It’s quite unfair to say Labour don’t have any firm, simple, concrete policies when they have an admirably direct and lucid policy on immigration and asylum: Let Them All In
Prison works: Michael Howard, 1993
Rwanda works: Nobody ever.
The tories don't have policies either, they have Potemkin policies. Rwanda doesn't work for at least two reasons:
1. it would have to be inevitable. If people are having a fucked up time they will run risks if they think there is a reasonable chance of getting away with it. To catch everyone without exception you need to jack up our sea defences to WW2 levels. Cost of billions.
2. Rwanda won't play ball anyway. They will only take a few of the nicer ones. For the few that get there, investigative journalists will be all over them to learn what a shit time they are having. SSA is seriously shit except for locals with huge family support networks, or whiteys with money. You will get court cases and injunctions stopping it. Unless you repeal/resile from all the Human Rights stuff. Can be done, but at a huge cost of political capital and with nailed on bleeding heart Tory rebellions at all stages.
You have got 2 years to do all that. Can't be done.
Contrarily, I could never work up particular upset about it in the first place. The motivation was suspect, but it just didn't strike me as a big deal, and I was surprised at the strength of feeling.
"Fun Galaxy, a former child’s soft play area that was turned into a Covid-19 testing centre during the pandemic, was contracted as an emergency accommodation centre for more than 200 asylum-seekers last August."
If you had read that in the 90s in a dystopian scifi novel set in 2022 you would have been impressed by the economy of the writer's world building.
Big potential story this - Wendy Morton - Truss's Chief Whip has submitted a complaint about Gavin Williamson - who is back in the cabinet - sending her threatening messages.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I worked for one company, where they setup a new development location in a different country to the original. Because the development function they had *refused* to update the system in various ways. These weren't stupid requests - just that the developers felt they owned the platform and didn't want to listen. Stuff like low impact initial sign up. We implemented that in a couple of months, had customer conversion going through he roof....
Edit is a deeply complicated business requirements/UX problem, not a technical problem.
I think Washi is a misreading, this is sticking it to the right when he didn't have to cos it was a mad nad policy.
see also the COP27 turnaround. He could have said he was going because the whales and my daughters' future blah blah, instead he based it on prosperity and energy security, which are the grounds on which the right are against it.
Contrarily, I could never work up particular upset about it in the first place. The motivation was suspect, but it just didn't strike me as a big deal, and I was surprised at the strength of feeling.
My main objection is that I don't trust the Government or the civil service to manage any change of ownership in a way that enhances the public good. Therefore things are best left alone. Filmfour does a great deal for the British Film Industry - it virtually is the British Film Industry as far as I can see. And Channel 4 washes it's face commercially. When we're in a hurry to get rid of parts of the state that actually work and make money, I get suspicious.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Works for politics too. But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.
Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that.
But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.
At this point, I normally get asked something like:
"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"
And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.
Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.
I think Washi is a misreading, this is sticking it to the right when he didn't have to cos it was a mad nad policy.
see also the COP27 turnaround. He could have said he was going because the whales and my daughters' future blah blah, instead he based it on prosperity and energy security, which are the grounds on which the right are against it.
Evidently you're still labouring under the misapprehension that he's actually good, which is quaint, but I doubt that the policy originated with Dorries, and there was never any demand for it from the right of the Tory party.
Big potential story this - Wendy Morton - Truss's Chief Whip has submitted a complaint about Gavin Williamson - who is back in the cabinet - sending her threatening messages.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I worked for one company, where they setup a new development location in a different country to the original. Because the development function they had *refused* to update the system in various ways. These weren't stupid requests - just that the developers felt they owned the platform and didn't want to listen. Stuff like low impact initial sign up. We implemented that in a couple of months, had customer conversion going through he roof....
Edit is a deeply complicated business requirements/UX problem, not a technical problem.
Yes, an awful lot of time talking about exactly what will be done, and very little time for the developers to actually make the changes.
Works for politics too. But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.
Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that.
But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.
At this point, I normally get asked something like:
"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"
And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.
Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.
I think Washi is a misreading, this is sticking it to the right when he didn't have to cos it was a mad nad policy.
see also the COP27 turnaround. He could have said he was going because the whales and my daughters' future blah blah, instead he based it on prosperity and energy security, which are the grounds on which the right are against it.
Evidently you're still labouring under the misapprehension that he's actually good, which is quaint, but I doubt that the policy originated with Dorries, and there was never any demand for it from the right of the Tory party.
Don't talk to me like that. I have used smarter things than you to bait fishhooks with.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
The conservatives do have an incredible ability to hypnotise the voters.
“Look, we’ve utterly messed up our asylum system just like we messed up health, education and policing. We are outraged at this and so should you be. It’s all Labour’s fault”. And it works.
They’ll do the same on the economy: “we f*cked up big time and left you poorer and more insecure. So you’d better vote for us because Labour won’t transform the economy for the better overnight”.
Labour could avoid this by having some policies.
You constantly repeat this mantra about Labour having no policies. Actually, Labour has lots of policies. What it hasn't done yet is digest them down into soundbites on which to base an election campaign, and I don't blame them at this stage in the cycle. Bur policy-making is developing rapidly. If you were genuinely interested (though I suspect you're not) in current Labour thinking, you could wade through all the sections here:
It's far too many words, but it's the thinking that lies behind the policy offer that Labour will come up with in 2024. They'll end up with something akin to the Blair pledge card, no doubt.
I'm not interested in "wading through" "far too many words" on a website, I'm interested in knowing what the policies are.
Without the "soundbites", the polcies might as well not exist to the vast majority of voters.
We do need soundbites, and concise presentation of intentions is important, but we would all be a bit better off and less angry if we made more of an effort to be interested in these matters (if not to the level of PB anoraks).
If people only engage superficially with politics of course politicians are rewarded by developing only superficial skills and ideas. And possibly even mean the obsessed cranks of parties were not the ones who were able to drive policies, by virtue of being the only ones interested.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
It's laughable really, all these gay men turning up with their, err, wives joining them a few months later. It's a really simple issue to solve, declare Albania a safe country and stick them on easyjet flights back to Albania. Just keep doing it for a few months and eventually they'll give up.
To really put them off, it should be Ryanair
Wizzair
Haven't used Wizzair for a while, they were perfectly fine about 10 years ago, have they got worse?
I used Ryanair for the first time earlier this year, they were nowhere near as bad as their reputation.
They use the smallest seating spacing I have ever seen. A friend I was travelling with thought, because he is 5' 9" he would be fine. He barely fitted into the seat. I had paid extra for an emergency exit seat. Otherwise it would have been 2 hours with my knees solidly rammed into the seat in front.
We are insane. If this continues all the young men in Albania will move to the UK - illegally
From that BBC report
“Laknas lies on the flight path from Albania to France. Passenger jets zoom over the still and empty town: over its small mosque framed by half-built blocks and shuttered houses; over its deserted café.
Shopkeepers gather in the quiet road to complain that their business is unviable. A pair of cows mumble away at the grass by the still main road.
"They're all I have left," their owner says. "My children have gone to England."
Residents here say 70% of the local population has already left for the UK. And the departures haven't stopped.”
We are insane.
The primary objective of almost any senior professional you care to mention in law, the media, the civil service or politics is to loudly signal their compassion about refugees to each other out of social anxiety about themselves and a fear of appearing BNP-like.
This trumps everything.
It's how Wokery has real world effects.
Indeed
It is however notable that this is the BBC reporting that parts of Albania are “depopulating” as everyone moves to the UK illegally
That article could have appeared, word for word, in the Daily Mail. It reads like a Daily Mail piece
Suggests a turning point has been reached?
I was struck by how useful to the government a top line story about Albanian criminal gangs was right now. No conpiracy about that, but interesting.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
It will be absolutely hilarious if Twitter falls over this weekend & Musk discovers that its impossible to get it back up again because he’s sacked all the employees who actually know how the backend parts all fit together.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I seem to remember PB lacking an Edit facility for way longer than 2 years.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I worked for one company, where they setup a new development location in a different country to the original. Because the development function they had *refused* to update the system in various ways. These weren't stupid requests - just that the developers felt they owned the platform and didn't want to listen. Stuff like low impact initial sign up. We implemented that in a couple of months, had customer conversion going through he roof....
The amazing thing is that Twitter had 7,500 employees in the first place.
The base application can’t need more than a couple of dozen developers to maintain, with a few dozen more keeping database and infrastructure working. You’ll need a couple of product managers, sales, accounts and regulatory people in each major country of operation, and your usual regional and head office structures. A couple of thousand absolute tops, could probably be done with 750 rather than 7,500.
The real ‘work’ of content moderation, is almost all either automated or outsourced.
The core of an alt-bank I worked for, which is far more complex, was around 500 employees. By core, I mean development, legal etc. For that you got an actual bank with website, app, cards etc.
Obviously sales, customer support and some other things need to scale with the operation.
The conservatives do have an incredible ability to hypnotise the voters.
“Look, we’ve utterly messed up our asylum system just like we messed up health, education and policing. We are outraged at this and so should you be. It’s all Labour’s fault”. And it works.
They’ll do the same on the economy: “we f*cked up big time and left you poorer and more insecure. So you’d better vote for us because Labour won’t transform the economy for the better overnight”.
Labour could avoid this by having some policies.
You constantly repeat this mantra about Labour having no policies. Actually, Labour has lots of policies. What it hasn't done yet is digest them down into soundbites on which to base an election campaign, and I don't blame them at this stage in the cycle. Bur policy-making is developing rapidly. If you were genuinely interested (though I suspect you're not) in current Labour thinking, you could wade through all the sections here:
It's far too many words, but it's the thinking that lies behind the policy offer that Labour will come up with in 2024. They'll end up with something akin to the Blair pledge card, no doubt.
I'm not interested in "wading through" "far too many words" on a website, I'm interested in knowing what the policies are.
Without the "soundbites", the polcies might as well not exist to the vast majority of voters.
We do need soundbites, and concise presentation of intentions is important, but we would all be a bit better off and less angry if we made more of an effort to be interested in these matters (if not to the level of PB anoraks).
If people only engage superficially with politics of course politicians are rewarded by developing only superficial skills and ideas. And possibly even mean the obsessed cranks of parties were not the ones who were able to drive policies, by virtue of being the only ones interested.
As may be. The point is that I'm at least in the 90th percentile of the voting population for interst in politics (evidence: I read PB), even if I'm in the 10th percentile amongst PB contributors. If the soundbites are developed well, they will drive interest in the policies behind them.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
It is a good question why rough sleepers are not offered hotel accomodation.
Because the hotels and hostels all have a strict no-drugs policy. Homelessness, in the more traditional sense rather than of recent arrivals, is really complicated.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I seem to remember PB lacking an Edit facility for way longer than 2 years.
PB doesn't have 7500 employees, and doesn't run its own comment system...
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I seem to remember PB lacking an Edit facility for way longer than 2 years.
Yes - though PB didn't have hundreds of developers.....
Contrarily, I could never work up particular upset about it in the first place. The motivation was suspect, but it just didn't strike me as a big deal, and I was surprised at the strength of feeling.
Ch4 means a lot to some people. Inc me, I'd say. Esp the News. That hour from 7pm each evening with KGM, Matt Frei, Gary Gibbon, Cathy Newman and Co is part of my day and I'd miss it if it went or lost its unique character.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I worked for one company, where they setup a new development location in a different country to the original. Because the development function they had *refused* to update the system in various ways. These weren't stupid requests - just that the developers felt they owned the platform and didn't want to listen. Stuff like low impact initial sign up. We implemented that in a couple of months, had customer conversion going through he roof....
Edit is a deeply complicated business requirements/UX problem, not a technical problem.
We are insane. If this continues all the young men in Albania will move to the UK - illegally
From that BBC report
“Laknas lies on the flight path from Albania to France. Passenger jets zoom over the still and empty town: over its small mosque framed by half-built blocks and shuttered houses; over its deserted café.
Shopkeepers gather in the quiet road to complain that their business is unviable. A pair of cows mumble away at the grass by the still main road.
"They're all I have left," their owner says. "My children have gone to England."
Residents here say 70% of the local population has already left for the UK. And the departures haven't stopped.”
We are insane.
The primary objective of almost any senior professional you care to mention in law, the media, the civil service or politics is to loudly signal their compassion about refugees to each other out of social anxiety about themselves and a fear of appearing BNP-like.
This trumps everything.
It's how Wokery has real world effects.
Indeed
It is however notable that this is the BBC reporting that parts of Albania are “depopulating” as everyone moves to the UK illegally
That article could have appeared, word for word, in the Daily Mail. It reads like a Daily Mail piece
Suggests a turning point has been reached?
I was struck by how useful to the government a top line story about Albanian criminal gangs was right now. No conpiracy about that, but interesting.
Albania depopulating. So cheap houses, next door to Montenegro, EU membership incoming.
I think Washi is a misreading, this is sticking it to the right when he didn't have to cos it was a mad nad policy.
see also the COP27 turnaround. He could have said he was going because the whales and my daughters' future blah blah, instead he based it on prosperity and energy security, which are the grounds on which the right are against it.
Evidently you're still labouring under the misapprehension that he's actually good, which is quaint, but I doubt that the policy originated with Dorries, and there was never any demand for it from the right of the Tory party.
Don't talk to me like that. I have used smarter things than you to bait fishhooks with.
It was owned by Dorries. Dorries is of the right.
It was introduced by Dorries. It has no hinterland or groundswell of opinion on the right that would in any way make its cancellation a slap to that wing. I'm in a grumpy mood today, and I'll be as rude to you as I damn well like. I couldn't give even the tiniest of shits what you think about how clever I am.
As I understand it the Albanians are mainly here to work in the NHS?
“Bedford in August. A car drifts in, brakes locked & 2 men jump out. In the melee, gun shots are fired, people are sporting machetes & knives. A car is used as a weapon to injure & flee.
Apparently it's Albanians fighting Travellers for control of the local drug trade.”
I have been unable to log into Twitter on my computer for years now, it won’t accept any password I have - even though that password works fine on my phone.
I haven’t really missed it much - not least because its entire output is retweeted on PB by our beloved Tweet Triplets, Sean, Scott and Carlotta.
We are insane. If this continues all the young men in Albania will move to the UK - illegally
From that BBC report
“Laknas lies on the flight path from Albania to France. Passenger jets zoom over the still and empty town: over its small mosque framed by half-built blocks and shuttered houses; over its deserted café.
Shopkeepers gather in the quiet road to complain that their business is unviable. A pair of cows mumble away at the grass by the still main road.
"They're all I have left," their owner says. "My children have gone to England."
Residents here say 70% of the local population has already left for the UK. And the departures haven't stopped.”
We are insane.
The primary objective of almost any senior professional you care to mention in law, the media, the civil service or politics is to loudly signal their compassion about refugees to each other out of social anxiety about themselves and a fear of appearing BNP-like.
This trumps everything.
It's how Wokery has real world effects.
Indeed
It is however notable that this is the BBC reporting that parts of Albania are “depopulating” as everyone moves to the UK illegally
That article could have appeared, word for word, in the Daily Mail. It reads like a Daily Mail piece
Suggests a turning point has been reached?
I was struck by how useful to the government a top line story about Albanian criminal gangs was right now. No conpiracy about that, but interesting.
Absolutely, and I had had the same thought as you. In political terms, the last thing that the Government wants is for the flow of migrants from Albania to ease over the next two years. It's almost as if they are prepared to deliberately cock things up in order to distract attention from rising mortgage rates, escalating energy bills, public spending cuts and rising taxes in response to a fiscal crisis.
As I understand it the Albanians are mainly here to work in the NHS?
“Bedford in August. A car drifts in, brakes locked & 2 men jump out. In the melee, gun shots are fired, people are sporting machetes & knives. A car is used as a weapon to injure & flee.
Apparently it's Albanians fighting Travellers for control of the local drug trade.”
As I understand it the Albanians are mainly here to work in the NHS?
“Bedford in August. A car drifts in, brakes locked & 2 men jump out. In the melee, gun shots are fired, people are sporting machetes & knives. A car is used as a weapon to injure & flee.
Apparently it's Albanians fighting Travellers for control of the local drug trade.”
If they were doing a piece on Albanian gangs they should have reissued my favourite Guardian article from a few years ago, which I've linked to before, which seems to unintentionally praise the business savvy, skill and customer focus of the cocaine smugglers, who are (or were at time of the article) dominated by Albanians. Lot of talk about increasing quality whilst reducing costs to the consumer, creating good partnerships etc.
We are insane. If this continues all the young men in Albania will move to the UK - illegally
From that BBC report
“Laknas lies on the flight path from Albania to France. Passenger jets zoom over the still and empty town: over its small mosque framed by half-built blocks and shuttered houses; over its deserted café.
Shopkeepers gather in the quiet road to complain that their business is unviable. A pair of cows mumble away at the grass by the still main road.
"They're all I have left," their owner says. "My children have gone to England."
Residents here say 70% of the local population has already left for the UK. And the departures haven't stopped.”
We are insane.
The primary objective of almost any senior professional you care to mention in law, the media, the civil service or politics is to loudly signal their compassion about refugees to each other out of social anxiety about themselves and a fear of appearing BNP-like.
This trumps everything.
It's how Wokery has real world effects.
Indeed
It is however notable that this is the BBC reporting that parts of Albania are “depopulating” as everyone moves to the UK illegally
That article could have appeared, word for word, in the Daily Mail. It reads like a Daily Mail piece
Suggests a turning point has been reached?
I was struck by how useful to the government a top line story about Albanian criminal gangs was right now. No conpiracy about that, but interesting.
Absolutely, and I had had the same thought as you. In political terms, the last thing that the Government wants is for the flow of migrants from Albania to ease over the next two years. It's almost as if they are prepared to deliberately cock things up in order to distract attention from rising mortgage rates, escalating energy bills, public spending cuts and rising taxes in response to a fiscal crisis.
You think the Tories have deliberately created a massive migration crisis in the Channel - a crisis which threatens to reanimate Nigel Farage and thus condemn the Tories to horrible defeat - so as to distract from public spending cuts? That’s your theory?
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
There was an interesting contribution to the Adrian Chiles program yesterday. A woman who was employed to support victims of modern slavery explained how it worked. If someone from Albania has got their ride on credit they are "enslaved" until they pay that debt back because they have to account to the person providing the credit. These people seem to have more effective remedies than those provided by the civil courts and they are at risk.
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I worked for one company, where they setup a new development location in a different country to the original. Because the development function they had *refused* to update the system in various ways. These weren't stupid requests - just that the developers felt they owned the platform and didn't want to listen. Stuff like low impact initial sign up. We implemented that in a couple of months, had customer conversion going through he roof....
Edit is a deeply complicated business requirements/UX problem, not a technical problem.
Ah, they went terminal "bike-shedding"?
Either way, their development process is fucked.
There was a suggestion that a bunch of Tesla software devs turned up with Musk last week, to start the long process of reviewing code. Presumably “The Algorithm” and “AI” stuff, rather than the basic web and mobile apps.
There was an interesting contribution to the Adrian Chiles program yesterday. A woman who was employed to support victims of modern slavery explained how it worked. If someone from Albania has got their ride on credit they are "enslaved" until they pay that debt back because they have to account to the person providing the credit. These people seem to have more effective remedies than those provided by the civil courts and they are at risk.
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
That was exactly my guess earlier in this thread! (Without seeing the Chiles program)
I pieced together the clues: debt bondage, gangs = modern slavery. It’s win win for the Albanians and lose/lose for the UK
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
There was an interesting contribution to the Adrian Chiles program yesterday. A woman who was employed to support victims of modern slavery explained how it worked. If someone from Albania has got their ride on credit they are "enslaved" until they pay that debt back because they have to account to the person providing the credit. These people seem to have more effective remedies than those provided by the civil courts and they are at risk.
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
All trivially sorted by the Home Secretary, if any of them ever wished to actually tackle the problem rather than highlight the problem for political gain.
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’ 🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing 🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate 🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’ 🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty 🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
I’m sure @foxy and @roger told us that most of the shivering Albanians are poor enslaved women?
Oh
“The BBC has heard evidence that Albanian drug gangs are using the migrant camps of northern France as a recruitment ground, offering to pay the passage of those prepared to work in the UK drugs industry on arrival . Albanians account for around a third of the almost 40,000 people who have arrived in small boats so far this year, according to UK government figures.
The UK government says 12,000 Albanians have arrived by small boat this year, almost all of them young men travelling alone.
He estimates that a majority of the young men he met in the Dunkirk camp planned to work in the Albanian cannabis and cocaine networks in the UK.”
What happens when a society has an insatiable desire for narcotics and insists on making them illegal.
And so somehow it’s our fault, yet again
Is there a single issue where left wing people instinctively side with Britain and the British people, rather than Anyone Else?
You guys are contemptible and I hope you contrive to lose the next election despite being 20 points ahead of a clown troupe. Ugh
It's attitudes like this - the pomposity, the arrogant dismissal of ordinary people's concerns, the contempt, and the self-servingness - that were a big contribution to the Brexit vote.
If people don't get answers to their concerns they will stick it to those sneer they shouldnt have them in the first place.
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’ 🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing 🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate 🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’ 🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty 🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Its quite hard to tell whether this stuff is government incompetence, or Braverman deliberately stoking the flames. The former seems more likely, but the latter, or a combination of the two things, is far from impossible.
More evidence (other than a knowledge of Braverman's past history) for the former. https://freemovement.org.uk/understanding-the-home-offices-problem-with-asylum-decisions/ ...There has been less of a focus on why the backlog is as large as it now is. There are always going to be outstanding cases, otherwise all decisions would be made immediately. But an efficient asylum system would make around the same number of decisions as there are new applications coming in.
Since 2015 the gap between those two figures has grown and it continues to widen as the number of decisions fail to keep up with the number of applications. Indeed, as the backlog has grown the overall number of decisions being made has fallen...
Less than a mile away from the North Staffordshire hotel is Etruria, where I lived for a while. It’s the ward with one of the highest concentrations of asylum seekers in the country, according to a newsnight analysis just after the brexit referendum.
Cheap housing.
This is the highly convenient mechanism used by the tories to keep asylum seekers away from the Tory safe seats. They’re getting “value for money” for the taxpayer.
Newsnight contrasted it with the ward where Theresa May lives - which had one of the lowest concentrations of asylum seekers, in the whole country.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
This is a seriously dated account of British food. Any four star hotel or above (and many 3 stars) will offer good and sometimes excellent dinners
Two stars and below generally won’t have restaurants doing dinner
Let us criticise the things we get wrong. Not the good things. UK food is vastly improved. Unrecognisable
I think some were asking how to beat 10% inflation with their savings the other day.
One answer: back a Republican Majority in the House of Representatives at 1.1 on Betfair. You get a 10% return on your cash (less a bit of commission) in just a few working days.
They only need six gains to take the House over the 2020 elections (they even advanced when all the Dems turned out for Biden in the presidential) and all the polls are pointing to a clear win, and maybe even a blowout. It's probably a 90%+ chance (not 100%, so DYOR) but nothing is really a 100% chance - not even an cash ISA.
I've stuck a grand on because the profit will pay for a nice family meal out we'd otherwise not have. Obviously, don't put your whole life savings in it. Be sensible. But this is as clear as it gets.
Except not all the polls are pointing to a clear win. Just looking at the latest polls on 538 I see several Democrat leads - the very latest poll on there is D +7
Sure Republicans are fairly strong favorites, but 1.1 doesn't seem like much value. It would only take an average polling error of less than 2% in the right ditection to see Democrats hold on in the house.
There's got to be over 50% chance of a polling error at least that big. Even if you think any polling error is 80% likely to be the other way, 1.1 still doesn't look like great value.
The latest Ipsos has D +1 Latest YouGov is Even Latest Morning Consult D+5
Some of these aren't Likely Voter polls, where Dems tend to do worse (eg latest Morning Consult Likely Voter poll is Even).
But not "all the polls" are pointing to a clear Republican win.
NB all figures taken from 538 listing, haven't double checked.
OK, so those are generic ballot polls - and aren't focused on the races in the swing districts or the likely voters - so I'm not too worried about those.
The 538 seat by seat forecast has 215 seats as solid or very likely for the Republicans, and they only need three more to win, with a further 11 leaning their way and 18 tossups.
90 times in 100 that will result in a Republican win.
It's the Senate I'm not confident about, not the House.
Yes, they are generic polls - which polls were you referring to when you mentioned "all the polls are pointing to a clear Republican win"?
No, some of those polls are Likely Voter polls - eg, the Big Village D+7 and YouGov Even are LV polls.
538 has 199 "Solid" R, and 16 "Likely R" - not "very likely". And 5 "Lean R", not 11, and 11 "Toss-up" not 18.
The 538 forecast ranges from 15% chance of Dems retaining House (Deluxe Model), to 16% (Classic Model), to 24% (Lite Model -polls only), so no 90% chance of a Republican win with their forecasts, at the moment.
Of course, you'll probably win your bet (as with most 1.1 bets), and I'd really like to wish you luck - but I'm hoping for a surprise Democrat win
Likely is a greater than 75% chance so it is very likely. Their forecast shows a republican win as an 85% chance - taking a seat by seat basis when they run the model - and given how Republican polling has firmed up in the last week (excepting those strange outliers) the momentum is in one direction and points to a >90% chance.
It's almost inconceivable they'll go backwards given they advanced in Nov 2022 and need only 6 x more seats to take the House.
You are letting your heart rule your head. But if you disagree there's fantastic value for you in backing the 200-209 seat and 210-219 republican seat bands on Betfair.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
There's a really great greasy spoon near us, who do an excellent fry up. It's run by Albanians.
Works for politics too. But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.
Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that.
But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.
At this point, I normally get asked something like:
"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"
And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.
Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.
Truss Thermocline?
The Truss Thermocline is why Sunak and Hunt are searching for ways to plug a hole the markets did not care about until the SFO.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
London teenagers don’t vote. Older people in brexitland and southern England DO
Farage could ride this story to a place where he exerts political power, once again
I don’t understand why most people actively use Twitter. I get that it is an engagement tool for people and orgs in the public eye, but why does anyone with fewer than, and unlikely to reach, at least 10k followers even bother having an account? I can’t think of anything it does for the average Joe that other platforms don’t do better.
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’ 🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing 🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate 🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’ 🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty 🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
I’m sure @foxy and @roger told us that most of the shivering Albanians are poor enslaved women?
Oh
“The BBC has heard evidence that Albanian drug gangs are using the migrant camps of northern France as a recruitment ground, offering to pay the passage of those prepared to work in the UK drugs industry on arrival . Albanians account for around a third of the almost 40,000 people who have arrived in small boats so far this year, according to UK government figures.
The UK government says 12,000 Albanians have arrived by small boat this year, almost all of them young men travelling alone.
He estimates that a majority of the young men he met in the Dunkirk camp planned to work in the Albanian cannabis and cocaine networks in the UK.”
What happens when a society has an insatiable desire for narcotics and insists on making them illegal.
And so somehow it’s our fault, yet again
Is there a single issue where left wing people instinctively side with Britain and the British people, rather than Anyone Else?
You guys are contemptible and I hope you contrive to lose the next election despite being 20 points ahead of a clown troupe. Ugh
It's attitudes like this - the pomposity, the arrogant dismissal of ordinary people's concerns, the contempt, and the self-servingness - that were a big contribution to the Brexit vote.
If people don't get answers to their concerns they will stick it to those sneer they shouldnt have them in the first place.
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’ 🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing 🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate 🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’ 🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty 🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
They do say history repeats itself, but to have the exact same Tweet quoted as post six in a thread kick-started by posting of that Tweet is quite something
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Works for politics too. But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.
Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that.
But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.
At this point, I normally get asked something like:
"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"
And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.
Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.
Truss Thermocline?
The Truss Thermocline is why Sunak and Hunt are searching for ways to plug a hole the markets did not care about until the SFO.
No it isn't. He was advocating the same approach in his first leadership campaign. 'The markets' are providing convenient mood music.
Not sure cancelling the new Sizewell power station is a good idea.
Won't happen.
The power station, or the cancellation of it?
If it’s to be cancelled, then at least announcing what will replace it at the same time, might be seen as good politics at a time of record high energy bills!
Cancellation. Just the Treasury chestbeating.
There are leaks to the media day-by-day at the moment as they look at all potential tax and spending options.
Everything will need to be "reviewed" as part of a top to bottom exercise but this won't go anywhere. Sunak and Macron shook hands on it only 7 days ago.
Oh, I completely agree that there needs to be a zero-based spending review over the winter, with absolutely everything on the table - but it needs to be done in a coherent manner, finishing with a single announcement before the start of the financial year.
Dripping negative spending stories out one at a time, won’t do much for the government’s popularity. Do it all at once, to avoid every single-issue pressure group having their own day in the sun.
It will also damage investment.
Sizewell C relies on private sector investment and the government had already made the commitment.
This raises huge questions about the UK's reliability and consistency.
The real question is what the government will replace it with, we still have a huge energy deficit in 10 years time, cancelling Sizewell C may be a good decision because the EPR is clearly not good enough, bit we still need reliable energy to replace the existing nuclear reactors that will be decommissioned by then. I'd like to see a firm commitment to the modular reactors from RR and wind+storage. By firm commitment, I mean £8-10bn in state investment and another £20-30bn from the private sector. Cutting spending on future energy generation seems like an incredibly poor idea.
Successive governments back to Blair/Brown have shat on new nuclear with their prevaricating bullshit for over 20 years. This is why.
Sizewell C is ready to go and can build directly on the lessons learned from Hinkley Point C - it is a carbon copy.
There are 27 years left to achieve Net Zero and this plant decarbonises 7% of the grid.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
Not sure that teenagers in London are really his target audience.
The elderly in Kent, struggling to heat their homes this winter, on the other hand…
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’ 🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing 🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate 🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’ 🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty 🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
I’m sure @foxy and @roger told us that most of the shivering Albanians are poor enslaved women?
Oh
“The BBC has heard evidence that Albanian drug gangs are using the migrant camps of northern France as a recruitment ground, offering to pay the passage of those prepared to work in the UK drugs industry on arrival . Albanians account for around a third of the almost 40,000 people who have arrived in small boats so far this year, according to UK government figures.
The UK government says 12,000 Albanians have arrived by small boat this year, almost all of them young men travelling alone.
He estimates that a majority of the young men he met in the Dunkirk camp planned to work in the Albanian cannabis and cocaine networks in the UK.”
What happens when a society has an insatiable desire for narcotics and insists on making them illegal.
And so somehow it’s our fault, yet again
Is there a single issue where left wing people instinctively side with Britain and the British people, rather than Anyone Else?
You guys are contemptible and I hope you contrive to lose the next election despite being 20 points ahead of a clown troupe. Ugh
It's attitudes like this - the pomposity, the arrogant dismissal of ordinary people's concerns, the contempt, and the self-servingness - that were a big contribution to the Brexit vote.
If people don't get answers to their concerns they will stick it to those sneer they shouldnt have them in the first place.
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’ 🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing 🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate 🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’ 🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty 🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
They do say history repeats itself, but to have the exact same Tweet quoted as post six in a thread kick-starte by posting of that Tweet is quite something
To be fair it does seem the optimal platform to see posters move down the line from tweeters to twits to twats.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
There's a really great greasy spoon near us, who do an excellent fry up. It's run by Albanians.
Many of them are "rangy carpenters" according to Leon. In which case I fail to see much of a problem.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
I have a theory about the return of the English Breakfast.
Many of the cafes were taken over by immigrants, who didn't realise that they were supposed to used Walls sausages, bacon entirely made of fat, and coffee that was instant, boiled slowly over days.
Instead they started using proper ingredients.
A local one is run by a very, very Italian chap* - magnificent. Across the road is an old style one, run by an original British couple (both ancient). The British one (entirely filled by construction workers, and other working class) provides fairly inedible food. The Italian one - wealthier people and the food is magnificent.
*He seems to be a supporter of the er... more interesting Italian parties, though.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
London teenagers don’t vote. Older people in brexitland and southern England DO
Farage could ride this story to a place where he exerts political power, once again
He's always exerted political power. Personally I'd quite like Farage to surplant the Tories. At least you know what you're getting with him, and the Tories steal all his policies anyway. I'd like to see him trying to actually fix something instead of standing at the sidelines spouting populist crap.
A pundit on MSNBC warns America could be just "six days away" from the end of democracy and the start of a Republican dictatorship in which children could be "arrested and conceivably killed" by the government.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
I have a theory about the return of the English Breakfast.
Many of the cafes were taken over by immigrants, who didn't realise that they were supposed to used Walls sausages, bacon entirely made of fat, and coffee that was instant, boiled slowly over days.
Instead they started using proper ingredients.
A local one is run by a very, very Italian chap* - magnificent. Across the road is an old style one, run by an original British couple (both ancient). The British one (entirely filled by construction workers, and other working class) provides fairly inedible food. The Italian one - wealthier people and the food is magnificent.
*He seems to be a supporter of the er... more interesting Italian parties, though.
There's a place for quality in cafes, but those better ingredients cost a lot more, and a business that desires to be profitable will therefore charge a lot more. It seems like both ends of the market are bekng catered for where you are, which is great.
There was an interesting contribution to the Adrian Chiles program yesterday. A woman who was employed to support victims of modern slavery explained how it worked. If someone from Albania has got their ride on credit they are "enslaved" until they pay that debt back because they have to account to the person providing the credit. These people seem to have more effective remedies than those provided by the civil courts and they are at risk.
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
All trivially sorted by the Home Secretary, if any of them ever wished to actually tackle the problem rather than highlight the problem for political gain.
It could only be "trivially sorted" if the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was repealed. That Act was introduced by a HS, Mrs May no less, and she claims it was her greatest contribution. The Act focused much more on those doing the trafficking than those who were being trafficked and the implications of the assessment process do not seem to have been thought through.
These are difficult problems. How do we differentiate between far eastern women locked in cages and used for sex and young Albanian men forced to work on Cannabis farms or, for that matter, also used for sex? As with asylum we would be dismayed as to how many of these victims actually qualify under the rights we have given them.
On topic, 538 now have the Republicans at 85% to win the House, and 55% to win the Senate.
So, there's no real value in current betting.
The fundamentals all point to a big Republican win, mitigated somewhat by (a) Dobbs, and (b) the fact the Republicans are starting from a high base. They very nearly won both House and Senate in 2020.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
This is a seriously dated account of British food. Any four star hotel or above (and many 3 stars) will offer good and sometimes excellent dinners
Two stars and below generally won’t have restaurants doing dinner
Let us criticise the things we get wrong. Not the good things. UK food is vastly improved. Unrecognisable
Not in the culinary hinterland that is South Wales. Mind you, I have been served dishes that are "unrecognisable" across the UK.
You may exclusively eat at Simpsons, and Wheeler's of St James, and the quality may be first class. Mere mortals having the temerity to only spend £25 to £50 per head are still invariably served s****.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
There's a really great greasy spoon near us, who do an excellent fry up. It's run by Albanians.
Many of them are "rangy carpenters" according to Leon. In which case I fail to see much of a problem.
Our work is informing clients not to trust any blue tick verified Twitter accounts going forward and use alternative social media platforms that are verified.
For a few dollars a week I could set up an ‘American Express Card Customer Services’ Blue Tick Twitter account and get people to give me their card details.
Correct. Musk has decided that the most toxic fringe view of the blue tick "Status" is the main purpose when everyone else knows that the purpose is "Verifying the Account is who they say it is"
As Musk rolls out the new "Pay to get a tick" approach it will be fucking anarchy.
Musk n Zuck giving each other object lessons in how to destroy capital.
Just deleted my Twitter App, it felt like the right thing to do. Which other App do PBers suggest?
I'm gonna wait and see how he gets on. Elon Musk is full of shit, just because he says he's going to do something doesn't mean he is. Tesla and SpaceX managed to do some big, important things, so I'd keep an open mind. Firing half the employees overnight doesn't sound like a *great* idea, but it's hard to be sure without knowing more about the company or what he's got in mind for it.
That it took 2 years for Twitter to get an Edit button to production suggests that their back end is crap and/or their development function is simply out of control.
I worked for one company, where they setup a new development location in a different country to the original. Because the development function they had *refused* to update the system in various ways. These weren't stupid requests - just that the developers felt they owned the platform and didn't want to listen. Stuff like low impact initial sign up. We implemented that in a couple of months, had customer conversion going through he roof....
Edit is a deeply complicated business requirements/UX problem, not a technical problem.
Ah, they went terminal "bike-shedding"?
Either way, their development process is fucked.
There was a suggestion that a bunch of Tesla software devs turned up with Musk last week, to start the long process of reviewing code. Presumably “The Algorithm” and “AI” stuff, rather than the basic web and mobile apps.
If they have too many people working on it, the code will be a dumpster fire.
SpaceX turned the space industry upside down - their QA process had people at NASA and Boeing going WTF? Apparently, complete testing of any source code change - including a run on flight hardware - wasn't an industry standard. At least, before SpaceX.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
Ah the "talk" where you point out various things in this world that are very harmful, thus to be avoided, but that you trust them to make their own mind up. Excellent parenting.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
This is a seriously dated account of British food. Any four star hotel or above (and many 3 stars) will offer good and sometimes excellent dinners
Two stars and below generally won’t have restaurants doing dinner
Let us criticise the things we get wrong. Not the good things. UK food is vastly improved. Unrecognisable
Not in the culinary hinterland that is South Wales. Mind you, I have been served dishes that are "unrecognisable" across the UK.
You may exclusively eat at Simpsons, and Wheeler's of St James, and the quality may be first class. Mere mortals having the temerity to only spend £25 to £50 per head are still invariably served s****.
I do not recognise this for my area (SW wilts, and into Bath, Somerset etc). Plenty of decent places to eat with a range of budgets.
There was an interesting contribution to the Adrian Chiles program yesterday. A woman who was employed to support victims of modern slavery explained how it worked. If someone from Albania has got their ride on credit they are "enslaved" until they pay that debt back because they have to account to the person providing the credit. These people seem to have more effective remedies than those provided by the civil courts and they are at risk.
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
All trivially sorted by the Home Secretary, if any of them ever wished to actually tackle the problem rather than highlight the problem for political gain.
It could only be "trivially sorted" if the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was repealed. That Act was introduced by a HS, Mrs May no less, and she claims it was her greatest contribution. The Act focused much more on those doing the trafficking than those who were being trafficked and the implications of the assessment process do not seem to have been thought through.
These are difficult problems. How do we differentiate between far eastern women locked in cages and used for sex and young Albanian men forced to work on Cannabis farms or, for that matter, also used for sex? As with asylum we would be dismayed as to how many of these victims actually qualify under the rights we have given them.
There are two parts to this. One decide which groups we want to let in and adjust the laws to match that, including leaving treaties if needed. Secondly resource it so we don't wait 45 days whilst little to nothing happens because no-one is available to do the job.
I have seen no evidence of any recent Home Secretary doing much on either, instead they love to moan about the courts correctly interpreting the laws and treaties that the governments have written, and the lawyers that represent people within the law.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
This is a seriously dated account of British food. Any four star hotel or above (and many 3 stars) will offer good and sometimes excellent dinners
Two stars and below generally won’t have restaurants doing dinner
Let us criticise the things we get wrong. Not the good things. UK food is vastly improved. Unrecognisable
Not in the culinary hinterland that is South Wales. Mind you, I have been served dishes that are "unrecognisable" across the UK.
You may exclusively eat at Simpsons, and Wheeler's of St James, and the quality may be first class. Mere mortals having the temerity to only spend £25 to £50 per head are still invariably served s****.
I've found plenty of restaurants that serve good food in the London - you are looking at a bit less than £20 for a main course.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
If it turns out they get a Full English every morning too, we could be looking at a very lively Question Time with Fiona Bruce.
You know you are in England when the dinners are all awful and the breakfasts, even in inexpensive places, are things where you can fill up for the next 48 hours taking in 6,000 calories, all of it reasonably OK in quality.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
I have a theory about the return of the English Breakfast.
Many of the cafes were taken over by immigrants, who didn't realise that they were supposed to used Walls sausages, bacon entirely made of fat, and coffee that was instant, boiled slowly over days.
Instead they started using proper ingredients.
A local one is run by a very, very Italian chap* - magnificent. Across the road is an old style one, run by an original British couple (both ancient). The British one (entirely filled by construction workers, and other working class) provides fairly inedible food. The Italian one - wealthier people and the food is magnificent.
*He seems to be a supporter of the er... more interesting Italian parties, though.
There's a place for quality in cafes, but those better ingredients cost a lot more, and a business that desires to be profitable will therefore charge a lot more. It seems like both ends of the market are bekng catered for where you are, which is great.
I think that varies a lot depending on where the cafe is. In a place with high labour and rental costs the impact of ingredients on the overall cost base could be pretty small. I know the old rule of thumb was 1/3 ingredients, 1/3 staff, 1/3 overheads but I expect somewhere like London it's more like 20:40:40. The cost of energy will be affecting this equation everywhere too.
That's why urban coffee shops are so expensive. The coffee and milk are cheap as chips so the £2.80 for your flat white is largely paying for staff, rent and rates, heating and other bills. And most of those places are still making losses. That's why some takeaways are still relatively cheap too, because they use free (family) labour.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
London teenagers don’t vote. Older people in brexitland and southern England DO
Farage could ride this story to a place where he exerts political power, once again
He's always exerted political power. Personally I'd quite like Farage to surplant the Tories. At least you know what you're getting with him, and the Tories steal all his policies anyway. I'd like to see him trying to actually fix something instead of standing at the sidelines spouting populist crap.
Times are hard in most Western countries, as they were from 1918 to 1945. Now that communism has vanished, there's not much of a political rival to hard right nationalism. I would not be at all surprised to see Red State USA start to recriminalise homosexuality, for example, in coming years.
Islamism is one such rival, but limited to a small section of the population. The left wing of the Greens, as well, but again, limited in its ability to gain votes.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
There was an interesting contribution to the Adrian Chiles program yesterday. A woman who was employed to support victims of modern slavery explained how it worked. If someone from Albania has got their ride on credit they are "enslaved" until they pay that debt back because they have to account to the person providing the credit. These people seem to have more effective remedies than those provided by the civil courts and they are at risk.
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
All trivially sorted by the Home Secretary, if any of them ever wished to actually tackle the problem rather than highlight the problem for political gain.
It could only be "trivially sorted" if the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was repealed. That Act was introduced by a HS, Mrs May no less, and she claims it was her greatest contribution. The Act focused much more on those doing the trafficking than those who were being trafficked and the implications of the assessment process do not seem to have been thought through.
These are difficult problems. How do we differentiate between far eastern women locked in cages and used for sex and young Albanian men forced to work on Cannabis farms or, for that matter, also used for sex? As with asylum we would be dismayed as to how many of these victims actually qualify under the rights we have given them.
There are two parts to this. One decide which groups we want to let in and adjust the laws to match that, including leaving treaties if needed. Secondly resource it so we don't wait 45 days whilst little to nothing happens because no-one is available to do the job.
I have seen no evidence of any recent Home Secretary doing much on either, instead they love to moan about the courts correctly interpreting the laws and treaties that the governments have written, and the lawyers that represent people within the law.
Yes, the HS needs to have the balls (sic) to bring forward appropriate legislation.
Unless the government wants Farage back in politics?
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent. This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston. Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance. There is nothing that one can add to that.”
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
Yes. Worst possible timing. And Farage looks like a man reborn on GB News. He has his mojo back
Was talking to my kids about Farage yesterday. They thought he was Asian because of his skin colour. I'm not sure he has cut through with teenagers in London.
There was an interesting contribution to the Adrian Chiles program yesterday. A woman who was employed to support victims of modern slavery explained how it worked. If someone from Albania has got their ride on credit they are "enslaved" until they pay that debt back because they have to account to the person providing the credit. These people seem to have more effective remedies than those provided by the civil courts and they are at risk.
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
All trivially sorted by the Home Secretary, if any of them ever wished to actually tackle the problem rather than highlight the problem for political gain.
It could only be "trivially sorted" if the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was repealed. That Act was introduced by a HS, Mrs May no less, and she claims it was her greatest contribution. The Act focused much more on those doing the trafficking than those who were being trafficked and the implications of the assessment process do not seem to have been thought through.
These are difficult problems. How do we differentiate between far eastern women locked in cages and used for sex and young Albanian men forced to work on Cannabis farms or, for that matter, also used for sex? As with asylum we would be dismayed as to how many of these victims actually qualify under the rights we have given them.
There are two parts to this. One decide which groups we want to let in and adjust the laws to match that, including leaving treaties if needed. Secondly resource it so we don't wait 45 days whilst little to nothing happens because no-one is available to do the job.
I have seen no evidence of any recent Home Secretary doing much on either, instead they love to moan about the courts correctly interpreting the laws and treaties that the governments have written, and the lawyers that represent people within the law.
Yes, the HS needs to have the balls (sic) to bring forward appropriate legislation.
Unless the government wants Farage back in politics?
I don't think it is question of balls but of motivation. It plays well for them to keep the problem.
On topic, 538 now have the Republicans at 85% to win the House, and 55% to win the Senate.
So, there's no real value in current betting.
The fundamentals all point to a big Republican win, mitigated somewhat by (a) Dobbs, and (b) the fact the Republicans are starting from a high base. They very nearly won both House and Senate in 2020.
And, sadly, the abomination that was the SC decision in Dobbs has not had anything like the impact that many expected (including me) in June. The threat of so many candidates to overturn democratic processes hasn't stopped people from voting GOP either. The prospect of Biden being able to rebalance the SC in any way has effectively been lost. And a small majority of Americans seem ok with that.
Comments
Rwanda works: Nobody ever.
The tories don't have policies either, they have Potemkin policies. Rwanda doesn't work for at least two reasons:
1. it would have to be inevitable. If people are having a fucked up time they will run risks if they think there is a reasonable chance of getting away with it. To catch everyone without exception you need to jack up our sea defences to WW2 levels. Cost of billions.
2. Rwanda won't play ball anyway. They will only take a few of the nicer ones. For the few that get there, investigative journalists will be all over them to learn what a shit time they are having. SSA is seriously shit except for locals with huge family support networks, or whiteys with money. You will get court cases and injunctions stopping it. Unless you repeal/resile from all the Human Rights stuff. Can be done, but at a huge cost of political capital and with nailed on bleeding heart Tory rebellions at all stages.
You have got 2 years to do all that. Can't be done.
CON: 46.3% (-21.2)
GRN: 24.9% (+8.8)
LAB: 17.5% (+1.0)
IND: 7.9% (+7.9)
LDEM: 3.4% (+3.4
Votes cast: 2,125
Conservative HOLD.
If you had read that in the 90s in a dystopian scifi novel set in 2022 you would have been impressed by the economy of the writer's world building.
(You have to scroll down the link for the story). https://twitter.com/CatNeilan/status/1588487183119581184
LDEM: 26.9% (-39.3)
CON: 26.4% (+5.2)
IND: 19.7% (+19.7)
LAB: 19.2% (+6.6)
GRN: 7.9% (+7.9)
Votes cast: 2,146
Seat 1: Liberal Democrat HOLD
Seat 2: Conservative GAIN from Liberal Democrat.
“The North Stafford Hotel, Stoke-on-Trent.
This hotel has just become fully occupied with illegal migrant overspill from Manston.
Incredibly, local homeless youngsters continue to sleep rough directly outside the hotel entrance.
There is nothing that one can add to that.”
https://twitter.com/jonathanmansfi4/status/1588252815712927744?s=46&t=2bnjdMC9jMFO3F4tZkBOJg
This is a government-slayer
see also the COP27 turnaround. He could have said he was going because the whales and my daughters' future blah blah, instead he based it on prosperity and energy security, which are the grounds on which the right are against it.
Next thing that happens, someone reports the hotels are kept at 21C while the rest of us freeze.
But with a lot of CONTENT products (inc social media) that's not actually how it works. Because it doesn't account for sunk-cost lock-in.
Users and readers will stick to what they know, and use, well beyond the point where they START to lose trust in it. And you won't see that.
But they'll only MOVE when they hit the Trust Thermocline. The point where their lack of trust in the product to meet their needs, and the emotional investment they'd made in it, have finally been outweighed by the physical and emotional effort required to abandon it.
At this point, I normally get asked something like:
"So if we undo the last few changes and drop the price, we get them back?"
And then I have to break the news that nope: that's not how it works.
Because you're past the Thermocline now. You can't make them trust you again.
It was owned by Dorries. Dorries is of the right.
If people only engage superficially with politics of course politicians are rewarded by developing only superficial skills and ideas. And possibly even mean the obsessed cranks of parties were not the ones who were able to drive policies, by virtue of being the only ones interested.
Obviously sales, customer support and some other things need to scale with the operation.
Either way, their development process is fucked.
*checks rightmove*
“Bedford in August. A car drifts in, brakes locked & 2 men jump out. In the melee, gun shots are fired, people are sporting machetes & knives. A car is used as a weapon to injure & flee.
Apparently it's Albanians fighting Travellers for control of the local drug trade.”
https://twitter.com/daveatherton20/status/1587729994050113542?s=46&t=2bnjdMC9jMFO3F4tZkBOJg
I haven’t really missed it much - not least because its entire output is retweeted on PB by our beloved Tweet Triplets, Sean, Scott and Carlotta.
LDEM: 26.9% (-39.3)
CON: 26.4% (+5.2)
IND: 19.7% (+19.7)
LAB: 19.2% (+6.6)
GRN: 7.9% (+7.9)
Votes cast: 2,146
Seat 1: Liberal Democrat HOLD
Seat 2: Conservative GAIN from Liberal Democrat. Seems a genuine Ind. see FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086309902517
"Before submitting your essay, run it through Grammarly to quickly check for grammatical mistakes."
It’s a tepid left wing version of QAnon
They really have no adapted to recent times as well as Sinn Fein.
SNP: 1172 (48.9%)
Conservative: 879 (36.7%)
Labour: 239 (10.0%)
Lib Dem: 67 (2.8%)
Independent: 38 (1.6%)
SNP win inevitable, stage TBC.
Loads of less expensive places would be improved by offering the breakfast service in the evenings as well.
Do Albanians like black pudding?
If they make a claim that they are being trafficked in this way the authorities are not allowed to do anything for 45 days whilst they assess the claim. This is a provisional assessment and has a very low standard of proof. A final assessment by a suitably qualified person is required. She said that she had young men who had been waiting for more than 3 years for such a final assessment. She was lamenting the fact that these men were being left in limbo for so long and she has a point but most people will lament that we have created a system that just does not function or is incapable of reaching determinations within a reasonable period of time.
I pieced together the clues: debt bondage, gangs = modern slavery. It’s win win for the Albanians and lose/lose for the UK
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20670593.moray-council-sees-libdem-christopher-price-resign-triggering-buckie-by-election/
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’
🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing
🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate
🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’
🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty
🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1588462876620095488
The former seems more likely, but the latter, or a combination of the two things, is far from impossible.
More evidence (other than a knowledge of Braverman's past history) for the former.
https://freemovement.org.uk/understanding-the-home-offices-problem-with-asylum-decisions/
...There has been less of a focus on why the backlog is as large as it now is. There are always going to be outstanding cases, otherwise all decisions would be made immediately. But an efficient asylum system would make around the same number of decisions as there are new applications coming in.
Since 2015 the gap between those two figures has grown and it continues to widen as the number of decisions fail to keep up with the number of applications. Indeed, as the backlog has grown the overall number of decisions being made has fallen...
Cheap housing.
This is the highly convenient mechanism used by the tories to keep asylum seekers away from the Tory safe seats. They’re getting “value for money” for the taxpayer.
Newsnight contrasted it with the ward where Theresa May lives - which had one of the lowest concentrations of asylum seekers, in the whole country.
Cynical fuckers.
Two stars and below generally won’t have restaurants doing dinner
Let us criticise the things we get wrong. Not the good things. UK food is vastly improved. Unrecognisable
It's almost inconceivable they'll go backwards given they advanced in Nov 2022 and need only 6 x more seats to take the House.
You are letting your heart rule your head. But if you disagree there's fantastic value for you in backing the 200-209 seat and 210-219 republican seat bands on Betfair.
Farage could ride this story to a place where he exerts political power, once again
Sizewell C is ready to go and can build directly on the lessons learned from Hinkley Point C - it is a carbon copy.
There are 27 years left to achieve Net Zero and this plant decarbonises 7% of the grid.
It'd be utter insanity to cancel it.
Lab 48%
Con 33%
SNP 18%
Buckie
LD eliminated at Stage 2
The elderly in Kent, struggling to heat their homes this winter, on the other hand…
Many of the cafes were taken over by immigrants, who didn't realise that they were supposed to used Walls sausages, bacon entirely made of fat, and coffee that was instant, boiled slowly over days.
Instead they started using proper ingredients.
A local one is run by a very, very Italian chap* - magnificent. Across the road is an old style one, run by an original British couple (both ancient). The British one (entirely filled by construction workers, and other working class) provides fairly inedible food. The Italian one - wealthier people and the food is magnificent.
*He seems to be a supporter of the er... more interesting Italian parties, though.
https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1588230029955170305
He needs to leave the 17th Nov statement to Hunt and get on it.
These are difficult problems. How do we differentiate between far eastern women locked in cages and used for sex and young Albanian men forced to work on Cannabis farms or, for that matter, also used for sex? As with asylum we would be dismayed as to how many of these victims actually qualify under the rights we have given them.
So, there's no real value in current betting.
The fundamentals all point to a big Republican win, mitigated somewhat by (a) Dobbs, and (b) the fact the Republicans are starting from a high base. They very nearly won both House and Senate in 2020.
You may exclusively eat at Simpsons, and Wheeler's of St James, and the quality may be first class. Mere mortals having the temerity to only spend £25 to £50 per head are still invariably served s****.
SpaceX turned the space industry upside down - their QA process had people at NASA and Boeing going WTF? Apparently, complete testing of any source code change - including a run on flight hardware - wasn't an industry standard. At least, before SpaceX.
Tesla, not so much.
I have seen no evidence of any recent Home Secretary doing much on either, instead they love to moan about the courts correctly interpreting the laws and treaties that the governments have written, and the lawyers that represent people within the law.
1st preference votes
SNP 1172
Con 879
Lab 239
LD 67
Ind 38
That's why urban coffee shops are so expensive. The coffee and milk are cheap as chips so the £2.80 for your flat white is largely paying for staff, rent and rates, heating and other bills. And most of those places are still making losses. That's why some takeaways are still relatively cheap too, because they use free (family) labour.
Islamism is one such rival, but limited to a small section of the population. The left wing of the Greens, as well, but again, limited in its ability to gain votes.
Unless the government wants Farage back in politics?