Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
This is the problem with the right these days. They're obsessed with identity politics, right down to analysing representations within the media (which used to be an obsession of the left, e.g. the Glasgow Media Group in the 1980s). Us on the left, however, are more relaxed and don't even notice representation on TV.
(Mind you, I'm disgusted at how rarely Albanians appear on mainstream TV, given that we are apparently awash with them at the moment. That is a disgrace),
I don't think it was the right complaining that the women's football team was 'too white'.
As 'the right', I am very happy both that the women's football team is 'too white' and that the men's football team is 'too black' because what it suggests to me is that both teams are based on picking the teams on merit - i.e. for the footballing ability rather than the perceived or actual need to represent different identity groups.
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
As 'the right', I am very happy both that the women's football team is 'too white' and that the men's football team is 'too black' because what it suggests to me is that both teams are based on picking the teams on merit - i.e. for the footballing ability rather than the perceived or actual need to represent different identity groups.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
Ive always believed if the owners of the cats expressed a preference from a selected list of cat food brands that 80% would say Whiskas. And i stand by that.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I'm not sure paranoia is the right word. Paranoia would be 'government wants this tool for nefarious ends'. My view was more 'I don't believe that there won't be dozens of negative unintended consequences as a result of this proposal'.
It's not paranoia when it's actually proposed by a government with a majority, voted through, tendered for, initial implementation started.
Yes, it would have been an IT disaster on the scale of the NHS mega project(s) one. But it would still have been a staggering invasion of privacy for much of the population.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
This is the problem with the right these days. They're obsessed with identity politics, right down to analysing representations within the media (which used to be an obsession of the left, e.g. the Glasgow Media Group in the 1980s). Us on the left, however, are more relaxed and don't even notice representation on TV.
(Mind you, I'm disgusted at how rarely Albanians appear on mainstream TV, given that we are apparently awash with them at the moment. That is a disgrace),
I don't think it was the right complaining that the women's football team was 'too white'.
As 'the right', I am very happy both that the women's football team is 'too white' and that the men's football team is 'too black' because what it suggests to me is that both teams are based on picking the teams on merit - i.e. for the footballing ability rather than the perceived or actual need to represent different identity groups.
My comment, which I thought was clear, was more to do with the 'concerns' expressed by a few on here about the over-representation of non-white people and mixed race couples in adverts and on the media.
To be blunt, I'm deeply suspicious of the motives of anybody who is remotely bothered by their being too many non-white representations in the media.
Different, and more complex, arguments apply to sport.
Personally I'd quite like everything state related (Local & central Gov't) to be linked to my NI number. Maybe that's just me though.
The problem is that the NI number database is an unreformable mess. There’s a lot of people with two NI numbers, and a lot of duplicates in the system. People have tried to FoI the government, who reply that they don’t have a clue how many of either scenario exists. It’s in at least the tens of thousands.
Just about the only solution to unique ID on government databases, is to start from scratch and have everyone verify themselves. Then you end up with an ID card database, just without the physical card.
Where ID cards might be a good idea, is for non-citizens to prove various entitlements. The problem is that it them becomes very easy to expand the system to everyone, and the Civil Service would be all over doing just that.
If non-citizens need to prove entitlement, then citizens need to prove they're citizens. How do you propose they do that? It won't be done by a generic wrist stamp saying "citizen". It will be done by personal identification.
As for the "would you want the man in charge of the bin lorry to have the authority to look up your tax records?" argument (the image of the same guy marching you to a cashpoint terminal existed at some point too, under Blair), it is naive at best. Note that it's usually a binman in the image, not a headmaster, housing manager, magistrate, police inspector, security guard, etc.
I respect the anti-ID card people in all parts of the political spectrum, but few of them have a clue about actual real current history and some live inside Colditz films. Well, I don't respect all of them, but I acknowledge that some will have the courage to resist, regardless of which part of the spectrum they are currently in.
One of the big elephants in the room is the prevalence of smartphones. They have being an ID card as one of their functions. But some just can't and won't see that. Perhaps is because they didn't have them in Colditz films.
It has surprised me that so many Tories have been given permission to "think" that lockdowns were bad. Next time during a pandemic perhaps the approach will be no lockdown but compulsory vaccination instead - or compulsory showing of ID to do practically anything outside of your house, indeed even to go outside of your house. It won't just be like a previous lockdown period but without the lockdown.
See what they're doing in Stirling?
The trend is to implantation but this may be a case of "Don't say that! You're a Russian trollbot poophead!"
The point is well made. Far too many pheasants are discarded and it should be a more accessible food for all. Not sure about plucking, that said, much easier to skin - takes about 2mins per bird.
Do these numbers account for US politics, or is it the other way round ?
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/03/15/americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population ...When people’s average perceptions of group sizes are compared to actual population estimates, an intriguing pattern emerges: Americans tend to vastly overestimate the size of minority groups. This holds for sexual minorities, including the proportion of gays and lesbians (estimate: 30%, true: 3%), bisexuals (estimate: 29%, true: 4%), and people who are transgender (estimate: 21%, true: 0.6%).
It also applies to religious minorities, such as Muslim Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%) and Jewish Americans (estimate: 30%, true: 2%). And we find the same sorts of overestimates for racial and ethnic minorities, such as Native Americans (estimate: 27%, true: 1%), Asian Americans (estimate: 29%, true: 6%), and Black Americans (estimate: 41%, true: 12%)...
Would be interesting to know what answers each individual demographic gave.
Do people overestimate 'people like us' or 'people like them'.
Given that Dem voting demographics are massively overestimated it would be especially interesting to know the answers from 'the election was stolen, Biden could not have got 80m votes, believers were.
If it is anything like Britain then "People like them."
I think Opinium does a British social issues survey where they ask participants about social issues and how much of a problem issue X is locally and nationally.
Without fail every issue is perceived as a great issue nationally than locally. Often by huge margins. The local MP is perceived as good but national MPs are a disaster. Crime is fine locally but the rest of the country is a lawless hellscape. No issue with teen pregnancies locally but the rest of the country is knee deep in sprogs etc.
Unless the weighting is all to cock, most of the misestimators will be part of the larger-than-they-think majority.
Have we noted that today is the final (?) part of the case where Mermaids (with support from the Good Law Project) are attempting to have charitable status removed from the LGB Alliance.
Key Kremlin officials began collectively deescalating their rhetoric regarding the use of nuclear weapons in early November. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a statement on “the prevention of nuclear war” on November 2, stating that Russia “is strictly and consistently guided by the postulate of the inadmissibility of a nuclear war in which there can be no winners, and which must never be unleashed.” The Russian MFA also stated that it is committed to the reduction and limitation of nuclear weapons.[i] Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on October 27 that Russia has no need to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and claimed Russia has never discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons, only “hinting at the statements made by leaders of Western countries.”[ii] The deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has similarly increasingly downplayed the fiery nuclear rhetoric he used throughout October and is now focusing on promoting Russian unity in the war in Ukraine.[iii]
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I'm not sure paranoia is the right word. Paranoia would be 'government wants this tool for nefarious ends'. My view was more 'I don't believe that there won't be dozens of negative unintended consequences as a result of this proposal'.
Yep, that's always a risk with new systems. Bad design, malfunctions, confusions, cross purposes etc. But paranoia IS the right word for the sort of thing I'm thinking of - the notion the Authorities are hellbent on a 24/7 Big Brother "Surveillance Society" and give them an inch - eg in the form of an ID Card - and they'll take the mile of realizing that deeply sinister aspiration. The trick is to see the risks but not succumb to the paranoia.
The problem isn't the ID cards - its the idea that all your data must be linked to it and available to every piss ant with an ant hill to piss from.
It is perfectly possible to come up with ID card scheme that doesn't require that. But the Home Office keeps on rejecting such scheme as "not sufficiently functional".
I'd like that to be true, but that does rather look like a shipyard, and the following says the vessel was located onshore. I doubt it had been transporting anything.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
This is the problem with the right these days. They're obsessed with identity politics, right down to analysing representations within the media (which used to be an obsession of the left, e.g. the Glasgow Media Group in the 1980s). Us on the left, however, are more relaxed and don't even notice representation on TV.
(Mind you, I'm disgusted at how rarely Albanians appear on mainstream TV, given that we are apparently awash with them at the moment. That is a disgrace),
I don't think it was the right complaining that the women's football team was 'too white'.
As 'the right', I am very happy both that the women's football team is 'too white' and that the men's football team is 'too black' because what it suggests to me is that both teams are based on picking the teams on merit - i.e. for the footballing ability rather than the perceived or actual need to represent different identity groups.
To be blunt, I'm deeply suspicious of the motives of anybody who is remotely bothered by their being too many non-white representations in the media.
Which is the sort of thinking that lost Lab the Red Wall.
I used to laugh at the reactionary red faced Tory gammon when I saw them huffing and puffing on question time.
Now I laugh at so called democratic Socialists defending SKS huffing and puffing about foreign workers in the NHS like a red faced reactionary gammon, and telling climate change protestors to get up and go home like a reactionary red faced gammon.
It's sub-optimal for sure. But just checking - now it's Sunak not Johnson you are back to preferring Labour to the Tories, aren't you?
There is also the fact that -
1) Provably (see the A level COVID fiasco and the resultant jump in university classes) the deliberate under training of medical staff has resulted in a large number of people not having a chance to go into good jobs. Guess which groups they come from?
2) Relying on overseas recruitment has fucked the healthcare systems in a number of countries - which have found themselves training staff who immediately leave.
Re 2)
I find, to my surprise, most of the medics who were at University with me are now working in the US, Australia, Canada or the Gulf States.
One particularly outspoken young socialist seems to have matured into a very well-paid consultant in Abu Dhabi.
Ultimately, the training of more doctors and medical staff in the UK (which is a good thing) is not going to fix things unless they are retained in the UK.
Because it is not just third world countries that find they are "training staff who immediately leave."
There is a shortage of medical staff worldwide. We have the potential, in this country, to train more medics than the NHS requires. Instead, we have an institutional policy of training less.
This *guarantees* that we need overseas staff.
Of course. But, because there is a "shortage of medical staff worldwide", then young well-trained medical staff can pick where they want to go.
And, even if trained in the UK, it will often not be the UK that retains the services.
So, we will still need overseas staff.
If the terms and conditions of employment of a doctor in say Australia are markedly better than in the UK ... why stay in the UK?
I approve of training more doctors in the UK, but to suggest it will make much difference to the NHS is fantasy.
Most people don’t move to the other side of the world just because terms and conditions of employment are better. The vast majority of UK-trained healthcare professionals remain in the UK. Train more and there will be more around. The only fantasy here is believing people move country at the drop of a hat.
I think you are an academic at one of the London Colleges, no?
So, you know perfectly well young people do move country at the drop of a hat. They move to where they can get a job with the best terms and conditions.
Look at your faculty, especially the ones aged under 45.
Ultimately, every country in the world needs doctors. Like academics, it is a global marketplace.
I am an academic at a London university. Indeed, some of my research has been on international medical graduates.
In some classes I teach, the vast majority of students are from outside the UK, and they nearly all return to the countries they are from. My colleagues are from many countries: mostly the UK, but others from Poland, the Netherlands, Australia, Russia, Portugal, Mauritius etc. (although out of those 6 examples, 4 of them came to the UK before moving into academia).
Of course, many people do move country, and often it’s for employment reasons. I’ve not denied that. But it’s not so widespread as you depict. If we train more doctors in the UK, there will be more doctors in the UK. We’re not going to lose them as fast as we train them.
Personally I'd quite like everything state related (Local & central Gov't) to be linked to my NI number. Maybe that's just me though.
The problem is that the NI number database is an unreformable mess. There’s a lot of people with two NI numbers, and a lot of duplicates in the system. People have tried to FoI the government, who reply that they don’t have a clue how many of either scenario exists. It’s in at least the tens of thousands.
Just about the only solution to unique ID on government databases, is to start from scratch and have everyone verify themselves. Then you end up with an ID card database, just without the physical card.
Where ID cards might be a good idea, is for non-citizens to prove various entitlements. The problem is that it them becomes very easy to expand the system to everyone, and the Civil Service would be all over doing just that.
How can people have two NI numbers ?
It's a great way of dodging tax if you do.
Happens all the time. Often with more than two.
But how many people have two Unique Learner Numbers?
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
This is the problem with the right these days. They're obsessed with identity politics, right down to analysing representations within the media (which used to be an obsession of the left, e.g. the Glasgow Media Group in the 1980s). Us on the left, however, are more relaxed and don't even notice representation on TV.
(Mind you, I'm disgusted at how rarely Albanians appear on mainstream TV, given that we are apparently awash with them at the moment. That is a disgrace),
I don't think it was the right complaining that the women's football team was 'too white'.
As 'the right', I am very happy both that the women's football team is 'too white' and that the men's football team is 'too black' because what it suggests to me is that both teams are based on picking the teams on merit - i.e. for the footballing ability rather than the perceived or actual need to represent different identity groups.
To be blunt, I'm deeply suspicious of the motives of anybody who is remotely bothered by their being too many non-white representations in the media.
Which is the sort of thinking that lost Lab the Red Wall.
Indeed - it's not skilled advertising practice to carp at prospects' possible undesirable motivations. Just find out what they want and tell them you'll give it to 'em.
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
Personally I'd quite like everything state related (Local & central Gov't) to be linked to my NI number. Maybe that's just me though.
The problem is that the NI number database is an unreformable mess. There’s a lot of people with two NI numbers, and a lot of duplicates in the system. People have tried to FoI the government, who reply that they don’t have a clue how many of either scenario exists. It’s in at least the tens of thousands.
Just about the only solution to unique ID on government databases, is to start from scratch and have everyone verify themselves. Then you end up with an ID card database, just without the physical card.
Where ID cards might be a good idea, is for non-citizens to prove various entitlements. The problem is that it them becomes very easy to expand the system to everyone, and the Civil Service would be all over doing just that.
If non-citizens need to prove entitlement, then citizens need to prove they're citizens. How do you propose they do that? It won't be done by a generic wrist stamp saying "citizen". It will be done by personal identification.
As for the "would you want the man in charge of the bin lorry to have the authority to look up your tax records?" argument (the image of the same guy marching you to a cashpoint terminal existed at some point too, under Blair), it is naive at best. Note that it's usually a binman in the image, not a headmaster, housing manager, magistrate, police inspector, security guard, etc.
I respect the anti-ID card people in all parts of the political spectrum, but few of them have a clue about actual real current history and some live inside Colditz films. Well, I don't respect all of them, but I acknowledge that some will have the courage to resist, regardless of which part of the spectrum they are currently in.
One of the big elephants in the room is the prevalence of smartphones. They have being an ID card as one of their functions. But some just can't and won't see that. Perhaps is because they didn't have them in Colditz films.
It has surprised me that so many Tories have been given permission to "think" that lockdowns were bad. Next time during a pandemic perhaps the approach will be no lockdown but compulsory vaccination instead - or compulsory showing of ID to do practically anything outside of your house, indeed even to go outside of your house. It won't just be like a previous lockdown period but without the lockdown.
See what they're doing in Stirling?
The trend is to implantation but this may be a case of "Don't say that! You're a Russian trollbot poophead!"
No, what marks you out as a Russian trollbot is frequent use of American English in a way no British person would use.
Despite being on this site for about 10 years I still don't know what short and long mean in betting. Does too short mean the odds ought to be closer to 1.3 or 1.2 in this case?
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I'm not sure paranoia is the right word. Paranoia would be 'government wants this tool for nefarious ends'. My view was more 'I don't believe that there won't be dozens of negative unintended consequences as a result of this proposal'.
Yep, that's always a risk with new systems. Bad design, malfunctions, confusions, cross purposes etc. But paranoia IS the right word for the sort of thing I'm thinking of - the notion the Authorities are hellbent on a 24/7 Big Brother "Surveillance Society" and give them an inch - eg in the form of an ID Card - and they'll take the mile of realizing that deeply sinister aspiration. The trick is to see the risks but not succumb to the paranoia.
The proposers and implementors of the previous ID card attempt saw the surveillance aspect as one of the benefits of their scheme. To them, providing all your data down to the level of council inspectors was a wonderful thing that would make government better.
It wasn't that they were EVUL - it's a similar reason as to why we have limits on what the police can do in an investiagtion. You don't put civil liberties in the hands of those who regard them as an administrative inconvenience.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
Didn’t the cat food company have to go through several iterations of the wording on their adverts, after they got pulled up over exactly what the description meant?
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
Far too many blacks and white cats in the adverts, and not enough tabbies.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
Key Kremlin officials began collectively deescalating their rhetoric regarding the use of nuclear weapons in early November. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a statement on “the prevention of nuclear war” on November 2, stating that Russia “is strictly and consistently guided by the postulate of the inadmissibility of a nuclear war in which there can be no winners, and which must never be unleashed.” The Russian MFA also stated that it is committed to the reduction and limitation of nuclear weapons.[i] Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on October 27 that Russia has no need to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and claimed Russia has never discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons, only “hinting at the statements made by leaders of Western countries.”[ii] The deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has similarly increasingly downplayed the fiery nuclear rhetoric he used throughout October and is now focusing on promoting Russian unity in the war in Ukraine.[iii]
Or "The Chinese told them to stop it, privately, and they didn't. So the Chinese told them to stop it, publicly, and they have."
I'd like that to be true, but that does rather look like a shipyard, and the following says the vessel was located onshore. I doubt it had been transporting anything.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
Despite being on this site for about 10 years I still don't know what short and long mean in betting. Does too short mean the odds ought to be closer to 1.3 or 1.2 in this case?
1.0001 (Very short) -> 10,000 (Very long)
I think the odds should be higher/longer. The implied probability for the GOP to get a majority is too high here.
Too long = BACK the selection Too short = LAY the selection
Key Kremlin officials began collectively deescalating their rhetoric regarding the use of nuclear weapons in early November. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a statement on “the prevention of nuclear war” on November 2, stating that Russia “is strictly and consistently guided by the postulate of the inadmissibility of a nuclear war in which there can be no winners, and which must never be unleashed.” The Russian MFA also stated that it is committed to the reduction and limitation of nuclear weapons.[i] Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on October 27 that Russia has no need to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and claimed Russia has never discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons, only “hinting at the statements made by leaders of Western countries.”[ii] The deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has similarly increasingly downplayed the fiery nuclear rhetoric he used throughout October and is now focusing on promoting Russian unity in the war in Ukraine.[iii]
Or "The Chinese told them to stop it, privately, and they didn't. So the Chinese told them to stop it, publicly, and they have."
More likely the US. As we have been hearing about this morning. There are back channels in just about any conflict situation and so it is in Ukraine.
Key Kremlin officials began collectively deescalating their rhetoric regarding the use of nuclear weapons in early November. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a statement on “the prevention of nuclear war” on November 2, stating that Russia “is strictly and consistently guided by the postulate of the inadmissibility of a nuclear war in which there can be no winners, and which must never be unleashed.” The Russian MFA also stated that it is committed to the reduction and limitation of nuclear weapons.[i] Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on October 27 that Russia has no need to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and claimed Russia has never discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons, only “hinting at the statements made by leaders of Western countries.”[ii] The deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has similarly increasingly downplayed the fiery nuclear rhetoric he used throughout October and is now focusing on promoting Russian unity in the war in Ukraine.[iii]
The question must be therefore, if they don't ever intend to go nuclear (though I'd not believe the above statement one little bit) is how they intend to end the war in Ukraine? - Withdrawal to 2013 position? - Withdrawal to Jan 22 position and hope Ukraine accepts that? - Freeze lines static as they are now, and hope Ukraine accepts that? - Attempt offensives to capture all 'annexed' territory and then hope Ukraine accepts that? - Long scale war to ultimately annex all of Ukraine?
If its not the first, are they just hoping their 'will' will outlast Ukrainian will/Western support? And if it is the first, does Putin accept he's basically committed suicide by falling out of a window?
The point is well made. Far too many pheasants are discarded and it should be a more accessible food for all. Not sure about plucking, that said, much easier to skin - takes about 2mins per bird.
Multiple problems could be solved if pigeons and sea gulls were re-classified as game birds.
My entry for today’s picture competition. Setting sun and rising moon, hanging off the top of the world’s tallest building. View from my office window.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I'm not sure paranoia is the right word. Paranoia would be 'government wants this tool for nefarious ends'. My view was more 'I don't believe that there won't be dozens of negative unintended consequences as a result of this proposal'.
Yep, that's always a risk with new systems. Bad design, malfunctions, confusions, cross purposes etc. But paranoia IS the right word for the sort of thing I'm thinking of - the notion the Authorities are hellbent on a 24/7 Big Brother "Surveillance Society" and give them an inch - eg in the form of an ID Card - and they'll take the mile of realizing that deeply sinister aspiration. The trick is to see the risks but not succumb to the paranoia.
The proposers and implementors of the previous ID card attempt saw the surveillance aspect as one of the benefits of their scheme. To them, providing all your data down to the level of council inspectors was a wonderful thing that would make government better.
It wasn't that they were EVUL - it's a similar reason as to why we have limits on what the police can do in an investiagtion. You don't put civil liberties in the hands of those who regard them as an administrative inconvenience.
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
My ancestry is split between British and Irish. There is no option for "white mixed", so am I white British or white other? My wife is of Midwestern German extraction, so are my kids white British or white other?
The whole ethnic classifications in the UK are absurd. We should have one question for race, which should be European/Middle Eastern/African/native American/South Asian/East Asian plus the mixed options. Then another one for cultural identity which could be English, Welsh, Punjabi, Somali, Jamaican, American or whatever.
As 'the right', I am very happy both that the women's football team is 'too white' and that the men's football team is 'too black' because what it suggests to me is that both teams are based on picking the teams on merit - i.e. for the footballing ability rather than the perceived or actual need to represent different identity groups.
Like the English Rugby team
Not ALL of them went to private school
I'm pretty relaxed about that from a picking the side perspective. What's a pity is that more state schools don't play rugby (or any sport). That's what I'd like to change.
The England rugby union class issue is slightly more complex than it is often portrayed. In the North, and perhaps in London, it tends to be a middle class game; in the Midlands and the South West, it permeates the classes much more. And there have always been working class England players (largely from the midlands and south west). Clearly there are more socio-economic divisions than just posh/middle/working - but the current England side has at least a couple of players from seriously tough backgrounds (Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinkler). Public school players are also more represented than you might expect because public schools have a tendency to offer scholarships to talented young rugby players who would otherwise go to state schools; and because some clubs have arrangements with public schools whereby the clubs will identify a promising young player, attach them to the club, and arrange their education (at some public school).
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I'm not sure paranoia is the right word. Paranoia would be 'government wants this tool for nefarious ends'. My view was more 'I don't believe that there won't be dozens of negative unintended consequences as a result of this proposal'.
Yep, that's always a risk with new systems. Bad design, malfunctions, confusions, cross purposes etc. But paranoia IS the right word for the sort of thing I'm thinking of - the notion the Authorities are hellbent on a 24/7 Big Brother "Surveillance Society" and give them an inch - eg in the form of an ID Card - and they'll take the mile of realizing that deeply sinister aspiration. The trick is to see the risks but not succumb to the paranoia.
So when Larry Ellison said privacy was dead he was pulling everyone's plonker?
You write as if historical trends aren't a thing, as if we're all more or less rational citizens in a liberal democracy and well it's not perfect but hey not let's worry about stuff, because at the end of the day it works and we're not implanted or dead yet.
There's huge huge surveillance. Have you any idea how much info is collected on a car's computers, for example? Between 0910 and 0924 on 8 Nov, car reg xxx had driver and front seat passenger and one passenger weighing approx 62-64kg in middle back seat until 0924 when front passenger exited and other passenger moved to left back seat and exited at long lat yyy at 0931.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
My entry for today’s picture competition. Setting sun and rising moon, hanging off the top of the world’s tallest building. View from my office window.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
My entry for today’s picture competition. Setting sun and rising moon, hanging off the top of the world’s tallest building. View from my office window.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
The whole ethnic classifications in the UK are absurd. We should have one question for race, which should be European/Middle Eastern/African/native American/South Asian/East Asian plus the mixed options. Then another one for cultural identity which could be English, Welsh, Punjabi, Somali, Jamaican, American or whatever.
Arguably so, but there is a cost to changing the classification. A lot of the benefit of statistics comes from being able to look at trends in the answer to this kind of question over time. If you completely rejig the categories you create a break in the series where you can't easily look at the trend for time periods that cross that breakpoint. So I can see why the stats people would be conservative about changing the categories in a radical way.
My entry for today’s picture competition. Setting sun and rising moon, hanging off the top of the world’s tallest building. View from my office window.
"I remember when all this was fields"
There is a very good motion capture sequence (on Youtube perhaps?) of the development of Pudong, in Shanghai.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
What we don't have, is an attempt at linking all your data together, to be accessible to anyone in an "official" position.
The ID card is irrelevant, almost. Apart from being associated with the central linkage of all your data.
There's a section on the polling average, and how that relates to the actually vote tally. Including:
"This year, there are considerably more districts with no Democratic nominee than with no Republican. Specifically, there are 23 House districts with no Democrat on the ballot3 but 12 with no Republican. Moreover, the districts with no Democratic nominee tend to be more competitive than those with no Republican one, meaning that Democrats are sacrificing more votes.
It’s slightly tricky to calculate exactly how big this effect is, but it will likely shift the final House popular vote margin by at least 1 percentage point toward Republicans, and probably more like 1.5 percentage points. In other words, if the final generic ballot margin was Republicans by 3 percentage points, we’d expect them to win the House popular vote by more like 4.5 percentage points because of all the districts with missing Democratic candidates."
Which helps to explain a couple of anomalies, and worth remembering when all the votes have been added and we can start figuring out how much the polling average was out by...
Latest 538 polling average has R+1.2 If we add 1.5 to that it would put R 2.7% ahead in the popular vote, and a small majority (their House model has "Republicans are favored to win a majority of the seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.6 points" - I assume this is because of the same effect from missing Democrat candidates). Still an average polling error away from either a big Republican majority, or the Democrats just holding on. Are the polls more likely to underestimate the Republican lead, rather than the reverse? Probably. But my caveman maths, based on nothing more than looking at the numbers on 538, says there's at least a 25% chance that the polls are this time overestimating the Republican lead, and at least a 40% chance the polls are out by enough, so at least 10% chance of Democrats retaining the house. (538's deluxe model has it as 16%). No doubt those who actually know the US a bit, can offer a more sophisticated analysis.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
What we don't have, is an attempt at linking all your data together, to be accessible to anyone in an "official" position.
The ID card is irrelevant, almost. Apart from being associated with the central linkage of all your data.
Who is “anyone official”? Any and all of that data is fairly easily available to anyone with a legitimate use for it now. We’re past the point of no return on this, and it’s been driven by technology and convenience like it was always going to be.
I make it 81% total "White" for 18-29 year olds (men and women) 11% "Asian" 4% "Black" 3% "Mixed" and almost 1.5% "Other" So a starting 11 with just under 9 players white total Just over 1 Asian And almost one player black or mixed or other.
Sure but that hardly changes things, a black player every two games rather than every three, one Asian descent player every match, the remaining spot every other game is almost certainly still mostly white non-British descent. Age doesn't make a big difference.
It seems quite clear to me that Women's football is more representative than Men's football, and the lack of black players is dwarfed by the lack of players of Asian descent. You wouldn't have known this from the criticism which was based upon assumptions that aren't correct.
I should point out I don't really mind who plays, and I totally accept that by chance and a whole load of other factors not related to ethnicity there will inevitably be other reasons why representation is not aligned with the population, my beef (a pretty minor beef, really more because I was curious) is that the Women's team are not obviously discriminating, and if they are they issue is surely with the lack of players of Asian descent. Many of the factors that are of issue are almost certainly outside their control, like education, economic factors, cultural etc.
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
My grandfather was born in South Africa. He died when my mum was young, so I never met him. He was white, though, so no-one would think I’m anything other than White British. Had he been black, two generations on, I’d be seen as Mixed.
But that’s racism for you: it’s stupid. However, while we move away from the racism of the past, we’re left having to collect this sort of data to help us complete a transition to not caring about such things!
There's a section on the polling average, and how that relates to the actually vote tally. Including:
"This year, there are considerably more districts with no Democratic nominee than with no Republican. Specifically, there are 23 House districts with no Democrat on the ballot3 but 12 with no Republican. Moreover, the districts with no Democratic nominee tend to be more competitive than those with no Republican one, meaning that Democrats are sacrificing more votes.
It’s slightly tricky to calculate exactly how big this effect is, but it will likely shift the final House popular vote margin by at least 1 percentage point toward Republicans, and probably more like 1.5 percentage points. In other words, if the final generic ballot margin was Republicans by 3 percentage points, we’d expect them to win the House popular vote by more like 4.5 percentage points because of all the districts with missing Democratic candidates."
Which helps to explain a couple of anomalies, and worth remembering when all the votes have been added and we can start figuring out how much the polling average was out by...
Latest 538 polling average has R+1.2 If we add 1.5 to that it would put R 2.7% ahead in the popular vote, and a small majority (their House model has "Republicans are favored to win a majority of the seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.6 points" - I assume this is because of the same effect from missing Democrat candidates). Still an average polling error away from either a big Republican majority, or the Democrats just holding on. Are the polls more likely to underestimate the Republican lead, rather than the reverse? Probably. But my caveman maths, based on nothing more than looking at the numbers on 538, says there's at least a 25% chance that the polls are this time overestimating the Republican lead, and at least a 40% chance the polls are out by enough, so at least 10% chance of Democrats retaining the house. (538's deluxe model has it as 16%). No doubt those who actually know the US a bit, can offer a more sophisticated analysis.
In a house of, what, 450 seats, do their major parties really fail to put up candidates in all seats? Wow. Surely with their budget you’d have a full slate of paper candidates for Congress at least?
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
That's absurd. I've always put myself down as White British, even though one of my Grandmas was an immigrant from Austria. It's never even crossed my mind that I, or my Dad, would do any different.
We'd already be at 0% White British if you followed their logic to its conclusion.
Have we noted that today is the final (?) part of the case where Mermaids (with support from the Good Law Project) are attempting to have charitable status removed from the LGB Alliance.
Mermaids, of course, are in a spot of bother themselves.
And this they have brought upon themselves:
LGBA views are more in keeping with the law than MMs view of gender identity. There is respectable dispute on both side. Turning to Equality Act [EA], first part of act defines terms. Gender reassignment defined - does not change legal sex. That's in the GRA. Also sex is defined…
as a man or a woman. Man or woman is defined as male of any age or female of any age. Female and male are biologically rooted. Case law makes clear that male and female are biologically rooted…..
Common law says sex is biological. Gender is self-perception. This is well established. We say LGBA beliefs are more closely aligned to legal norms so wrong to say that are outwith public view
Well contrary to the run of most opinions here I quite like Labour's ID idea tbh. Unless the Tories have the boats and hotels sorted (They probably won't) it's another tick for Starmer for me.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
What we don't have, is an attempt at linking all your data together, to be accessible to anyone in an "official" position.
The ID card is irrelevant, almost. Apart from being associated with the central linkage of all your data.
Who is “anyone official”? Any and all of that data is fairly easily available to anyone with a legitimate use for it now. We’re past the point of no return on this, and it’s been driven by technology and convenience like it was always going to be.
Early in the public discussion, it was admitted that council inspectors would have access to the full record set. Which would include your medical records. Quite why the chaps in charge of recycling needed to see you medical history was not explained.
They hastily added some segregation of data - but it was that ill thought out.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
Society isn't going to look like nearly every couple being mixed race for centuries if ever. And my whole point is that you don't need to show every family as mixed race to normalise mixed race families.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
What happens if a large enough grouping within the majority figures out which way the wind is blowing, and realises that a) they have the votes to stop it, and b) they are slowly running out of time if they want to stop it?
This is effectively what's happened in the US: a big chunk of white Middle America has determined (rightly or wrongly) that their society is overly focused on the needs and wants of minorities, and that it's in their interests to simply vote for anyone who's committed to reversing that trend. The best way of ensuring it doesn't happen here is to have society work for everyone; and in the absence of that, to find the best balance between all the different groupings such that no-one group feels like they're losing the game to the extent that it's worth turning the table over.
The point being, it's bad when a minority group feels that way, but it's catastrophic when the majority do.
Well contrary to the run of most opinions here I quite like Labour's ID idea tbh. Unless the Tories have the boats and hotels sorted (They probably won't) it's another tick for Starmer for me.
So it's present your papers before you check in to the Premier Inn?
I make it 81% total "White" for 18-29 year olds (men and women) 11% "Asian" 4% "Black" 3% "Mixed" and almost 1.5% "Other" So a starting 11 with just under 9 players white total Just over 1 Asian And almost one player black or mixed or other.
Sure but that hardly changes things, a black player every two games rather than every three, one Asian descent player every match, the remaining spot every other game is almost certainly still mostly white non-British descent. Age doesn't make a big difference.
It seems quite clear to me that Women's football is more representative than Men's football, and the lack of black players is dwarfed by the lack of players of Asian descent. You wouldn't have known this from the criticism which was based upon assumptions that aren't correct.
I should point I don't really mind who plays, and I totally accept that by chance and a whole load of other factors not related to ethnicity there will inevitably be other reasons why representation is not aligned with the population, my beef (a pretty minor beef, really more because I was curious) is that the Women's team are not obviously discriminating, and if they are they issue is surely with the lack of players of Asian descent. Many of the factors that are of issue are almost certainly outside their control, like education, economic factors, cultural etc.
Well I was just having a bit of fun, but it's 81% total white (including non-British white), so if you want a slot for non-British white it has to come out of the white quota of just under 9 players!
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
Not as much as you might think. I used linked health and social care data sometimes (research, day job) and the linkage is done (by NHS Digital, generally) probabilisticaly based on name, address, date of birth etc. There's no pre-existing linkage.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
Society isn't going to look like nearly every couple being mixed race for centuries if ever. And my whole point is that you don't need to show every family as mixed race to normalise mixed race families.
The end state is that mixed race couples are entirely accepted in this country as nothing out of the ordinary.
My one time (white) boxing coach (use the term lightly I was only a white collar guy) had his boxing career curtailed when someone walked up to him while he was sitting in the pub with his black girlfriend and hit him in the face with an iron bar.
If that person had grown up seeing mixed race couples shop at Sainsburys then perhaps there would have been nothing exceptional about the situation.
There's a section on the polling average, and how that relates to the actually vote tally. Including:
"This year, there are considerably more districts with no Democratic nominee than with no Republican. Specifically, there are 23 House districts with no Democrat on the ballot3 but 12 with no Republican. Moreover, the districts with no Democratic nominee tend to be more competitive than those with no Republican one, meaning that Democrats are sacrificing more votes.
It’s slightly tricky to calculate exactly how big this effect is, but it will likely shift the final House popular vote margin by at least 1 percentage point toward Republicans, and probably more like 1.5 percentage points. In other words, if the final generic ballot margin was Republicans by 3 percentage points, we’d expect them to win the House popular vote by more like 4.5 percentage points because of all the districts with missing Democratic candidates."
Which helps to explain a couple of anomalies, and worth remembering when all the votes have been added and we can start figuring out how much the polling average was out by...
Latest 538 polling average has R+1.2 If we add 1.5 to that it would put R 2.7% ahead in the popular vote, and a small majority (their House model has "Republicans are favored to win a majority of the seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.6 points" - I assume this is because of the same effect from missing Democrat candidates). Still an average polling error away from either a big Republican majority, or the Democrats just holding on. Are the polls more likely to underestimate the Republican lead, rather than the reverse? Probably. But my caveman maths, based on nothing more than looking at the numbers on 538, says there's at least a 25% chance that the polls are this time overestimating the Republican lead, and at least a 40% chance the polls are out by enough, so at least 10% chance of Democrats retaining the house. (538's deluxe model has it as 16%). No doubt those who actually know the US a bit, can offer a more sophisticated analysis.
One thing to beat in mind is the different redistricting strategies of both parties post-the seat redistribution changes. Put simply, the Republicans tended to concentrate on producing safer seats, the Democrats on maximising their seat count to offset the negative census effects. This was why the redistricting plus for the GOP was considerably less than first thought (although the NY Court decision had an impact).
The downside of the D strategy was that it meant a lot more seats would fall if the elections did see a red wave. So, one factor to consider looking at the numbers today.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
There's a section on the polling average, and how that relates to the actually vote tally. Including:
"This year, there are considerably more districts with no Democratic nominee than with no Republican. Specifically, there are 23 House districts with no Democrat on the ballot3 but 12 with no Republican. Moreover, the districts with no Democratic nominee tend to be more competitive than those with no Republican one, meaning that Democrats are sacrificing more votes.
It’s slightly tricky to calculate exactly how big this effect is, but it will likely shift the final House popular vote margin by at least 1 percentage point toward Republicans, and probably more like 1.5 percentage points. In other words, if the final generic ballot margin was Republicans by 3 percentage points, we’d expect them to win the House popular vote by more like 4.5 percentage points because of all the districts with missing Democratic candidates."
Which helps to explain a couple of anomalies, and worth remembering when all the votes have been added and we can start figuring out how much the polling average was out by...
Latest 538 polling average has R+1.2 If we add 1.5 to that it would put R 2.7% ahead in the popular vote, and a small majority (their House model has "Republicans are favored to win a majority of the seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.6 points" - I assume this is because of the same effect from missing Democrat candidates). Still an average polling error away from either a big Republican majority, or the Democrats just holding on. Are the polls more likely to underestimate the Republican lead, rather than the reverse? Probably. But my caveman maths, based on nothing more than looking at the numbers on 538, says there's at least a 25% chance that the polls are this time overestimating the Republican lead, and at least a 40% chance the polls are out by enough, so at least 10% chance of Democrats retaining the house. (538's deluxe model has it as 16%). No doubt those who actually know the US a bit, can offer a more sophisticated analysis.
In a house of, what, 450 seats, do their major parties really fail to put up candidates in all seats? Wow. Surely with their budget you’d have a full slate of paper candidates for Congress at least?
I think the article mentions there are some places (California?) where there are jungle primaries and the top 2 go on the final ballot regardless of party. Not sure if there are also seats where they have just decided not to bother?
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
Society isn't going to look like nearly every couple being mixed race for centuries if ever. And my whole point is that you don't need to show every family as mixed race to normalise mixed race families.
The end state is that mixed race couples are entirely accepted in this country as nothing out of the ordinary.
My one time (white) boxing coach (use the term lightly I was only a white collar guy) had his boxing career curtailed when someone walked up to him while he was sitting in the pub with his black girlfriend and hit him in the face with an iron bar.
If that person had grown up seeing mixed race couples shop at Sainsburys then perhaps there would have been nothing exceptional about the situation.
We're pretty much already at the end state, then, aren't we? Not perfect, but a damn sight closer than the diversity industry would have us believe.
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
My ancestry is split between British and Irish. There is no option for "white mixed", so am I white British or white other? My wife is of Midwestern German extraction, so are my kids white British or white other?
The whole ethnic classifications in the UK are absurd. We should have one question for race, which should be European/Middle Eastern/African/native American/South Asian/East Asian plus the mixed options. Then another one for cultural identity which could be English, Welsh, Punjabi, Somali, Jamaican, American or whatever.
All ethnic classification are “absurd”, because they’re all a complex mix of historical and social factors, with a tablespoon of pseudo-science thrown in.
But the thing is, “race” is just the same. Races don’t exist (in humans): it’s a hangover from 19th century pseudo-science. There is a continuum of genetic variation, but overall we are a fairly genetically homogenous species. Genetic variation is much higher in people from sub-Saharan Africa: so, a person of European heritage and a person of South Asian heritage are, on average, more genetically alike than the person of South Asian heritage and a person of East Asian heritage, but all three are more genetically alike than someone of west Africa pen heritage versus someone of south-west African heritage.
Domestic cats are much more genetically diverse than humans. They’re more genetically diverse than domestic dogs, even though dogs often look very different and cats all look much the same.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
Not as much as you might think. I used linked health and social care data sometimes (research, day job) and the linkage is done (by NHS Digital, generally) probabilisticaly based on name, address, date of birth etc. There's no pre-existing linkage.
For all of us, isn’t the basic link the NI number and NHS number? Each of those is well defined and links into the rest (directly or indirectly).
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
They were, quite literally, linking the databases together. That was the whole point of what they were doing.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
My ancestry is split between British and Irish. There is no option for "white mixed", so am I white British or white other? My wife is of Midwestern German extraction, so are my kids white British or white other?
The whole ethnic classifications in the UK are absurd. We should have one question for race, which should be European/Middle Eastern/African/native American/South Asian/East Asian plus the mixed options. Then another one for cultural identity which could be English, Welsh, Punjabi, Somali, Jamaican, American or whatever.
All ethnic classification are “absurd”, because they’re all a complex mix of historical and social factors, with a tablespoon of pseudo-science thrown in.
But the thing is, “race” is just the same. Races don’t exist (in humans): it’s a hangover from 19th century pseudo-science. There is a continuum of genetic variation, but overall we are a fairly genetically homogenous species. Genetic variation is much higher in people from sub-Saharan Africa: so, a person of European heritage and a person of South Asian heritage are, on average, more genetically alike than the person of South Asian heritage and a person of East Asian heritage, but all three are more genetically alike than someone of west Africa pen heritage versus someone of south-west African heritage.
Domestic cats are much more genetically diverse than humans. They’re more genetically diverse than domestic dogs, even though dogs often look very different and cats all look much the same.
I don't think it's acceptable nowadays to say things like "cats all look much the same"
ETA: An actual serious point though, I've been involved in studies, generally longer ago, where small numbers meant that we had a South Asian category (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi). When you have larger studies you see that is really a bit of a nonsense as the Indian ethnic group has very different outcomes (in our work) to the Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups. Of course, within all those groups even greater variation.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
There's a section on the polling average, and how that relates to the actually vote tally. Including:
"This year, there are considerably more districts with no Democratic nominee than with no Republican. Specifically, there are 23 House districts with no Democrat on the ballot3 but 12 with no Republican. Moreover, the districts with no Democratic nominee tend to be more competitive than those with no Republican one, meaning that Democrats are sacrificing more votes.
It’s slightly tricky to calculate exactly how big this effect is, but it will likely shift the final House popular vote margin by at least 1 percentage point toward Republicans, and probably more like 1.5 percentage points. In other words, if the final generic ballot margin was Republicans by 3 percentage points, we’d expect them to win the House popular vote by more like 4.5 percentage points because of all the districts with missing Democratic candidates."
Which helps to explain a couple of anomalies, and worth remembering when all the votes have been added and we can start figuring out how much the polling average was out by...
Latest 538 polling average has R+1.2 If we add 1.5 to that it would put R 2.7% ahead in the popular vote, and a small majority (their House model has "Republicans are favored to win a majority of the seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.6 points" - I assume this is because of the same effect from missing Democrat candidates). Still an average polling error away from either a big Republican majority, or the Democrats just holding on. Are the polls more likely to underestimate the Republican lead, rather than the reverse? Probably. But my caveman maths, based on nothing more than looking at the numbers on 538, says there's at least a 25% chance that the polls are this time overestimating the Republican lead, and at least a 40% chance the polls are out by enough, so at least 10% chance of Democrats retaining the house. (538's deluxe model has it as 16%). No doubt those who actually know the US a bit, can offer a more sophisticated analysis.
In a house of, what, 450 seats, do their major parties really fail to put up candidates in all seats? Wow. Surely with their budget you’d have a full slate of paper candidates for Congress at least?
I think the article mentions there are some places (California?) where there are jungle primaries and the top 2 go on the final ballot regardless of party. Not sure if there are also seats where they have just decided not to bother?
Ah, ok. That makes (more) sense. Bonkers electoral system all round.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
Society isn't going to look like nearly every couple being mixed race for centuries if ever. And my whole point is that you don't need to show every family as mixed race to normalise mixed race families.
The end state is that mixed race couples are entirely accepted in this country as nothing out of the ordinary.
My one time (white) boxing coach (use the term lightly I was only a white collar guy) had his boxing career curtailed when someone walked up to him while he was sitting in the pub with his black girlfriend and hit him in the face with an iron bar.
If that person had grown up seeing mixed race couples shop at Sainsburys then perhaps there would have been nothing exceptional about the situation.
We're pretty much already at the end state, then, aren't we? Not perfect, but a damn sight closer than the diversity industry would have us believe.
No. I don't think we are there, frankly, but it's great that your experiences are that we are.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
Michael Howard and other Home Secretaries have described, in some detail, the proposals which the department puts forward to them, repeatedly. Detention without trial is an old one.
Another one was the idea of having a processing centre for refugees, somewhere a long way from the UK.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
It's saying if we have more black actors/participants then perhaps the UK will become ever so slightly less racist. Yes we are much less racist than we used to be but we are not there yet, despite what @Driver thinks.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
If most adverts are shot in cities, and particular in London, then that may not be the case. Likewise, it will depend on the ethnic breakdown of actors. Do you have any stats on that?
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
They were, quite literally, linking the databases together. That was the whole point of what they were doing.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
Yes, that's my recollection. And while it's possible to believe that the government didn't want the many bad things which would have been enabled by this, it's such a short step from what was openly proposed to 'many bad things will be enabled by this' that it was worth opposing vigorously.
It's odd, though, in retrospect, that Labour were so wedded to this, at the expense of both popularity and, ultimately, a potential coalition with the Lib Dems. It was the hill which they chose to die on. It's hard to see what fundamental leftist tenet was being advanced to make it worthwhile.
Comments
As 'the right', I am very happy both that the women's football team is 'too white' and that the men's football team is 'too black' because what it suggests to me is that both teams are based on picking the teams on merit - i.e. for the footballing ability rather than the perceived or actual need to represent different identity groups.
Not ALL of them went to private school
Yes, it would have been an IT disaster on the scale of the NHS mega project(s) one. But it would still have been a staggering invasion of privacy for much of the population.
To be blunt, I'm deeply suspicious of the motives of anybody who is remotely bothered by their being too many non-white representations in the media.
Different, and more complex, arguments apply to sport.
As for the "would you want the man in charge of the bin lorry to have the authority to look up your tax records?" argument (the image of the same guy marching you to a cashpoint terminal existed at some point too, under Blair), it is naive at best. Note that it's usually a binman in the image, not a headmaster, housing manager, magistrate, police inspector, security guard, etc.
I respect the anti-ID card people in all parts of the political spectrum, but few of them have a clue about actual real current history and some live inside Colditz films. Well, I don't respect all of them, but I acknowledge that some will have the courage to resist, regardless of which part of the spectrum they are currently in.
One of the big elephants in the room is the prevalence of smartphones. They have being an ID card as one of their functions. But some just can't and won't see that. Perhaps is because they didn't have them in Colditz films.
It has surprised me that so many Tories have been given permission to "think" that lockdowns were bad. Next time during a pandemic perhaps the approach will be no lockdown but compulsory vaccination instead - or compulsory showing of ID to do practically anything outside of your house, indeed even to go outside of your house. It won't just be like a previous lockdown period but without the lockdown.
See what they're doing in Stirling?
The trend is to implantation but this may be a case of "Don't say that! You're a Russian trollbot poophead!"
It is perfectly possible to come up with ID card scheme that doesn't require that. But the Home Office keeps on rejecting such scheme as "not sufficiently functional".
Which rather suggests what they want....
https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/11/07/ship-catches-fire-in-russias-astrakhan/
In some classes I teach, the vast majority of students are from outside the UK, and they nearly all return to the countries they are from. My colleagues are from many countries: mostly the UK, but others from Poland, the Netherlands, Australia, Russia, Portugal, Mauritius etc. (although out of those 6 examples, 4 of them came to the UK before moving into academia).
Of course, many people do move country, and often it’s for employment reasons. I’ve not denied that. But it’s not so widespread as you depict. If we train more doctors in the UK, there will be more doctors in the UK. We’re not going to lose them as fast as we train them.
But how many people have two Unique Learner Numbers?
Or two Unique Candidate Identifier numbers?
Or two IMEI numbers on their smartphone?
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
It wasn't that they were EVUL - it's a similar reason as to why we have limits on what the police can do in an investiagtion. You don't put civil liberties in the hands of those who regard them as an administrative inconvenience.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/china-lashes-visit-uk-trade-minister-taiwan-92787471
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
I think the odds should be higher/longer. The implied probability for the GOP to get a majority is too high here.
Too long = BACK the selection
Too short = LAY the selection
- Withdrawal to 2013 position?
- Withdrawal to Jan 22 position and hope Ukraine accepts that?
- Freeze lines static as they are now, and hope Ukraine accepts that?
- Attempt offensives to capture all 'annexed' territory and then hope Ukraine accepts that?
- Long scale war to ultimately annex all of Ukraine?
If its not the first, are they just hoping their 'will' will outlast Ukrainian will/Western support?
And if it is the first, does Putin accept he's basically committed suicide by falling out of a window?
https://twitter.com/FrankUnderwood/status/1589967598833504256/photo/1
The whole ethnic classifications in the UK are absurd. We should have one question for race, which should be European/Middle Eastern/African/native American/South Asian/East Asian plus the mixed options. Then another one for cultural identity which could be English, Welsh, Punjabi, Somali, Jamaican, American or whatever.
What's a pity is that more state schools don't play rugby (or any sport). That's what I'd like to change.
The England rugby union class issue is slightly more complex than it is often portrayed. In the North, and perhaps in London, it tends to be a middle class game; in the Midlands and the South West, it permeates the classes much more. And there have always been working class England players (largely from the midlands and south west).
Clearly there are more socio-economic divisions than just posh/middle/working - but the current England side has at least a couple of players from seriously tough backgrounds (Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinkler).
Public school players are also more represented than you might expect because public schools have a tendency to offer scholarships to talented young rugby players who would otherwise go to state schools; and because some clubs have arrangements with public schools whereby the clubs will identify a promising young player, attach them to the club, and arrange their education (at some public school).
You write as if historical trends aren't a thing, as if we're all more or less rational citizens in a liberal democracy and well it's not perfect but hey not let's worry about stuff, because at the end of the day it works and we're not implanted or dead yet.
There's huge huge surveillance. Have you any idea how much info is collected on a car's computers, for example? Between 0910 and 0924 on 8 Nov, car reg xxx had driver and front seat passenger and one passenger weighing approx 62-64kg in middle back seat until 0924 when front passenger exited and other passenger moved to left back seat and exited at long lat yyy at 0931.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/in-depth/zero-hour-how-engineers-hold-the-key-to-averting-a-climate-catastrophe
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
The department now has 35 days to make it public.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/covid-lessons-learnt-foi-battle-review-publish/
The ID card is irrelevant, almost. Apart from being associated with the central linkage of all your data.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-3-big-questions-i-still-have-about-election-day/
There's a section on the polling average, and how that relates to the actually vote tally. Including:
"This year, there are considerably more districts with no Democratic nominee than with no Republican. Specifically, there are 23 House districts with no Democrat on the ballot3 but 12 with no Republican. Moreover, the districts with no Democratic nominee tend to be more competitive than those with no Republican one, meaning that Democrats are sacrificing more votes.
It’s slightly tricky to calculate exactly how big this effect is, but it will likely shift the final House popular vote margin by at least 1 percentage point toward Republicans, and probably more like 1.5 percentage points. In other words, if the final generic ballot margin was Republicans by 3 percentage points, we’d expect them to win the House popular vote by more like 4.5 percentage points because of all the districts with missing Democratic candidates."
Which helps to explain a couple of anomalies, and worth remembering when all the votes have been added and we can start figuring out how much the polling average was out by...
Latest 538 polling average has R+1.2
If we add 1.5 to that it would put R 2.7% ahead in the popular vote, and a small majority (their House model has "Republicans are favored to win a majority of the seats if they win the popular vote by at least 0.6 points" - I assume this is because of the same effect from missing Democrat candidates). Still an average polling error away from either a big Republican majority, or the Democrats just holding on. Are the polls more likely to underestimate the Republican lead, rather than the reverse? Probably. But my caveman maths, based on nothing more than looking at the numbers on 538, says there's at least a 25% chance that the polls are this time overestimating the Republican lead, and at least a 40% chance the polls are out by enough, so at least 10% chance of Democrats retaining the house. (538's deluxe model has it as 16%).
No doubt those who actually know the US a bit, can offer a more sophisticated analysis.
Sure but that hardly changes things, a black player every two games rather than every three, one Asian descent player every match, the remaining spot every other game is almost certainly still mostly white non-British descent. Age doesn't make a big difference.
It seems quite clear to me that Women's football is more representative than Men's football, and the lack of black players is dwarfed by the lack of players of Asian descent. You wouldn't have known this from the criticism which was based upon assumptions that aren't correct.
I should point out I don't really mind who plays, and I totally accept that by chance and a whole load of other factors not related to ethnicity there will inevitably be other reasons why representation is not aligned with the population, my beef (a pretty minor beef, really more because I was curious) is that the Women's team are not obviously discriminating, and if they are they issue is surely with the lack of players of Asian descent. Many of the factors that are of issue are almost certainly outside their control, like education, economic factors, cultural etc.
But that’s racism for you: it’s stupid. However, while we move away from the racism of the past, we’re left having to collect this sort of data to help us complete a transition to not caring about such things!
We'd already be at 0% White British if you followed their logic to its conclusion.
LGBA views are more in keeping with the law than MMs view of gender identity. There is respectable dispute on both side. Turning to Equality Act [EA], first part of act defines terms. Gender reassignment defined - does not change legal sex. That's in the GRA. Also sex is defined…
as a man or a woman. Man or woman is defined as male of any age or female of any age. Female and male are biologically rooted. Case law makes clear that male and female are biologically rooted…..
Common law says sex is biological. Gender is self-perception. This is well established. We say LGBA beliefs are more closely aligned to legal norms so wrong to say that are outwith public view
https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1589949154683686912
I don't think I have ever heard Stephen Kinnock offer an opinion that isn't well to the right of my position, and I am hardly of the radical left.
They hastily added some segregation of data - but it was that ill thought out.
This is effectively what's happened in the US: a big chunk of white Middle America has determined (rightly or wrongly) that their society is overly focused on the needs and wants of minorities, and that it's in their interests to simply vote for anyone who's committed to reversing that trend. The best way of ensuring it doesn't happen here is to have society work for everyone; and in the absence of that, to find the best balance between all the different groupings such that no-one group feels like they're losing the game to the extent that it's worth turning the table over.
The point being, it's bad when a minority group feels that way, but it's catastrophic when the majority do.
Not sure that thrills me tbh.
My one time (white) boxing coach (use the term lightly I was only a white collar guy) had his boxing career curtailed when someone walked up to him while he was sitting in the pub with his black girlfriend and hit him in the face with an iron bar.
If that person had grown up seeing mixed race couples shop at Sainsburys then perhaps there would have been nothing exceptional about the situation.
The downside of the D strategy was that it meant a lot more seats would fall if the elections did see a red wave. So, one factor to consider looking at the numbers today.
But the thing is, “race” is just the same. Races don’t exist (in humans): it’s a hangover from 19th century pseudo-science. There is a continuum of genetic variation, but overall we are a fairly genetically homogenous species. Genetic variation is much higher in people from sub-Saharan Africa: so, a person of European heritage and a person of South Asian heritage are, on average, more genetically alike than the person of South Asian heritage and a person of East Asian heritage, but all three are more genetically alike than someone of west Africa pen heritage versus someone of south-west African heritage.
Domestic cats are much more genetically diverse than humans. They’re more genetically diverse than domestic dogs, even though dogs often look very different and cats all look much the same.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
ETA: An actual serious point though, I've been involved in studies, generally longer ago, where small numbers meant that we had a South Asian category (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi). When you have larger studies you see that is really a bit of a nonsense as the Indian ethnic group has very different outcomes (in our work) to the Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups. Of course, within all those groups even greater variation.
Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
I kept reading paragraph after paragraph thinking it could not get any worse.
https://www.platformer.news/p/musk-discusses-putting-all-of-twitter https://twitter.com/nickstatt/status/1589802376164040704/photo/1
Another one was the idea of having a processing centre for refugees, somewhere a long way from the UK.
And while it's possible to believe that the government didn't want the many bad things which would have been enabled by this, it's such a short step from what was openly proposed to 'many bad things will be enabled by this' that it was worth opposing vigorously.
It's odd, though, in retrospect, that Labour were so wedded to this, at the expense of both popularity and, ultimately, a potential coalition with the Lib Dems. It was the hill which they chose to die on. It's hard to see what fundamental leftist tenet was being advanced to make it worthwhile.