The Tyre Nichols video (black on black) is, to me, worse than the George Floyd video (white on black). In the Nichols video the police seem absolutely intent on slowly beating this guy into a terrible coma without a care if he dies. Then they are recorded exulting in what they did - “did ya see my haymakers?!l”
Ugh
In the Floyd video the cop at least looked like he was attempting restraint (albeit with a negligence tantamount to murder)
The worst video of all is that weeping pleading white guy getting shot (by white cops) as he begs for his life. An outright execution. I forget the poor victim’s name probably because I want to forget the whole thing. One of the worst videos of intimate human violence I have ever witnessed
The one thing that America ( and Europe ) never reckons one with nowadays is that the vast amounts of violence - rather than sex - in modern mainstream cinema and television might not be a Good Thing. It's got confused with arguments about censorship in other areas, such as on sex or cultural values, such that you never even hear the argument raised now. There seems to a vastly simplistic and faintly bizarre modern consensus, across the left and right, that this phenomenon is good, healthy and free.
The issue is everyone has access to that but Americans have unique levels of gun violence, even compared to other places with guns. So it simply cannot be the primary cause. People can argue there's too much of it, but I think the consensus had reasoning behind it given if we have less of that cinematic violence in say, Canada, it's not by that much given how influenced they are by American culture.
Generally in my experience if you ask the question “why is the USA weird about issue X compared to any other comparable country in the same situation?” the answer always seems to boil down to slavery & the subsequent treatment of the black population once you drill down far enough.
It’s the USA’s original sin that seems to infect everything. They could move past it, but that would mean admitting that the wrong-doing of the past continues to echo into the present & doing that seems to be impossible.
I wouldn’t say that we’re necessarily any better at this - look at how difficult some people find admitting that the empire was not an unalloyed good thing for the grateful beneficiaries of our largesse! (ahem) But it seems to be worse in the US somehow.
Maybe.
OTOH, there have been periods (and not too long ago) when Europe has been a horrifically brutal and violent place. Ditto South East Asia (which like Europe, currently enjoys very low homicide rates).
My guess is that one day, war, torture, ethnic cleansing will return to Western Europe, because brutality is a part of human nature.
My general view is not that brutality is an inherent part of it, and that people are naturally good. However I think humans are also easily swayed and can get locked into bad habits because of our capacity to endure terrible things and keep going. So it is depressingly easy to unlock our darker side and then repetition makes it harder to lock it back up.
I think that more people enjoy violence than we like to imagine.
That's probably true, and people enjoy the thrill of violent seeming competition very much, in other times they would enjoy blood sport.
But as a rule of thumb I think people being good holds up, as we are not perfect and an illicit excitement from seeing a fight is not to say the soul is forever tarnished. Our capacity for violence is obviously high, and we can be trained by culture to accept it, but I don't think it's the default state, if there is such a thing.
I'm just an optimist.
Overall I would probably agree with this. But I think that also means that the selfish or competitive instinct, where violence often originates, is vastly overstated by people like Hayek et al. We evolved as social and group-capable animals to survive, and that will always counter and balance our more selfish tendencies.
All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin. To be fair, he's basically doing that. There's a growing feeling that 'It's their turn now.'
Short of Corbyn returning, or a major catastrophe being averted by Rishi in a superman costume, this will play to its close.
“All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin.“
Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree.
You must always be aggressive in rebuttal, and work on your perceived weaknesses in eyes of voters. They need to turn Starmer into Uncle Starmer - man of the people. It’s easy, just work on his human side, where he grew up, etc. AND They need to get policy idea’s out there. Lots more policy idea’s. If some are nicked by Tories that just hurts the Tories.
"Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree."
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest that wasn't quite the plan. Even without the impromptu "we're all right"ing.
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest they actually were complacent. All around that event of yours they hid unliked mouthy in a potting shed whilst his opponent was in markets on a soap box getting egged as he engaged the voters with idea’s and policy. Labour were sucked in by poll leads and “ours to lose let’s be careful out there” complacency.
Aside from poll leads, what was “best for PM” “best party for economy” saying. If Labour trailed on those they needed to be out their fixing it with gusto. You have to rethink your last post don’t you?
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
The Guardian took a definite turn towards more and more of this stuff under its current editor. It’s pretty much unreadable these days, apart from the odd columnist.
Re the awful murder in the States, I’m somewhat intrigued by the BBC reporting stressing that the victim was a black man. First time I heard this I assumed the assailants/police were white. But no. There is no racial element to the story, so why no just report that a man has been murdered? We will never end racism while some persist in flagging race when there is no need.
Not really soluble rationally. USA murder in itself is not a UK story. Deaths in the hands of police in USA probably generally not either. The UK media are a little puzzled as to how to handle it. Why exactly is this a big UK story? It wouldn't be if it was Philippines or Paraguay.
One structural difficulty in the UK is the selective use of race based stories. It is much easier to run stories about how victims of murder are disproportionately of ethnic group X than the same about perpetrators being ethnic group X. The data isn't available.
BTW to look at coverage and rhetoric you would assume that most UK murder victims are women. You would be wrong.
Why is this a big British story? Because, as I may have ranted before, the Oxbridge educated news interns who get stuck with weekend night shifts slavishly follow American media, and it is a big story in America.
It's funny. I thought Oxbridge types were meant to be a bit sniffy about the US. Growing up in the 90s it was one reason I liked the BBC. It seemed less Americanised than, say, MTV.
Look at the stories early on weekends. Invariably there will be American domestic stories.
I’m not convinced it’s as simple as “ Oxbridge educated news interns who get stuck with weekend night shifts slavishly follow American media, and it is a big story in America”.
I think it’s because a huge amount of the BBC news team (not necessarily the presenters) live in a metro bubble in London and are surrounded by “BBC Diversity” where they have every race equally surrounding them but all are of the same mindset - all look different but think the same way.
This metro “race blind” perspective makes them (understandably) possibly more sensitive to what they see as racial injustices so when this is mixed with their subconscious cultural cornerstones being US film, tv etc they conflate racial divides in the US with those in the UK, for example the police attitude to young black men in both countries and think it’s all the same level of toxicity.
So this cultural osmosis mixed with very little real knowledge of how grim a large part of the US history was until living memory to black people* makes them focus on US stories that back up their world view because not only is there such a raft of these types of stories out of the US compared to the UK (which doesn’t make them twig that we are very different countries) but also there is such a huge amount of readily available coverage that they can get rights to so they can package up a ready made story with lots of video from public and multiple news sources without having to do much journalism.
Finally I think there is a language issue where, for example, they don’t have enough French speakers who would be able to source many bad stories about the French police treatment of minorities as the French speaking Journos at the bbc are more likely tasked with coverage of French politics/EU/Calais.
* this in no way is meant to ignore the UK’s role in slavery and other stains on our history.
The Tyre Nichols video (black on black) is, to me, worse than the George Floyd video (white on black). In the Nichols video the police seem absolutely intent on slowly beating this guy into a terrible coma without a care if he dies. Then they are recorded exulting in what they did - “did ya see my haymakers?!l”
Ugh
In the Floyd video the cop at least looked like he was attempting restraint (albeit with a negligence tantamount to murder)
The worst video of all is that weeping pleading white guy getting shot (by white cops) as he begs for his life. An outright execution. I forget the poor victim’s name probably because I want to forget the whole thing. One of the worst videos of intimate human violence I have ever witnessed
The one thing that America ( and Europe ) never reckons one with nowadays is that the vast amounts of violence - rather than sex - in modern mainstream cinema and television might not be a Good Thing. It's got confused with arguments about censorship in other areas, such as on sex or cultural values, such that you never even hear the argument raised now. There seems to a vastly simplistic and faintly bizarre modern consensus, across the left and right, that this phenomenon is good, healthy and free.
The issue is everyone has access to that but Americans have unique levels of gun violence, even compared to other places with guns. So it simply cannot be the primary cause. People can argue there's too much of it, but I think the consensus had reasoning behind it given if we have less of that cinematic violence in say, Canada, it's not by that much given how influenced they are by American culture.
Generally in my experience if you ask the question “why is the USA weird about issue X compared to any other comparable country in the same situation?” the answer always seems to boil down to slavery & the subsequent treatment of the black population once you drill down far enough.
It’s the USA’s original sin that seems to infect everything. They could move past it, but that would mean admitting that the wrong-doing of the past continues to echo into the present & doing that seems to be impossible.
I wouldn’t say that we’re necessarily any better at this - look at how difficult some people find admitting that the empire was not an unalloyed good thing for the grateful beneficiaries of our largesse! (ahem) But it seems to be worse in the US somehow.
Maybe.
OTOH, there have been periods (and not too long ago) when Europe has been a horrifically brutal and violent place. Ditto South East Asia (which like Europe, currently enjoys very low homicide rates).
My guess is that one day, war, torture, ethnic cleansing will return to Western Europe, because brutality is a part of human nature.
My general view is not that brutality is an inherent part of it, and that people are naturally good. However I think humans are also easily swayed and can get locked into bad habits because of our capacity to endure terrible things and keep going. So it is depressingly easy to unlock our darker side and then repetition makes it harder to lock it back up.
I think that more people enjoy violence than we like to imagine.
Your view of human nature is deeply pessimistic. I'm not convinced that we are innately savages, many of whom revel in violence. If such a view were right, you wouldn't expect behaviour to change that much. But actually, taking this country as an example, there is much less violence now than in the relatively recent past. It's no longer socially acceptable to resolve minor disputes by fisticuffs, or to beat your wife, or to beat your children, for example. The fact that these things still happen doesn't obviate the point; they are much less commonplace than in previous centuries.
Anecdotally, I was brought up in Leeds in the 1970s. I'm absolutely sure that there was much more casual violence back then than there is now. And that would have been true with knobs on if you went back to the 1870s.
FWIW I was at a black tie event last night, with a fair few wealthy Brits. One of the poshest, double-barrelled, very public school, became quite disruptive at various points of the evening bellowing "Boris Johnson is a C&nt", "The Tories are all a$$holes", and much else in like mood. It is not just that the Conservatives have lost support, they are actually despised and loathed. Swimming against that hatred is more or less impossible,
I think that Sunak slightly reminds me of the Czar or of Louis XVI, they themselves were not particularly brutal, indeed they were rather timid, even insipid figures, but they were heirs to regimes that were cruel and nasty...
Sunak in the tumbril? Perhaps unfairly, he does seem to be facing an appointment with Madame La Guillotine.
It certainly feels like the country will not be happy until the Tories are defeated, and quite possibly obliterated.
Sunak as Louis XVI is exquisite. Chapeau. Or, even, la tête.
This really isn't a thread to get your teeth into unless you are a lefty and want to vent your spleen against the Tories. It's more of a ...is the Pope catholic type of thread. Frankly I will laugh my head off if Starmer doesn't get a majority and has to rely on the loony nationalists and possibly a few Lib Dems.....recipe for disaster and infighting. What fun.
Careful what you wish for. A Starmer government depending on Lib Dem and SNP support is much more liable to be radical in ways that Tories really won't like.
Meanwhile, that Peter Kellner has come up with a neat swingometer for next time;
Unless the Tories win most seats even in a hung parliament Labour probably wouldn't need the nationalists. It would probably need the LDs though.
As that chart shows even if Sunak cuts the Labour lead to 9% we are in hung parliament territory
I don’t believe the chart. Labour lead 10% to be close to a majority, and 6% lead to be largest party?
Kelner is playing pro Labour politics setting such high bars.
Like me explain it like this. 2019? Mike Smithson says the biggest factor was Corbyn. That’s no longer the biggest factor for next time. The Tory’s havn’t got at Starmer and tackled him at all.
So what’s the biggest factor 2024? Brexit. All Tory’s lost to the party because of Brexit, so many on this forum and add Rod Stewart etc, no longer have to vote Tory to save us from Corbyn. The biggest factor 2024 is rage against the Party who inflicted Brexit on this huge set of Tory voters.
And that’s the player Kelner is leaving off his chart, how that plays into tactical votes.
The evidence was quite clear that Corbyn was a big factor last time. But I think hindsight is making him an even bigger factor this time, which is good for Labour.
By which I mean, at least some voted Tory in 2019 to get Brexit done (ie get it over with and move on). But now that Brexit is becoming deeply unfashionable, it suits people to tell themselves the reason they voted Conservative was fear of Corbyn. Especially since he’s also become much more deeply unfashionable since.
That means when people head to the voting booth next time they will be following a logic that says I voted Tory to keep Corbyn out, now Corbyn’s gone there’s no reason to vote for them again, so I’ll vote for the other lot.
I don’t think we are in disagreement. A whole army wishing to give the Tories a punishment beating over Brexit was hidden at the last election, and as you say it’s ranks swelled since. And now, due to Tory utter failure to make Starmer and Labour scary (too busy hollowing out each other) there is nothing stopping this angry Remainia of Tory voters going about that punishment beating.
Kelner and others need to bring out charts like that which factors this in, for the Tories punishment beating for Brexit brings the bars Labour need to clear much lower.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
This really isn't a thread to get your teeth into unless you are a lefty and want to vent your spleen against the Tories. It's more of a ...is the Pope catholic type of thread. Frankly I will laugh my head off if Starmer doesn't get a majority and has to rely on the loony nationalists and possibly a few Lib Dems.....recipe for disaster and infighting. What fun.
Careful what you wish for. A Starmer government depending on Lib Dem and SNP support is much more liable to be radical in ways that Tories really won't like.
Meanwhile, that Peter Kellner has come up with a neat swingometer for next time;
Unless the Tories win most seats even in a hung parliament Labour probably wouldn't need the nationalists. It would probably need the LDs though.
As that chart shows even if Sunak cuts the Labour lead to 9% we are in hung parliament territory
I don’t believe the chart. Labour lead 10% to be close to a majority, and 6% lead to be largest party?
Kelner is playing pro Labour politics setting such high bars.
Like me explain it like this. 2019? Mike Smithson says the biggest factor was Corbyn. That’s no longer the biggest factor for next time. The Tory’s havn’t got at Starmer and tackled him at all.
So what’s the biggest factor 2024? Brexit. All Tory’s lost to the party because of Brexit, so many on this forum and add Rod Stewart etc, no longer have to vote Tory to save us from Corbyn. The biggest factor 2024 is rage against the Party who inflicted Brexit on this huge set of Tory voters.
And that’s the player Kelner is leaving off his chart, how that plays into tactical votes.
The evidence was quite clear that Corbyn was a big factor last time. But I think hindsight is making him an even bigger factor this time, which is good for Labour.
By which I mean, at least some voted Tory in 2019 to get Brexit done (ie get it over with and move on). But now that Brexit is becoming deeply unfashionable, it suits people to tell themselves the reason they voted Conservative was fear of Corbyn. Especially since he’s also become much more deeply unfashionable since.
That means when people head to the voting booth next time they will be following a logic that says I voted Tory to keep Corbyn out, now Corbyn’s gone there’s no reason to vote for them again, so I’ll vote for the other lot.
Further to this, GET BREXIT DONE was a superb election slogan, maybe the best ever, in that it attracted not only Leave voters (for obvious reasons) but also lots of Remain voters, the softer more apolitical ones, fed up with the shitshow of parliament failing to pass anything and who just wanted the whole thing put to bed. IMO this factor is under-appreciated.
Horrific. I'd say that's clear murder, not manslaugher. But we know that US police are not held to account when they kill innocent people.
It seems the killer got a $30k a year medical pension 2 years later.
There are too many issues to count around this - for a start the political setup and very minimal training received by USA police officers before they are given the means and the authority to kill people will minimal consequences. For me it's a reason I won't go the USA.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
The rationing of trained doctors is absolutely deliberate and has been as far as I know a long running policy.
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
This really isn't a thread to get your teeth into unless you are a lefty and want to vent your spleen against the Tories. It's more of a ...is the Pope catholic type of thread. Frankly I will laugh my head off if Starmer doesn't get a majority and has to rely on the loony nationalists and possibly a few Lib Dems.....recipe for disaster and infighting. What fun.
Careful what you wish for. A Starmer government depending on Lib Dem and SNP support is much more liable to be radical in ways that Tories really won't like.
Meanwhile, that Peter Kellner has come up with a neat swingometer for next time;
Unless the Tories win most seats even in a hung parliament Labour probably wouldn't need the nationalists. It would probably need the LDs though.
As that chart shows even if Sunak cuts the Labour lead to 9% we are in hung parliament territory
I don’t believe the chart. Labour lead 10% to be close to a majority, and 6% lead to be largest party?
Kelner is playing pro Labour politics setting such high bars.
Like me explain it like this. 2019? Mike Smithson says the biggest factor was Corbyn. That’s no longer the biggest factor for next time. The Tory’s havn’t got at Starmer and tackled him at all.
So what’s the biggest factor 2024? Brexit. All Tory’s lost to the party because of Brexit, so many on this forum and add Rod Stewart etc, no longer have to vote Tory to save us from Corbyn. The biggest factor 2024 is rage against the Party who inflicted Brexit on this huge set of Tory voters.
And that’s the player Kelner is leaving off his chart, how that plays into tactical votes.
The evidence was quite clear that Corbyn was a big factor last time. But I think hindsight is making him an even bigger factor this time, which is good for Labour.
By which I mean, at least some voted Tory in 2019 to get Brexit done (ie get it over with and move on). But now that Brexit is becoming deeply unfashionable, it suits people to tell themselves the reason they voted Conservative was fear of Corbyn. Especially since he’s also become much more deeply unfashionable since.
That means when people head to the voting booth next time they will be following a logic that says I voted Tory to keep Corbyn out, now Corbyn’s gone there’s no reason to vote for them again, so I’ll vote for the other lot.
I don’t think we are in disagreement. A whole army wishing to give the Tories a punishment beating over Brexit was hidden at the last election, and as you say it’s ranks swelled since. And now, due to Tory utter failure to make Starmer and Labour scary (too busy hollowing out each other) there is nothing stopping this angry Remainia of Tory voters going about that punishment beating.
Kelner and others need to bring out charts like that which factors this in, for the Tories punishment beating for Brexit brings the bars Labour need to clear much lower.
Yes, but I'd say making Labour look unscary is more a Starmer success than a Tory failure.
I grew up in a working class suburb in NZ in the 80s and 90s and hardly saw any violence at school.
Then I went to an English school for a year in what seemed to me then a “posh” (but actually lower middle class) school and was shocked by the prevalence of bullying and sexual licentiousness.
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
The Guardian took a definite turn towards more and more of this stuff under its current editor. It’s pretty much unreadable these days, apart from the odd columnist.
Darren Johnson, the former Green GLA member, now retired to the seaside and writing well-received music books.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
The rationing of trained doctors is absolutely deliberate and has been as far as I know a long running policy.
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
A completely idiotic policy even without a 7m waiting list of patients, utterly insane when we have.
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
The Guardian took a definite turn towards more and more of this stuff under its current editor. It’s pretty much unreadable these days, apart from the odd columnist.
Rhiannon Lucy Coslett, the author of the first article bemoaning the middle classness of owning books (despite her name being incredibly middle class), once wrote an article about the horrors of 'spidermanning' sweeping University campuses. Without being crass, she described a form of sexual assault where a male and female would be having consensual sex, while unbeknownst to the young woman, his friends would be masturbating on the other side of the door. Upon ejaculation, the group of young men would burst into the room and throw sperm on the young woman.
I remember this article, since I was at University, and it struck me as wildly impractical. The logistics alone would put the Dolittle raid to shame. I don't doubt it happened to someone, somewhere, but it made me think that Ms Coslett was rather naive to suggest it as a widespread practice and that she was taken in. On the other hand, it may have been that she had a deadline to meet and a lack of material with which to meet it.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
They're doing the same in teaching, except there they're actually cutting numbers due to a series of administrative errors.
I grew up in a working class suburb in NZ in the 80s and 90s and hardly saw any violence at school.
Then I went to an English school for a year in what seemed to me then a “posh” (but actually lower middle class) school and was shocked by the prevalence of bullying and sexual licentiousness.
I must say out of the British, Australians, Americans, Canadians and Kiwis, I've always found you lot and the Canadians to be the least confrontational. A certain civilisation and openness.
All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin. To be fair, he's basically doing that. There's a growing feeling that 'It's their turn now.'
Short of Corbyn returning, or a major catastrophe being averted by Rishi in a superman costume, this will play to its close.
“All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin.“
Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree.
You must always be aggressive in rebuttal, and work on your perceived weaknesses in eyes of voters. They need to turn Starmer into Uncle Starmer - man of the people. It’s easy, just work on his human side, where he grew up, etc. AND They need to get policy idea’s out there. Lots more policy idea’s. If some are nicked by Tories that just hurts the Tories.
"Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree."
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest that wasn't quite the plan. Even without the impromptu "we're all right"ing.
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest they actually were complacent. All around that event of yours they hid unliked mouthy in a potting shed whilst his opponent was in markets on a soap box getting egged as he engaged the voters with idea’s and policy. Labour were sucked in by poll leads and “ours to lose let’s be careful out there” complacency.
Aside from poll leads, what was “best for PM” “best party for economy” saying. If Labour trailed on those they needed to be out their fixing it with gusto. You have to rethink your last post don’t you?
First, that wasn't "my" campaign event in any sense. I voted Tory throughout the 1990s, and thought Labour's 1992 campaign was poor.
However, I think that is the wrong lesson you took from that campaign's failure. It wasn't that Labour were hiding, it was that they thought they could run the campaign through the media alone.
They also thought that Major was a net negative for the Conservatives.
The Tories wisely realised that Major was actually an asset, and that there is no substitute for footslogging.
Blair, on the other hand, *did* learn the lessons of that campaign, marrying footslogging with the media game. And of course he had the huge advantage of polling leads driven by Black Wednesday to work with.
ETA: and of course Labour's poll leads were minuscule-to-negative in the run-up to the 1992 GE, lest we forget that detail.
Horrific. I'd say that's clear murder, not manslaugher. But we know that US police are not held to account when they kill innocent people.
It seems the killer got a $30k a year medical pension 2 years later.
There are too many issues to count around this - for a start the political setup and very minimal training received by USA police officers before they are given the means and the authority to kill people will minimal consequences. For me it's a reason I won't go the USA.
The USA is a big country. Different states and even counties are quite different. That’s part of the strength of the place. As a reasonably well to do white man you are highly unlikely to encounter issues.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
Labour are ahead but I think Deltapoll with Labour just 14% ahead is more realistic. RefUK on just 4% with them too, much lower than other pollsters
If you add the 4% Ref to the Tories that's down to a 10% Labour lead and if you add maximum MoE to Cons and subtract maximum MoE from Labour we are in Conservative majority territory.
And if a meteorite lands in your back garden and turns out to be 30kg of platinum you are a millionaire.
It's possible, but it is not likely.
If it landed in your garden and contained that much plutonium, unless you have a garden as big as Johnson's ego I'm thinking your heirs might be the chief beneficiaries.
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
The Guardian took a definite turn towards more and more of this stuff under its current editor. It’s pretty much unreadable these days, apart from the odd columnist.
Ridiculous hyperbole. Maybe you could just highlight half dozen 'unreadable' articles from today's website?
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
The rationing of trained doctors is absolutely deliberate and has been as far as I know a long running policy.
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
A completely idiotic policy even without a 7m waiting list of patients, utterly insane when we have.
I grew up in a working class suburb in NZ in the 80s and 90s and hardly saw any violence at school.
Then I went to an English school for a year in what seemed to me then a “posh” (but actually lower middle class) school and was shocked by the prevalence of bullying and sexual licentiousness.
I must say out of the British, Australians, Americans, Canadians and Kiwis, I've always found you lot and the Canadians to be the least confrontational. A certain civilisation and openness.
NZ culture emanates from lower middle class settlement, including a large dose of Presbyterians.
I think Canada is similar.
Australia had a larger working class and indeed criminal element.
The USA is too vast to generalise about. Running global accounts, I once found that my London guys were often happier talking to the Texans than the New Yorkers or Chicago-ites.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries (actually just the US) as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin. To be fair, he's basically doing that. There's a growing feeling that 'It's their turn now.'
Short of Corbyn returning, or a major catastrophe being averted by Rishi in a superman costume, this will play to its close.
“All Starmer has to do is lie low and say nuffin.“
Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree.
You must always be aggressive in rebuttal, and work on your perceived weaknesses in eyes of voters. They need to turn Starmer into Uncle Starmer - man of the people. It’s easy, just work on his human side, where he grew up, etc. AND They need to get policy idea’s out there. Lots more policy idea’s. If some are nicked by Tories that just hurts the Tories.
"Wasn’t that Their idea in 1992 election? So I disagree."
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest that wasn't quite the plan. Even without the impromptu "we're all right"ing.
The fabled triumphlist Festival Of Kinnock Stadium-Sized Campaign Event would suggest they actually were complacent. All around that event of yours they hid unliked mouthy in a potting shed whilst his opponent was in markets on a soap box getting egged as he engaged the voters with idea’s and policy. Labour were sucked in by poll leads and “ours to lose let’s be careful out there” complacency.
Aside from poll leads, what was “best for PM” “best party for economy” saying. If Labour trailed on those they needed to be out their fixing it with gusto. You have to rethink your last post don’t you?
First, that wasn't "my" campaign event in any sense. I voted Tory throughout the 1990s, and thought Labour's 1992 campaign was poor.
However, I think that is the wrong lesson you took from that campaign's failure. It wasn't that Labour were hiding, it was that they thought they could run the campaign through the media alone.
They also thought that Major was a net negative for the Conservatives.
The Tories wisely realised that Major was actually an asset, and that there is no substitute for footslogging.
Blair, on the other hand, *did* learn the lessons of that campaign, marrying footslogging with the media game. And of course he had the huge advantage of polling leads driven by Black Wednesday to work with.
ETA: and of course Labour's poll leads were minuscule-to-negative in the run-up to the 1992 GE, lest we forget that detail.
I don’t think we are far apart on agreement in this discussion, though I need to see more movement from you on a couple of aspects.
“Labour's poll leads were minuscule-to-negative in the run-up to the 1992 GE, lest we forget that detail.” The detail is they were consistent, never behind till the last big poll in last 24 hours, and their lead backed up by council and by elections actual votes right up till election called.
What was Kinnock doing in a potting shed with days to go in a tight campaign other than hiding? If his own team saw him as a weakness they need to tackle that head on, not hide him.
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
The Guardian took a definite turn towards more and more of this stuff under its current editor. It’s pretty much unreadable these days, apart from the odd columnist.
Ridiculous hyperbole. Maybe you could just highlight half dozen 'unreadable' articles from today's website?
That article about having books in the house being smug and middle class attracted a lot of comment and derision. But it comes from a long line of "Love something? This is why it is bad" school of journalism. Thread:
The Guardian took a definite turn towards more and more of this stuff under its current editor. It’s pretty much unreadable these days, apart from the odd columnist.
Ridiculous hyperbole. Maybe you could just highlight half dozen 'unreadable' articles from today's website?
The Guardian still has a great core of columnists like Toynbee, Monbiot, Freedland and Behr, but they're all older. The Long Read is also good, but otherwise there's quite a few signs of a decline, and it's in subtlety and nuance.
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
The Guardian still has a great core of columnists - Toynbee, Monbiot, Freedland and Behr - but they're all older. The Long Read is also good, but otherwise there's quite a few signs of a decline, and it's subtlety and nuance.
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
I like Behr and Harris. Toynbee is a pastiche of herself, Monbiot is useful but a bit too obsessive. I very much enjoyed Ian Jack, but he died. Cohen has been let go in some kind of sexual harassment scandal.
The Guardian haven’t even bothered reporting on the death of Tom Nairn, which is kind of shocking really. Compare with the FT, who have a good piece which mentions the Nairn-Anderson thesis, which every PBer should know about.
The Guardian still has a great core of columnists like Toynbee, Monbiot, Freedland and Behr, but they're all older. The Long Read is also good, but otherwise there's quite a few signs of a decline, and it's in subtlety and nuance.
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
I have to thank the Guardian for one of their list articles the other day as it made it clear how many amazing songs the Bee Gees made. Quite an incredible number of their own and for other artists. And a really good article about the huge growth of the grey seal population in UK waters.
The Guardian still has a great core of columnists like Toynbee, Monbiot, Freedland and Behr, but they're all older. The Long Read is also good, but otherwise there's quite a few signs of a decline, and it's in subtlety and nuance.
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
I have to thank the Guardian for one of their list articles the other day as it made it clear how many amazing songs the Bee Gees made. Quite an incredible number of their own and for other artists. And a really good article about the huge growth of the grey seal population in UK waters.
The Bee Gees wrote three of the best love songs of the 20th century.
I like to describe them as “Manchester meets Miami” music.
FWIW I was at a black tie event last night, with a fair few wealthy Brits. One of the poshest, double-barrelled, very public school, became quite disruptive at various points of the evening bellowing "Boris Johnson is a C&nt", "The Tories are all a$$holes", and much else in like mood. It is not just that the Conservatives have lost support, they are actually despised and loathed. Swimming against that hatred is more or less impossible,
I think that Sunak slightly reminds me of the Czar or of Louis XVI, they themselves were not particularly brutal, indeed they were rather timid, even insipid figures, but they were heirs to regimes that were cruel and nasty...
Sunak in the tumbril? Perhaps unfairly, he does seem to be facing an appointment with Madame La Guillotine.
It certainly feels like the country will not be happy until the Tories are defeated, and quite possibly obliterated.
Sunak as Louis XVI is exquisite. Chapeau. Or, even, la tête.
This is the new line from Sunakites. It's not his fault, the party is just TOOOO AWFUL. Funny how they didn't mention that when they were urging him as the saviour of the Tories.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
They're doing the same in teaching, except there they're actually cutting numbers due to a series of administrative errors.
And removing the local outstanding teaching college that twin b would otherwise be at in September 2024.
Chances are she won’t be looking at teaching as a career because it will now be a faff that wouldn’t have been the case - her career would have been training and then into one of the schools within the trust as an English / RE / music teacher.
The Guardian still has a great core of columnists like Toynbee, Monbiot, Freedland and Behr, but they're all older. The Long Read is also good, but otherwise there's quite a few signs of a decline, and it's in subtlety and nuance.
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
I have to thank the Guardian for one of their list articles the other day as it made it clear how many amazing songs the Bee Gees made. Quite an incredible number of their own and for other artists. And a really good article about the huge growth of the grey seal population in UK waters.
The Bee Gees wrote three of the best love songs of the 20th century.
I like to describe them as “Manchester meets Miami” music.
No. Just no. Everything bad about 70s music is encapsulated in two words: Bee Gees.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
And......
... it obviously doesn't count if it's a furriner.
FWIW I was at a black tie event last night, with a fair few wealthy Brits. One of the poshest, double-barrelled, very public school, became quite disruptive at various points of the evening bellowing "Boris Johnson is a C&nt", "The Tories are all a$$holes", and much else in like mood. It is not just that the Conservatives have lost support, they are actually despised and loathed. Swimming against that hatred is more or less impossible,
I think that Sunak slightly reminds me of the Czar or of Louis XVI, they themselves were not particularly brutal, indeed they were rather timid, even insipid figures, but they were heirs to regimes that were cruel and nasty...
Sunak in the tumbril? Perhaps unfairly, he does seem to be facing an appointment with Madame La Guillotine.
It certainly feels like the country will not be happy until the Tories are defeated, and quite possibly obliterated.
Sunak as Louis XVI is exquisite. Chapeau. Or, even, la tête.
This is the new line from Sunakites. It's not his fault, the party is just TOOOO AWFUL. Funny how they didn't mention that when they were urging him as the saviour of the Tories.
They're not wrong though are they?
The only issue is Sunak's just as bad as the rest of the party.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
They're doing the same in teaching, except there they're actually cutting numbers due to a series of administrative errors.
And removing the local outstanding teaching college that twin b would otherwise be at in September 2024.
Chances are she won’t be looking at teaching as a career because it will now be a faff that wouldn’t have been the case - her career would have been training and then into one of the schools within the trust as an English / RE / music teacher.
Would that be Durham, presumably?
One of the more bizarre features of this process was that the DfE publicly declared they were going to ignore Ofsted's ratings in such cases because 'they only see tiny snapshots in two-day inspections.'
I mean - did they actually mean to say OFSTED inspections are worthless, or did somebody just not engage their brain?
Also they had no proper appeals process and seemed blithely unconcerned at an existing 40% shortfall in numbers.
It's really quite hard to understand how anyone could make decisions this incompetent by accident.
The Guardian still has a great core of columnists like Toynbee, Monbiot, Freedland and Behr, but they're all older. The Long Read is also good, but otherwise there's quite a few signs of a decline, and it's in subtlety and nuance.
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
I have to thank the Guardian for one of their list articles the other day as it made it clear how many amazing songs the Bee Gees made. Quite an incredible number of their own and for other artists. And a really good article about the huge growth of the grey seal population in UK waters.
The Bee Gees wrote three of the best love songs of the 20th century.
I like to describe them as “Manchester meets Miami” music.
No. Just no. Everything bad about 70s music is encapsulated in two words: Bee Gees.
To Love Somebody How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? How Deep Is Your Love?
I’ll admit I prefer Nina Simone and Al Green for the first two.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
The rationing of trained doctors is absolutely deliberate and has been as far as I know a long running policy.
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
A completely idiotic policy even without a 7m waiting list of patients, utterly insane when we have.
If you're able to disclose the university and the trust (I think that would still protect your relatives?) this should be raised with MPs.
FWIW I was at a black tie event last night, with a fair few wealthy Brits. One of the poshest, double-barrelled, very public school, became quite disruptive at various points of the evening bellowing "Boris Johnson is a C&nt", "The Tories are all a$$holes", and much else in like mood. It is not just that the Conservatives have lost support, they are actually despised and loathed. Swimming against that hatred is more or less impossible,
I think that Sunak slightly reminds me of the Czar or of Louis XVI, they themselves were not particularly brutal, indeed they were rather timid, even insipid figures, but they were heirs to regimes that were cruel and nasty...
Sunak in the tumbril? Perhaps unfairly, he does seem to be facing an appointment with Madame La Guillotine.
It certainly feels like the country will not be happy until the Tories are defeated, and quite possibly obliterated.
Sunak as Louis XVI is exquisite. Chapeau. Or, even, la tête.
This is the new line from Sunakites. It's not his fault, the party is just TOOOO AWFUL. Funny how they didn't mention that when they were urging him as the saviour of the Tories.
Who really was urging Sunak? We just knew we needed Truss out.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
The rationing of trained doctors is absolutely deliberate and has been as far as I know a long running policy.
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
A completely idiotic policy even without a 7m waiting list of patients, utterly insane when we have.
If you're able to disclose the university and the trust (I think that would still protect your relatives?) this should be raised with MPs.
That story was definitely different earlier, as they had withdrawn their tweet but the accompanying statement the BBC quoted made it clear that any use of 'The X' should still be avoided, so they were in fact still implicitly saying one should not say 'The French'.
It's a bit more muddling about it now, but I still read it as saying one shouldn't do it.
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
Anything could happen. Sorry.
But the bring back Boris crowd really do seem to ignore just how unusual it is for a successful election winner to be ousted because of his unsuitability to be PM. 100 Tory MPs at least already want Boris back, and you could see many others turning in desperation to him if there was clear evidence he could win when no one else would, but do they really, deep down, think they can go into an election with someone a majority of their MPs very clearly stated was unsuitable?
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
The report is from journalists in Memphis and Washington DC. The third paragraph reads US President Joe Biden said he was "deeply pained" by the "horrific" clip. You have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of BBC readers.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
And......
And why is that most important and relevant news story for people in the UK.
Yes, we are very interested in the USA. Stories that are big there will be big here, I'm very happy to see it and I try to make a small effort to seek stories about other places as well (so thanks to stodge and DC on the foreign elections). But is there really nothing else going on more relevant, not even one thing?
That story was definitely different earlier, as they had withdrawn their tweet but the accompanying statement the BBC quoted made it clear that any use of 'The X' should still be avoided, so they were in fact still implicitly saying one should not say 'The French'.
It's a bit more muddling about it now, but I still read it as saying one shouldn't do it.
To be fair to AP, referring to 'the x', as in 'the disabled', does risk lazy stereotyping.
That story was definitely different earlier, as they had withdrawn their tweet but the accompanying statement the BBC quoted made it clear that any use of 'The X' should still be avoided, so they were in fact still implicitly saying one should not say 'The French'.
It's a bit more muddling about it now, but I still read it as saying one shouldn't do it.
To be fair to AP, referring to 'the x', as in 'the disabled', does risk lazy stereotyping.
It was a well meaning tweet, they just used a stupid example to illustrate it, and trying to explain it as not using labels and stereotypes for anyone (even if that stereotype is ostensibly positive or neutral) doesn't prevent it from looking silly.
I very much doubt they will stick so rigidly to such a style guide when it comes to 'neutral' uses of The.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
The report is from journalists in Memphis and Washington DC. The third paragraph reads US President Joe Biden said he was "deeply pained" by the "horrific" clip. You have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of BBC readers.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
The report is from journalists in Memphis and Washington DC. The third paragraph reads US President Joe Biden said he was "deeply pained" by the "horrific" clip. You have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of BBC readers.
I think the headline should say US police.
I don't disagree with that. But I'd suggest that even a casual skim reader would still cotton on to the fact that this was in Memphis, USA.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
The report is from journalists in Memphis and Washington DC. The third paragraph reads US President Joe Biden said he was "deeply pained" by the "horrific" clip. You have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of BBC readers.
I think the headline should say US police.
I don't disagree with that. But I'd still suggest that even a casual skim reader would still cotton on to the fact that this was in Memphis, USA.
Probably sloppy more than anything, but a cynic might think that the BBC are looking for clicks.
That story was definitely different earlier, as they had withdrawn their tweet but the accompanying statement the BBC quoted made it clear that any use of 'The X' should still be avoided, so they were in fact still implicitly saying one should not say 'The French'.
It's a bit more muddling about it now, but I still read it as saying one shouldn't do it.
To be fair to AP, referring to 'the x', as in 'the disabled', does risk lazy stereotyping.
Only if people are so stupid as to assume that the authors intend the phrase 'the disabled' as covering every facet of their lives and personality, or their readers being so stupid as to infer that.
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
It won't, Sunak still just about polls better than Boris (even if both poll better than Truss).
There is a also a divide, redwall MPs prefer Boris (as he polls better than Sunak there) but bluewall MPs prefer Rishi (as he polls better than Boris there) and overall there are still more southern Tory bluewall MPs than Northern, Welsh and Midlands redwall MPs even today
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
And......
And why is that most important and relevant news story for people in the UK.
Yes, we are very interested in the USA. Stories that are big there will be big here, I'm very happy to see it and I try to make a small effort to seek stories about other places as well (so thanks to stodge and DC on the foreign elections). But is there really nothing else going on more relevant, not even one thing?
I was wondering why this is so important to the BBC. Not that atrocities committed by the US police aren't newsworthy, but there are a lot of atrocities all over the world at the moment. It seems that the BBC is quite US-centric. I suspect it's something to do with its corporate strategy.
The Guardian still has a great core of columnists like Toynbee, Monbiot, Freedland and Behr, but they're all older. The Long Read is also good, but otherwise there's quite a few signs of a decline, and it's in subtlety and nuance.
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
I have to thank the Guardian for one of their list articles the other day as it made it clear how many amazing songs the Bee Gees made. Quite an incredible number of their own and for other artists. And a really good article about the huge growth of the grey seal population in UK waters.
The Bee Gees wrote three of the best love songs of the 20th century.
I like to describe them as “Manchester meets Miami” music.
Yep, great - although on the writing front it's Barry really. There are dozens of BGs songs I like. I'll just mention To Love Somebody.
Also re Barry how poignant - the oldest of 4 brothers and yet the only one still staying alive.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Dowden said: “In a week where Labour have failed to stand up to their union paymasters, made billions of unfunded spending commitments, and allowed women in their own party to be side-lined, their empty slogans ring hollow.
“Starmer is too weak and too indecisive to make the hard decisions needed to strengthen the UK.”
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
The report is from journalists in Memphis and Washington DC. The third paragraph reads US President Joe Biden said he was "deeply pained" by the "horrific" clip. You have a pretty dim view of the intelligence of BBC readers.
I think the headline should say US police.
I don't disagree with that. But I'd suggest that even a casual skim reader would still cotton on to the fact that this was in Memphis, USA.
Given the UK protests after the death of George Floyd, I don't think basic comprehension can be taken for granted.
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
It won't, Sunak still just about polls better than Boris (even if both poll better than Truss).
There is a also a divide, redwall MPs prefer Boris (as he polls better than Sunak there) but bluewall MPs prefer Rishi (as he polls better than Boris there) and overall there are still more southern Tory bluewall MPs than Northern, Welsh and Midlands redwall MPs even today
Not for much longer 😈 Blue Wall going to give your girls and boys Brexit punishment beating.
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
And......
... it obviously doesn't count if it's a furriner.
That's not the point at all.
We have enough of a problem with importing American social issues without it being encouraged by the way stories are framed by the BBC. Plenty of people just see that "the police" have done something, and it impacts the way the police here are seen. In Multicultural London English, the police are called "the feds".
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
The rationing of trained doctors is absolutely deliberate and has been as far as I know a long running policy.
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
A completely idiotic policy even without a 7m waiting list of patients, utterly insane when we have.
If you're able to disclose the university and the trust (I think that would still protect your relatives?) this should be raised with MPs.
It is a fairly common phenomenon that the DoH restricts postgraduate training places too. My Trust is losing some surgical trainee places shortly to other regions, despite the East Midlands having fewer doctors per capita and longer waiting lists.
I could honestly do better planning on a beermat after 5 pints.
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
It won't, Sunak still just about polls better than Boris (even if both poll better than Truss).
There is a also a divide, redwall MPs prefer Boris (as he polls better than Sunak there) but bluewall MPs prefer Rishi (as he polls better than Boris there) and overall there are still more southern Tory bluewall MPs than Northern, Welsh and Midlands redwall MPs even today
Not for much longer 😈 Blue Wall going to give your girls and boys Brexit punishment beating.
No, there will be more bluewall Tory MPs than redwall Tory MPs after the next election, almost certainly
FWIW I was at a black tie event last night, with a fair few wealthy Brits. One of the poshest, double-barrelled, very public school, became quite disruptive at various points of the evening bellowing "Boris Johnson is a C&nt", "The Tories are all a$$holes", and much else in like mood. It is not just that the Conservatives have lost support, they are actually despised and loathed. Swimming against that hatred is more or less impossible,
I think that Sunak slightly reminds me of the Czar or of Louis XVI, they themselves were not particularly brutal, indeed they were rather timid, even insipid figures, but they were heirs to regimes that were cruel and nasty...
Sunak in the tumbril? Perhaps unfairly, he does seem to be facing an appointment with Madame La Guillotine.
It certainly feels like the country will not be happy until the Tories are defeated, and quite possibly obliterated.
Sunak as Louis XVI is exquisite. Chapeau. Or, even, la tête.
This is the new line from Sunakites. It's not his fault, the party is just TOOOO AWFUL. Funny how they didn't mention that when they were urging him as the saviour of the Tories.
Who really was urging Sunak? We just knew we needed Truss out.
Needed her out for what? The Sunak polling recovery from the Truss lows is no more than one would expect if Truss had stayed and the passage of time had reasserted itself.
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
It won't, Sunak still just about polls better than Boris (even if both poll better than Truss).
There is a also a divide, redwall MPs prefer Boris (as he polls better than Sunak there) but bluewall MPs prefer Rishi (as he polls better than Boris there) and overall there are still more southern Tory bluewall MPs than Northern, Welsh and Midlands redwall MPs even today
Not for much longer 😈 Blue Wall going to give your girls and boys Brexit punishment beating.
No, there will be more bluewall Tory MPs than redwall Tory MPs after the next election, almost certainly
Both PB and the British media need to cover countries like Germany, France and Canada a bit more, I think.
They do a bit and Australia and Italy too but the US is bigger than all 5 of those combined and still the main economic and military superpower, whatever else we think of it
The bar for the BBC to report on domestic news items from other countries as the main story needs to be much higher.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
Is there a Memphis in England? Because the report explicitly states the city at the start.
Someone who is ignorant of geography will just see a report about someone being beaten to death by the police.
And......
And why is that most important and relevant news story for people in the UK.
Yes, we are very interested in the USA. Stories that are big there will be big here, I'm very happy to see it and I try to make a small effort to seek stories about other places as well (so thanks to stodge and DC on the foreign elections). But is there really nothing else going on more relevant, not even one thing?
I think in general I'd like to see slightly more domestic stories from foreign countries, but a wider range of countries than just the US, and you wouldn't expect it to be a lead item.
Something like the from our foreign correspondent programme, but on regular news. Consequently I listen to the World Service news fairly often.
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
Anything could happen. Sorry.
But the bring back Boris crowd really do seem to ignore just how unusual it is for a successful election winner to be ousted because of his unsuitability to be PM. 100 Tory MPs at least already want Boris back, and you could see many others turning in desperation to him if there was clear evidence he could win when no one else would, but do they really, deep down, think they can go into an election with someone a majority of their MPs very clearly stated was unsuitable?
Rishi brought Suella back after a mere week as she'd ... learned her lesson?. I could juuust about see them trying (another) "He's had a spell away and has taken stock, he's a new man. No stop laughing, he means it this time."
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
It won't, Sunak still just about polls better than Boris (even if both poll better than Truss).
There is a also a divide, redwall MPs prefer Boris (as he polls better than Sunak there) but bluewall MPs prefer Rishi (as he polls better than Boris there) and overall there are still more southern Tory bluewall MPs than Northern, Welsh and Midlands redwall MPs even today
Not for much longer 😈 Blue Wall going to give your girls and boys Brexit punishment beating.
No, there will be more bluewall Tory MPs than redwall Tory MPs after the next election, almost certainly
I mean, they seem to have much the effect on you mention of the DfE has on me, and with (so far as can be judged) much less reason.
I've got a piece coming up in the next few days about Scottish independence, I use my knowledge of Scotland that allowed me to correctly predict Scotland would remain part of the UK in 2014.
I mean, they seem to have much the effect on you mention of the DfE has on me, and with (so far as can be judged) much less reason.
I've got a piece coming up in the next few days about Scottish independence, I use my knowledge of Scotland that allowed me to correctly predict Scotland would remain part of the UK in 2014.
The piece is going to be headlined
'Will the Scots bottle it again?'
Depends on whether the Scotch experts advise it is a whisky strategy.
I mean, they seem to have much the effect on you mention of the DfE has on me, and with (so far as can be judged) much less reason.
I've got a piece coming up in the next few days about Scottish independence, I use my knowledge of Scotland that allowed me to correctly predict Scotland would remain part of the UK in 2014.
The piece is going to be headlined
'Will the Scots bottle it again?'
Depends on whether the Scotch experts advise it is a whisky strategy.
Might go for the headline 'Are the Nats all kilt and no sporran?'
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
It won't, Sunak still just about polls better than Boris (even if both poll better than Truss).
There is a also a divide, redwall MPs prefer Boris (as he polls better than Sunak there) but bluewall MPs prefer Rishi (as he polls better than Boris there) and overall there are still more southern Tory bluewall MPs than Northern, Welsh and Midlands redwall MPs even today
Not for much longer 😈 Blue Wall going to give your girls and boys Brexit punishment beating.
No, there will be more bluewall Tory MPs than redwall Tory MPs after the next election, almost certainly
5 vs. 4?
If the Tories went as low as below 50 seats (which is unlikely now with Rishi but was possible if Liz had remained Tory leader and PM), then there wouldn't be a single Tory seat left in the North apart from Rishi's rural North Yorkshire Richmond seat. So yes most of the Tory seats left would be in the South outside London and very Leave parts of the Midlands like Lincolnshire https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/orderedseats.html
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
That’s been a policy since the beginning of the NHS. The BMA loves the built in scarcity of doctors. The government uses staff numbers as part of the rationing structure of the NHS itself.
The excuses that have acreated around this are fascinating.
I mean, they seem to have much the effect on you mention of the DfE has on me, and with (so far as can be judged) much less reason.
I've got a piece coming up in the next few days about Scottish independence, I use my knowledge of Scotland that allowed me to correctly predict Scotland would remain part of the UK in 2014.
The piece is going to be headlined
'Will the Scots bottle it again?'
Depends on whether the Scotch experts advise it is a whisky strategy.
Might go for the headline 'Are the Nats all kilt and no sporran?'
How about: "Scots, mad as a box of frogs but not that mad."
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
That’s been a policy since the beginning of the NHS. The BMA loves the built in scarcity of doctors. The government uses staff numbers as part of the rationing structure of the NHS itself.
The excuses that have acreated around this are fascinating.
The BMA voted to restrict the numbers of Doctors trained, but I am unsure of the mechanism by which they exercise that authority - threat of strike action if training places increase? If it's the DOH, questions need to be asked in parliament and the Minister needs to intervene to reverse both this decision in particular, and the policy more generally. In fact, that's true regardless of which particular bunch of civil service scrotes is doing this.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
The rationing of trained doctors is absolutely deliberate and has been as far as I know a long running policy.
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
A completely idiotic policy even without a 7m waiting list of patients, utterly insane when we have.
If you're able to disclose the university and the trust (I think that would still protect your relatives?) this should be raised with MPs.
Had brunch with all of the cousins this morning, and inevitably the subject of the NHS came up given how many are doctors, dentists, pharmacists or otherwise in healthcare. The one cousin who is fairly senior in a large NHS trust said that the university attached to his trust attempted to increase the size of their medical school by 30% with internal funding (they're not asking for any more funding per place) but the government (he's unsure whether it's the universities department or health) has told them they can't or will face unlimited fines. The trust is ready to teach them and has the capacity, the university is ready to take them on and the patient's obviously quite desperately need doctors.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
That’s been a policy since the beginning of the NHS. The BMA loves the built in scarcity of doctors. The government uses staff numbers as part of the rationing structure of the NHS itself.
The excuses that have acreated around this are fascinating.
The BMA voted to restrict the numbers of Doctors trained, but I am unsure of the mechanism by which they exercise that authority - threat of strike action if training places increase? If it's the DOH, questions need to be asked in parliament and the Minister needs to intervene to reverse both this decision in particular, and the policy more generally. In fact, that's true regardless of which particular bunch of civil service scrotes is doing this.
Back channels combined with a synchronicity of interests.
When people want to really change things in this country, you need to understand why it hasn’t happened already.
Think back - the massive expansion of uni education under Major, Blair…. Seems obvious to train more doctors and nurses? Why didn’t they?
Comments
All around that event of yours they hid unliked mouthy in a potting shed whilst his opponent was in markets on a soap box getting egged as he engaged the voters with idea’s and policy.
Labour were sucked in by poll leads and “ours to lose let’s be careful out there” complacency.
Aside from poll leads, what was “best for PM” “best party for economy” saying. If Labour trailed on those they needed to be out their fixing it with gusto.
You have to rethink your last post don’t you?
I think it’s because a huge amount of the BBC news team (not necessarily the presenters) live in a metro bubble in London and are surrounded by “BBC Diversity” where they have every race equally surrounding them but all are of the same mindset - all look different but think the same way.
This metro “race blind” perspective makes them (understandably) possibly more sensitive to what they see as racial injustices so when this is mixed with their subconscious cultural cornerstones being US film, tv etc they conflate racial divides in the US with those in the UK, for example the police attitude to young black men in both countries and think it’s all the same level of toxicity.
So this cultural osmosis mixed with very little real knowledge of how grim a large part of the US history was until living memory to black people* makes them focus on US stories that back up their world view because not only is there such a raft of these types of stories out of the US compared to the UK (which doesn’t make them twig that we are very different countries) but also there is such a huge amount of readily available coverage that they can get rights to so they can package up a ready made story with lots of video from public and multiple news sources without having to do much journalism.
Finally I think there is a language issue where, for example, they don’t have enough French speakers who would be able to source many bad stories about the French police treatment of minorities as the French speaking Journos at the bbc are more likely tasked with coverage of French politics/EU/Calais.
* this in no way is meant to ignore the UK’s role in slavery and other stains on our history.
Anecdotally, I was brought up in Leeds in the 1970s. I'm absolutely sure that there was much more casual violence back then than there is now. And that would have been true with knobs on if you went back to the 1870s.
Kelner and others need to bring out charts like that which factors this in, for the Tories punishment beating for Brexit brings the bars Labour need to clear much lower.
It's completely fucking mad. In a time where there's an insane global shortage of healthcare workers, an acute shortage in the UK we have a university and trust ready to increase the number of doctors they train by 30% a year for free and they're being blocked. Absolute insanity. The Tories deserve to be kicked out next year. Whoever the minister in charge that has made this decision or allowed the civil servants to block this off needs to be fired and replaced immediately.
It seems the killer got a $30k a year medical pension 2 years later.
There are too many issues to count around this - for a start the political setup and very minimal training received by USA police officers before they are given the means and the authority to kill people will minimal consequences. For me it's a reason I won't go the USA.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56834733
The idea is that with fewer doctors the NHS will not be able to do as much expensive healthcare. It’s essentially a form of rationing, with an ancillary hope that doing so will drive efficiency (do more with less) too.
Then I went to an English school for a year in what seemed to me then a “posh” (but actually lower middle class) school and was shocked by the prevalence of bullying and sexual licentiousness.
I remember this article, since I was at University, and it struck me as wildly impractical. The logistics alone would put the Dolittle raid to shame. I don't doubt it happened to someone, somewhere, but it made me think that Ms Coslett was rather naive to suggest it as a widespread practice and that she was taken in. On the other hand, it may have been that she had a deadline to meet and a lack of material with which to meet it.
However, I think that is the wrong lesson you took from that campaign's failure. It wasn't that Labour were hiding, it was that they thought they could run the campaign through the media alone.
They also thought that Major was a net negative for the Conservatives.
The Tories wisely realised that Major was actually an asset, and that there is no substitute for footslogging.
Blair, on the other hand, *did* learn the lessons of that campaign, marrying footslogging with the media game. And of course he had the huge advantage of polling leads driven by Black Wednesday to work with.
ETA: and of course Labour's poll leads were minuscule-to-negative in the run-up to the 1992 GE, lest we forget that detail.
Different states and even counties are quite different. That’s part of the strength of the place. As a reasonably well to do white man you are highly unlikely to encounter issues.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/14/ministers-refuse-fund-medical-school-uk-doctor-shortage
https://www.theguardian.com/uk
Should be easy as it is 'pretty much unreadable these days', as we all know.
I think Canada is similar.
Australia had a larger working class and indeed criminal element.
The USA is too vast to generalise about.
Running global accounts, I once found that my London guys were often happier talking to the Texans than the New Yorkers or Chicago-ites.
Perhaps they are aiming to capture a US audience but their report on the Tyre Nichols video goes out of its way to avoid making it explicit that they are talking about something happening in a foreign country.
“Labour's poll leads were minuscule-to-negative in the run-up to the 1992 GE, lest we forget that detail.”
The detail is they were consistent, never behind till the last big poll in last 24 hours, and their lead backed up by council and by elections actual votes right up till election called.
What was Kinnock doing in a potting shed with days to go in a tight campaign other than hiding? If his own team saw him as a weakness they need to tackle that head on, not hide him.
... just in case anyone apart from me and Stodge is following
https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/?kolo=prvni&vice=ano#live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnvDwsGM6M0
https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/volby2023?kolo=druhe
https://cnn.iprima.cz/volby/prezidentske
Polls have just closed and we should get results from the first rural polling stations (likely to be more pro-Babis) shortly.
Thanks,
DC
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/01/27/photo-clears-duke-york-bath-sex/
Every now and then they will rescue things with a professional academic perspective on some topic or other that you won't read in any other paper, but there's definitely more rubbish floating around in there as well than there was.
Toynbee is a pastiche of herself, Monbiot is useful but a bit too obsessive. I very much enjoyed Ian Jack, but he died. Cohen has been let go in some kind of sexual harassment scandal.
The Guardian haven’t even bothered reporting on the death of Tom Nairn, which is kind of shocking really. Compare with the FT, who have a good piece which mentions the Nairn-Anderson thesis, which every PBer should know about.
https://twitter.com/jderbyshire/status/1619254937103261697?s=46&t=zeVEhFmJ1yhf_RKi-ozFhQ
I like to describe them as “Manchester meets Miami” music.
AP deletes ‘the French' tweet and apologises after it is widely mocked
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64436973
Chances are she won’t be looking at teaching as a career because it will now be a faff that wouldn’t have been the case - her career would have been training and then into one of the schools within the trust as an English / RE / music teacher.
The only issue is Sunak's just as bad as the rest of the party.
One of the more bizarre features of this process was that the DfE publicly declared they were going to ignore Ofsted's ratings in such cases because 'they only see tiny snapshots in two-day inspections.'
I mean - did they actually mean to say OFSTED inspections are worthless, or did somebody just not engage their brain?
Also they had no proper appeals process and seemed blithely unconcerned at an existing 40% shortfall in numbers.
It's really quite hard to understand how anyone could make decisions this incompetent by accident.
How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?
How Deep Is Your Love?
I’ll admit I prefer Nina Simone and Al Green for the first two.
We just knew we needed Truss out.
In it, Johnson made a messianic comeback greeted by chants of "Bring Back Boris!" wherever he went.
He was on course for another election victory on a programme of unfunded cakeism and waffle-waffle bullshit when I woke up in a cold sweat.
Somebody tell me it couldn't happen.
Please.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jan/14/ministers-refuse-fund-medical-school-uk-doctor-shortage
It's a bit more muddling about it now, but I still read it as saying one shouldn't do it.
But the bring back Boris crowd really do seem to ignore just how unusual it is for a successful election winner to be ousted because of his unsuitability to be PM. 100 Tory MPs at least already want Boris back, and you could see many others turning in desperation to him if there was clear evidence he could win when no one else would, but do they really, deep down, think they can go into an election with someone a majority of their MPs very clearly stated was unsuitable?
Yes, we are very interested in the USA. Stories that are big there will be big here, I'm very happy to see it and I try to make a small effort to seek stories about other places as well (so thanks to stodge and DC on the foreign elections). But is there really nothing else going on more relevant, not even one thing?
I very much doubt they will stick so rigidly to such a style guide when it comes to 'neutral' uses of The.
Is this the same PB that devotes roughly around a thousand times the attention to USA politics as to politics in any other overseas land?
There is a also a divide, redwall MPs prefer Boris (as he polls better than Sunak there) but bluewall MPs prefer Rishi (as he polls better than Boris there) and overall there are still more southern Tory bluewall MPs than Northern, Welsh and Midlands redwall MPs even today
Also re Barry how poignant - the oldest of 4 brothers and yet the only one still staying alive.
“Starmer is too weak and too indecisive to make the hard decisions needed to strengthen the UK.”
ROFL has Dowden seen his own leader?
I mean, they seem to have much the effect on you mention of the DfE has on me, and with (so far as can be judged) much less reason.
We have enough of a problem with importing American social issues without it being encouraged by the way stories are framed by the BBC. Plenty of people just see that "the police" have done something, and it impacts the way the police here are seen. In Multicultural London English, the police are called "the feds".
I could honestly do better planning on a beermat after 5 pints.
Something like the from our foreign correspondent programme, but on regular news. Consequently I listen to the World Service news fairly often.
The piece is going to be headlined
'Will the Scots bottle it again?'
Hexham stabbing: Murder arrest after girl, 15, dies
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-64438430
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/orderedseats.html
The excuses that have acreated around this are fascinating.
"Residents raise 100,000 to save ancient woodland nearest the City of London"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/28/brockley-residents-raise-100000-to-save-patch-of-ancient-london-woodland
More woodland, less City, I say. Or at least more woodland for all.
This, from a couple of weeks back, seems germane, though obvs a different uni.
When people want to really change things in this country, you need to understand why it hasn’t happened already.
Think back - the massive expansion of uni education under Major, Blair…. Seems obvious to train more doctors and nurses? Why didn’t they?