctly without any need to type a second space.

    And if you really, really care about this sort of thing you are probably using TeX anyway.
    My old Acorn technical publications style guide says the following: "Use a single space after commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops. Two spaces after a full stop (a common convention) often produces bad spacing effects in justified text." (p. 25)

    So there is a technical reason not to use them.

    One thing I do love is 1.5 or double-spaced lines, especially in long technical documents. I've seen that mandated in a style guide at Company Y.
    The technical reason to avoid double spaces being that computer typesetting is (or was when that was written) terrible.

    On double-spaced lines, I suspect this is a hangover from PhD theses, designed to make marking easier.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,370
    So the BBC will tonight announce if Liverpool or Glasgow host Eurovision

    Meanwhile


    Quiz Show Guru
    @QuizShowGuru
    @bbceurovision
    and 3 others
    Olly Murs just announced a tour date for #Liverpool on 6th May. That wouldn’t be enough time to get the Arena ready for #Eurovision So it must be #Glasgow
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,286
    edited October 2022

    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
    So far I've had the two AstraZeneca and was fine with those and one Moderna booster last autumn, which I was OK with as well.

    This time I've had Pfizer and the flu jab at the same time so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    Scott_xP said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Psychopaths
    Erm....I have to confess I use three. :( What does that make me? Or shouldn't I ask?
    Spendthrift.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    GIN1138 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
    So far I've had the two AstraZeneca and was fine with those and one Moderna booster, which I was OK with as well.

    This time I've had Pfizer and the flu jab at the same time so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
    I had little or no reaction to the intial AZ shots, but huge ones to both pFizer and Moderna. Its probably more my body reacting to the delivery system than anything else.
  • Leon said:

    Everything is fine and we will be perfectly OK so people should just stop worrying and get on with doing things

    Who are you and what have you done with @leon?
    Taken his meds.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,661

    Support for rail strikes has risen since action first began in the summer

    Support: 45% (+8 from 21 June)
    Oppose: 42% (-3)

    i wonder how that splits with actual rail users though
    Opposition is highest amongst the retired, while support in the young is high and in London and South is pretty much the same as the rest of the country.

    So not much to suggest that rail users are particularly opposed.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    I certainly do not wish to undermine reasonable discussion, nor suggest that those who support smaller government necessarily support more hardline libertarian positions. It appears we disagree on whether we've seen these more extreme positions put forth on vf.PB.com. For example, I note that Bart has explicitly said we should let old people die in the streets to reduce government spending. If that's not extreme, I don't know what is.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065
    Leon said:

    Everything is fine and we will be perfectly OK so people should just stop worrying and get on with doing things

    You're in a Dr. Jekyll phase at the moment then?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073

    Scott_xP said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Psychopaths
    Erm....I have to confess I use three. :( What does that make me? Or shouldn't I ask?
    Spendthrift.
    Spaced out.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,724
    GIN1138 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
    So far I've had the two AstraZeneca and was fine with those and one Moderna booster last autumn, which I was OK with as well.

    This time I've had Pfizer and the flu jab at the same time so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
    I had the new Moderna and flu both at same time last week and felt dreadful the following day.

    Hope your's goes ok.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,286

    GIN1138 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
    So far I've had the two AstraZeneca and was fine with those and one Moderna booster last autumn, which I was OK with as well.

    This time I've had Pfizer and the flu jab at the same time so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
    I had the new Moderna and flu both at same time last week and felt dreadful the following day.

    Hope your's goes ok.
    Thanks Rotten! :D
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,507

    I would like to thank Liz Truss.

    For delivering the next Labour Government

    I have told you about this 😠

    If your over confidence and hubris leads to it not happening, it’s naughty step for you Horse, naughty step for a long time.

    Instead of feeling elated and excited and triumphant, you should be fearing what Truss is about to do to Welfare State and public funding and workers rights in order to balance the books as being loudly signalled to the markets.

    At same time Labour need to deliver on the nations problems in five years or the polls could switch and losing in 2029 could be 1979 all over again.
    Again, it was a JOKE - TONGUE IN CHEEK. Goodness me I need to start using emojis clearly. My bad.

    At leas you're not pretending anymore to not be a Tory. Welcome.
    Joke? You want humour do you?


    Yes! There’s so much to laugh at right now.


  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,724
    Leon said:

    Everything is fine and we will be perfectly OK so people should just stop worrying and get on with doing things

    Xanax?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,661

    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
    I didn't have much reaction. Slightly fragile for a day, so know there is some immunity. That was the Moderna bivalent vaccine, but I though that was the one everyone is getting this year.
  • Nigelb said:

    This kind of work, done by a trusted international broadcaster like the BBC, is immensely valuable.

    Since #MahsaAmini protests in Iran began, we across multiple BBC departments have been verifying videos on a daily basis, keeping a national heatmap, monitoring online hashtags and the impact of the internet shutdown. Here's what we've found
    https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1578000889226448896

    We should not be cutting funding for overseas reporting.

    As an aside, studying videos to monitor fighting and protests was made harder when Youtube in particular started removing violent content to keep children safe. Online censorship is a double-edged sword. (and tbh I am happy not being able to watch people being killed but there is a downside)

    If you want to know how it is done, read the Bellingcat book or their online material.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073

    GIN1138 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
    So far I've had the two AstraZeneca and was fine with those and one Moderna booster, which I was OK with as well.

    This time I've had Pfizer and the flu jab at the same time so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
    I had little or no reaction to the intial AZ shots, but huge ones to both pFizer and Moderna. Its probably more my body reacting to the delivery system than anything else.
    I was quite the opposite.
    Big reaction to AZN, and nothing from Moderna apart from a slightly sore arm.
    Managed to get this winter's Moderna booster on Wednesday at a drop in centre - very quiet, and no queueing.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Foxy said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just had my COVID booster!

    Anti-Vaxxers suck!!!! :D

    Nice. Hope you avoid the massive reaction I seem to get to the boosters (both times, huge fever spike, 24 to 48 hours duration.

    Still keep getting them though!
    I didn't have much reaction. Slightly fragile for a day, so know there is some immunity. That was the Moderna bivalent vaccine, but I though that was the one everyone is getting this year.
    Colleague had the Pfizer booster yesterday - bit of a lottery as the same location gave me moderna last week.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840

    .

    glw said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    Sorry who the fuck uses double spaces after a fullstop.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, according to his ministerial style guide.
    It comes from the era of typewriters, using double spaces to mimic wider spacing at the end of a sentence, so of course that bellend would be advocating it in 2022. Back on planet Earth where we all use computers this can be done automatically and correctly without any need to type a second space.

    And if you really, really care about this sort of thing you are probably using TeX anyway.
    My old Acorn technical publications style guide says the following: "Use a single space after commas, colons, semi-colons and full stops. Two spaces after a full stop (a common convention) often produces bad spacing effects in justified text." (p. 25)

    So there is a technical reason not to use them.

    One thing I do love is 1.5 or double-spaced lines, especially in long technical documents. I've seen that mandated in a style guide at Company Y.
    The technical reason to avoid double spaces being that computer typesetting is (or was when that was written) terrible.

    On double-spaced lines, I suspect this is a hangover from PhD theses, designed to make marking easier.
    DS is indeed a standard technique for any typescript for publication, not just PhD, to make marking up for publication and minor emendations easier. I learnt it in the old typewriter days when submitting my first publications ...
  • TinkyWinkyTinkyWinky Posts: 134
    edited October 2022

    Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    Barty - build houses wherever you want.

    LuckyGuy - frack away.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431

    Nigelb said:

    This kind of work, done by a trusted international broadcaster like the BBC, is immensely valuable.

    Since #MahsaAmini protests in Iran began, we across multiple BBC departments have been verifying videos on a daily basis, keeping a national heatmap, monitoring online hashtags and the impact of the internet shutdown. Here's what we've found
    https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1578000889226448896

    We should not be cutting funding for overseas reporting.

    The soft power of such things is amazing.

    I might have given this anecdote before, but when she was young Mrs J came over to live in London for a couple of years, and had to learn English quickly to fit in at primary school. When she went back home (via Tehran...) she used the British Council Library and read everything they had. This set her up well for her schooling at an English-language university in Ankara. (*)

    She loved the British Council Library, and it played a pivotal role in her life. We get rid of such things at our cost.

    (*) I do find it odd that a major university in a foreign country teaches in a foreign (for them) language...
    I understand that one or two in the Netherlands do and I believe that much higher education in Thailand is conducted in English. Certainly when I've talked to groups of people doing higher degrees there, their English has been fine. And every Thai doctor I've talked to has used good English, although admittedly they've all been in Bangkok.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,661
    People's polling Lab 52% Con 20%

    https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1578342154833125376?t=efQ9pxfb6Zb8n3ufhcet1Q&s=19

    What would put off that 20% that agent Truss hasn't already tried 🤔

  • Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    I certainly do not wish to undermine reasonable discussion, nor suggest that those who support smaller government necessarily support more hardline libertarian positions. It appears we disagree on whether we've seen these more extreme positions put forth on vf.PB.com. For example, I note that Bart has explicitly said we should let old people die in the streets to reduce government spending. If that's not extreme, I don't know what is.
    Bullshit.

    I said we need to recognise there are limits to what we can do. We can't keep everyone alive forever, death is inevitable for everyone.

    I want us to help old people as much as we can and as smartly as we can with the resources available for the NHS and without stripping others of basic liberties like leaving your home.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073
    TBF, Biden is one of the few old enough to make the comparison.

    Ukraine war: Biden says nuclear risk highest since 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63167947
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,339
    I’ve had enough of the moaning minnies on here. ‘Oh we’re closer to nuclear war than we have been in 60 years’, ‘oh there will be blackouts across Europe this winter’, ‘oh the global plague blah blah blah’

    It’s just constant negativity and sniping. Most of this is driven by jealousy
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,661
    Foxy said:

    People's polling Lab 52% Con 20%

    https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1578342154833125376?t=efQ9pxfb6Zb8n3ufhcet1Q&s=19

    What would put off that 20% that agent Truss hasn't already tried 🤔

    A few hold outs even on those figures...


  • Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    Barty - build houses wherever you want.

    LuckyGuy - frack away.
    Even I say there should be Governance with house building.

    I want to see zoning, so build houses wherever you want within zones approved for housing. With considerably large zones to not prevent housing.

    But I believe the Government should be able to mark zones not for construction.

    And even those that are built, I say to within predetermined regulations.

    So no, that's not that American extremism. Zoning is a pretty standard concept in much of the world.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,661
    edited October 2022

    Nigelb said:

    This kind of work, done by a trusted international broadcaster like the BBC, is immensely valuable.

    Since #MahsaAmini protests in Iran began, we across multiple BBC departments have been verifying videos on a daily basis, keeping a national heatmap, monitoring online hashtags and the impact of the internet shutdown. Here's what we've found
    https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1578000889226448896

    We should not be cutting funding for overseas reporting.

    The soft power of such things is amazing.

    I might have given this anecdote before, but when she was young Mrs J came over to live in London for a couple of years, and had to learn English quickly to fit in at primary school. When she went back home (via Tehran...) she used the British Council Library and read everything they had. This set her up well for her schooling at an English-language university in Ankara. (*)

    She loved the British Council Library, and it played a pivotal role in her life. We get rid of such things at our cost.

    (*) I do find it odd that a major university in a foreign country teaches in a foreign (for them) language...
    I understand that one or two in the Netherlands do and I believe that much higher education in Thailand is conducted in English. Certainly when I've talked to groups of people doing higher degrees there, their English has been fine. And every Thai doctor I've talked to has used good English, although admittedly they've all been in Bangkok.
    There are Medical Schools in Hungary, Romania and Italy that teach in English.

    One in Ukraine too, but not teaching at present.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,648
    Nicola Sturgeon implies JK Rowling is not a 'real feminist' like her and says 'abusive men, not trans women' are real threat to society

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11290591/Nicola-Sturgeon-suggests-JK-Rowling-not-real-feminist.html
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065

    Nigelb said:

    This kind of work, done by a trusted international broadcaster like the BBC, is immensely valuable.

    Since #MahsaAmini protests in Iran began, we across multiple BBC departments have been verifying videos on a daily basis, keeping a national heatmap, monitoring online hashtags and the impact of the internet shutdown. Here's what we've found
    https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1578000889226448896

    We should not be cutting funding for overseas reporting.

    The soft power of such things is amazing.

    I might have given this anecdote before, but when she was young Mrs J came over to live in London for a couple of years, and had to learn English quickly to fit in at primary school. When she went back home (via Tehran...) she used the British Council Library and read everything they had. This set her up well for her schooling at an English-language university in Ankara. (*)

    She loved the British Council Library, and it played a pivotal role in her life. We get rid of such things at our cost.

    (*) I do find it odd that a major university in a foreign country teaches in a foreign (for them) language...
    Turkey will attract many more overseas students by having a uni that teaches completely in English.

    My Uni in Germany has several degree programmes that are taught totally in English for this reason. It is much easier than imposing on 2nd/3rd year students that a couple of courses are to be held in English (because it makes sense for some higher level STEM courses).
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    edited October 2022
    Foxy said:

    People's polling Lab 52% Con 20%

    https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1578342154833125376?t=efQ9pxfb6Zb8n3ufhcet1Q&s=19

    What would put off that 20% that agent Truss hasn't already tried 🤔

    The associated m ap is insane - confines Tories to Brexity Lincs, Greater Epping and Jaywick, and one or two pockets such as Bournemouth and ?Halesowen.

    https://twitter.com/Sharp2708/status/1578342765683179522/photo/1

    Edit: may be misreading - Reform and Con very similar colours.

    Edit: Foxy has posted the map, being more intelligent than I and able to post images on this.
  • TinkyWinkyTinkyWinky Posts: 134
    edited October 2022
    Leon said:

    I’ve had enough of the moaning minnies on here. ‘Oh we’re closer to nuclear war than we have been in 60 years’, ‘oh there will be blackouts across Europe this winter’, ‘oh the global plague blah blah blah’

    It’s just constant negativity and sniping. Most of this is driven by jealousy

    Yes I think most people get that you hysterically post on here (a) to control your existential crisis and dread when you wake up in the morning; (b) to try and create that same feeling in others.

    But are more sensible enough not to get wound up about stuff they can't control, i.e. the bad shit in the world but also you telling them there is lots of bad shit in the world (we know).
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677

    Nicola Sturgeon implies JK Rowling is not a 'real feminist' like her and says 'abusive men, not trans women' are real threat to society

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11290591/Nicola-Sturgeon-suggests-JK-Rowling-not-real-feminist.html

    Carlotta is going to be pissing iron filings that you were first to report on this epochal news.
  • Nicola Sturgeon implies JK Rowling is not a 'real feminist' like her and says 'abusive men, not trans women' are real threat to society

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11290591/Nicola-Sturgeon-suggests-JK-Rowling-not-real-feminist.html

    Bit of an issue though when the "trans woman" turns out to actually be an abusive man though.

    It's a shame we can't have sensible discussions in this issue and it has to be all or nothing.
  • Foxy said:

    People's polling Lab 52% Con 20%

    https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1578342154833125376?t=efQ9pxfb6Zb8n3ufhcet1Q&s=19

    What would put off that 20% that agent Truss hasn't already tried 🤔

    The only groups the Conservatives still lead on are 2016 Leavers (C40 L39) and aged 65+ (C38 L37), so something like Free Bus Passes for visitors from Europe.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    I certainly do not wish to undermine reasonable discussion, nor suggest that those who support smaller government necessarily support more hardline libertarian positions. It appears we disagree on whether we've seen these more extreme positions put forth on vf.PB.com. For example, I note that Bart has explicitly said we should let old people die in the streets to reduce government spending. If that's not extreme, I don't know what is.
    Bullshit.

    I said we need to recognise there are limits to what we can do. We can't keep everyone alive forever, death is inevitable for everyone.

    I want us to help old people as much as we can and as smartly as we can with the resources available for the NHS and without stripping others of basic liberties like leaving your home.
    You've said that if there's no money left in the NHS budget, we should cut off treatment and let people die. And that this would save money.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Leon said:

    I’ve had enough of the moaning minnies on here. ‘Oh we’re closer to nuclear war than we have been in 60 years’, ‘oh there will be blackouts across Europe this winter’, ‘oh the global plague blah blah blah’

    It’s just constant negativity and sniping. Most of this is driven by jealousy

    I think you had more luck with your laptop images a few weeks ago. No one is biting.
  • Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    I certainly do not wish to undermine reasonable discussion, nor suggest that those who support smaller government necessarily support more hardline libertarian positions. It appears we disagree on whether we've seen these more extreme positions put forth on vf.PB.com. For example, I note that Bart has explicitly said we should let old people die in the streets to reduce government spending. If that's not extreme, I don't know what is.
    Bullshit.

    I said we need to recognise there are limits to what we can do. We can't keep everyone alive forever, death is inevitable for everyone.

    I want us to help old people as much as we can and as smartly as we can with the resources available for the NHS and without stripping others of basic liberties like leaving your home.
    You've said that if there's no money left in the NHS budget, we should cut off treatment and let people die. And that this would save money.
    Are you familiar with NICE?

    The NHS has never had a limitless budget.
  • Westminster Voting Intention:

    LAB: 52% (+2)
    CON: 20% (=)
    LDM: 8% (-1)
    GRN: 7% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (=)
    RFM: 4% (+1)

    Via
    @PeoplePolling
    , 6 Oct.
    Changes w/ 29 Sep.

    Just like after Black Wednesday.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    Dura_Ace said:

    Nicola Sturgeon implies JK Rowling is not a 'real feminist' like her and says 'abusive men, not trans women' are real threat to society

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11290591/Nicola-Sturgeon-suggests-JK-Rowling-not-real-feminist.html

    Carlotta is going to be pissing iron filings that you were first to report on this epochal news.
    DM not your average objective reporter on wokery of any kind, mind. It's like expecting the Volkischer Beobachter to adjudicate a discussion of the nature of inheritance.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    I certainly do not wish to undermine reasonable discussion, nor suggest that those who support smaller government necessarily support more hardline libertarian positions. It appears we disagree on whether we've seen these more extreme positions put forth on vf.PB.com. For example, I note that Bart has explicitly said we should let old people die in the streets to reduce government spending. If that's not extreme, I don't know what is.
    Bullshit.

    I said we need to recognise there are limits to what we can do. We can't keep everyone alive forever, death is inevitable for everyone.

    I want us to help old people as much as we can and as smartly as we can with the resources available for the NHS and without stripping others of basic liberties like leaving your home.
    You've said that if there's no money left in the NHS budget, we should cut off treatment and let people die. And that this would save money.
    Are you familiar with NICE?

    The NHS has never had a limitless budget.
    I have often worked with NICE. NICE's approach is quite different from what you have often proposed. If you're rolling back on past statements and just think we should tweak the cost per QALY thresholds used by NICE, I'm glad to hear that.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431
    edited October 2022
    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    People's polling Lab 52% Con 20%

    https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1578342154833125376?t=efQ9pxfb6Zb8n3ufhcet1Q&s=19

    What would put off that 20% that agent Truss hasn't already tried 🤔

    The associated m ap is insane - confines Tories to Brexity Lincs, Greater Epping and Jaywick, and one or two pockets such as Bournemouth and ?Halesowen.

    https://twitter.com/Sharp2708/status/1578342765683179522/photo/1

    Edit: may be misreading - Reform and Con very similar colours.

    Edit: Foxy has posted the map, being more intelligent than I and able to post images on this.
    Looks more like S. Essex seats to me than Jaywick. Mark François looks safe; party leader?
  • 70% of people aren't voting Tory, goodness me
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    edited October 2022

    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    People's polling Lab 52% Con 20%

    https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1578342154833125376?t=efQ9pxfb6Zb8n3ufhcet1Q&s=19

    What would put off that 20% that agent Truss hasn't already tried 🤔

    The associated m ap is insane - confines Tories to Brexity Lincs, Greater Epping and Jaywick, and one or two pockets such as Bournemouth and ?Halesowen.

    https://twitter.com/Sharp2708/status/1578342765683179522/photo/1

    Edit: may be misreading - Reform and Con very similar colours.

    Edit: Foxy has posted the map, being more intelligent than I and able to post images on this.
    Looks more like S. Essex seats to me than Jaywick. Mark François looks safe; party leader?
    I can well believe you know better than me! Happy to be corrected.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    The excuse for not helping people save energy this winter is "People are smarter than you think"

    Unfortunately Liz Truss isn't...
  • Never mind style guides for old-style text formatting, what about one for displaying videos, which were filmed in portrait mode, on Twitter? Why the hell do people display these with ugly blurry bands either side, and not only ugly and blurry, but also spectacularly distracting from the central band of the actual content because they aren't static? They make the videos unwatchable. Presumably some eight-year old thought this was a cool idea, but that's no reason for anyone else to use this mode.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,286

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    LAB: 52% (+2)
    CON: 20% (=)
    LDM: 8% (-1)
    GRN: 7% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (=)
    RFM: 4% (+1)

    Via
    @PeoplePolling
    , 6 Oct.
    Changes w/ 29 Sep.

    Just like after Black Wednesday.

    That's worse than Black Wednesday. Conservatives never dropped to 20% in the 92-97 Parliament (I think they lowest they went to was around 23% in 1995)
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405

    70% of people aren't voting Tory, goodness me

    In 2005 65% didn't vote labour either. Didn't stop them winning 5 more years in power. We have rarely (and not for a long time) had a system where the ruling party achieved over 50% of the vote.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,661

    Ghedebrav said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Phil said:

    MaxPB said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    FPT:
    How it is done elsewhere:

    https://easymilano.com/when-can-we-switch-on-the-heating-in-italy/

    Given a sizeable number of people live in communal apartments, this is a pretty broad regulation defining the date central heating can be switched on, how many hours a day it can run and what it can be set to. It is split by zone, from a few Alpine locations where limitations are minimal, to the South where the heating is only allowed to come on 5 hours a day for a few weeks a year.

    Also note the article is from 2020 - Italy's approach this year has been to reset the regulations as 1 degree less on the the thermostat, one hour less per day, one week less on the start and end dates (broadly, I liked the idea and it is how I've set up my heating for winter)



    That seems sensible. A similar campaign here could mean no risk of blackouts. Liz Truss is an idiot.
    Liz Truss represents the end state of a weird subclass of libertarian thinking. An absolute belief that the state should not exercise any kind of control over individual citizens, not even the most minimal control of persuasive argument & influence, because to do so is to deny the liberty of individual citizens to do whatever they damn well please & take the consequences. When those consequences only affect them as individuals this is a perfectly workable moral system, but it fails utterly when collective action is required to stave off consequences that affect all of us.

    The weird thing here is that, perhaps surprisingly, in many cases all that is actually required is to explain the inevitable consequences and request co-operation & people are happy to comply, within the limits set by their individual circumstances. What could be more libertarian than that? Individuals know their personal circumstances & can do their best to act appropritely if they so choose, given the information that the goverment presents them with.

    In this case, to get through this winter without blackouts no one needs to go without heating or power: Some attention to necessity is all that’s required, as far as I can tell. Yet the government refuses to do anything at all. Madness.
    Yep, the line in her conf speech she delivered with the most relish and authenticity was this one -

    "I have no interest in looking over people's shoulder to see if they're buying 2 for 1 deals in the supermarket."

    Sounds a bit of a throwaway but it wasn't. It says a lot about the brain chemistry that has somehow wriggled into government.
    Yes, its good isn't it?

    The state should be doing that which it needs to do, and ideally doing it well. Do less, but do it better.

    The state doesn't need to be pissing about issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals etc
    It's good if you share the libertarian fringe mindset, yes.
    You think the state should be issuing decrees about 2 for 1 deals?

    What is wrong with the idea of do less, but do it better? Should our state really be the jack of all trades, master of none?
    The 2-for-1 thing is a staggeringly disingenuous way of putting it. Is controlling the sale of very unhealthy foods to (long run) save the country money and help people stay healthy less important that FrEeDoM oF cHoIcE then I dunno what to say. The logical conclusion of that strawmannish argument is to legalise everything because people aught to be able to make their own minds about whether or not they should smoke crack.

    The notion that the nanny state is stopping people doing things they enjoy is bollocks. Controlling harmful factors is a core responsibility of government.
    Libertarians get hugely upset about random things government does, while completely overlooking other things government does. There are huge numbers of rules around the preparation of food, food safety, hygiene in kitchens making food for public consumption, allowed ingredients in food, etc. etc. etc. All of which work very well, so libertarians happily munch away on shop-bought sandwiches without recognising the intrusions the state has made to make those sandwiches safe.
    This is a genuinely stupid argument and you should be ashamed. What you are saying, quite blatantly, is that because we have good and useful government regulation we should also accept all the bad, stupid and unnecessary regulation as well.

    There is a world of difference between stopping someone poisoning us and forcing us down a particular route that happens to suit the current health fad. Maybe you missed the fact that for decades Governments were complicit in pushing the line that the primary cause of obesity and ill health was fat when much of the evidence now is that it was refined and processed carbs.

    If the Government decided that alcohol was bad for us and so should be banned would you support that? Or would you consider it an infringement of your rights and a Nanny state. Because that is the natural progression of your argument. And if you forget it was tried once before and failed very badly.
    Obviously there are good and useful government regulations and there are bad, stupid and unnecessary government regulations. We want more of the former and fewer of the latter. This shouldn't need saying. 90% of people get that. However, there are a few hardcore libertarians, with well-thumbed copies of "Atlas Shrugged", who see all or any, or at least the vast majority, of government regulations to be in the bad category. In the past, such odd views were confined to Internet message boards, but unfortunately they now seem to have captured much of the Conservative Party, as they previously captured the Republican Party in the US.

    These libertarians rant and rail against many things. It seems helpful to remind them, on occasion, that actually many forms of government regulation are enormously successful. The modern state is not like it is as part of a conspiracy to restrict their rights: the modern state is like it is because it has evolved successful approaches over centuries.
    And yet I don't see a single example of that sort of American extremism on here. It certainly exists in some dark corners of British politics - I mentioned the extremist Propertarian movement on here the other day - but no one here on PB has advocated that sort of blanket approach. Advocating small government is not the same as advocating no government. So your original posting was, at best, misleading and was, in fact, designed to undermine any reasonable discussion about the proper limits of Government power and the Nanny State.
    I certainly do not wish to undermine reasonable discussion, nor suggest that those who support smaller government necessarily support more hardline libertarian positions. It appears we disagree on whether we've seen these more extreme positions put forth on vf.PB.com. For example, I note that Bart has explicitly said we should let old people die in the streets to reduce government spending. If that's not extreme, I don't know what is.
    Bullshit.

    I said we need to recognise there are limits to what we can do. We can't keep everyone alive forever, death is inevitable for everyone.

    I want us to help old people as much as we can and as smartly as we can with the resources available for the NHS and without stripping others of basic liberties like leaving your home.
    You've said that if there's no money left in the NHS budget, we should cut off treatment and let people die. And that this would save money.
    Are you familiar with NICE?

    The NHS has never had a limitless budget.
    I have often worked with NICE. NICE's approach is quite different from what you have often proposed. If you're rolling back on past statements and just think we should tweak the cost per QALY thresholds used by NICE, I'm glad to hear that.
    The other issue with the NICE approach is that it hinges very much on what is adjusted for in a QALY. A number of medications have fallen at that hurdle because of the threshold for whether a disability impacts the QALY. The devil is so often in the detail.

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    🔵 The Conservatives could lose all of their London seats at the next general election, a new poll has suggested
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/07/liz-truss-news-power-cuts-kwarteng-ni-protocol-prague/ https://twitter.com/TelePolitics/status/1578344325918121985/photo/1
  • Labour lead by 38% in the Red Wall, up from 15% two weeks ago.

    Red Wall Voting Intention (3-4 Oct.):

    Labour 61% (+12)
    Conservative 23% (-11)
    Reform UK 3% (-4)
    Liberal Democrat 7% (+2)
    Green 4% (–)
    Other 2% (+1)

    Changes +/- 19-20 Sept.

    The Red Wall now as as strong for Labour as it's been since 2005 I think
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