“Good Law Project has seen emails revealing that former No.10 advisor Dominic Cummings referred an offer from two middlemen representing US-based Innova Medical Group within a single hour of being approached.” https://twitter.com/Kit_Yates_Maths/status/1629393006943170562
This may be outrageous. But imagine the outcry from people if we had not got the LFTs.
People forget we were in a crisis. I fear if normal government procurement systems were in place, we might have been waiting a year later...
Is there any Conservative government corruption you wouldn't wave through as acceptable "in a crisis"? (snip)
Many. I am not a fan of the Conservative Party. But remember how Labour were calling for all sorts of untried providers for PPE equipment earlier in the crisis? Yes, there should be an enquiry into this, and the truth might be nasty for the government and people in it. But this Pavlovian reaction of 'corruption!' may not be the truth. Not that you care...
Yes there was panic on all sides, but enough in Government had a clear enough head to see an opportunity for a grift.
In 2010 we were worrying about " cash for honours", duck houses and sending Labour MPs to jail for corruptly claiming a few grand here and there. The fast track friends of the Conservative Party weren't just creaming off the top of the public purse, they were ladelling cash out. This is a scandal so enormous (fat, back in Roald Dahl's day) that the inquiry should be by the Fraud Squad, and significant custodial sentences awaiting those involved (even perhaps those in high office) if investigated, charged and convicted.
These are *accusations*. They may, or may not, be true. If you are right, then yes, there should be stiff custodial sentences (and money retrieved).
If the accusations are true.
But if a similar crisis happens with Labour in power (and I really hope it doesn't), I hope the government doesn't follow normal processes then, either. In fact, I hope this government isn't following 'normal' processes in getting kit to Ukraine. When something's time-critical, sometimes it needs to be done.
And Jolyon Maugham is not exactly the world's most reliable source.
A ‘major international conference on wokeism’. Fack off.
Goodwin really is an absolute joke
I've seen him put together a decent turn of phrase, but like quite a few who might start out from a decent point (or an interesting one) he has seemingly gotten high on acclaim from a certain direction and quickly regressed to bog standard talking points and shrill whining (why wont they listen to me!?), possibly with a dollop of conspiracism into the mix.
So many of them are pure fannies that one might get complacent about them turning the shrill whining into direct action. Unfortunately not all of them are pure fannies and some have access to guns.
If he pushed it through relying on Labour votes lent by Starmer with most Conservative MPs voting against though, he would lose a VONC within weeks and Boris would be brought back as PM again.
Nope
He would call an election
Which he would lose, heavily.
Why would he risk passing a deal which would end his premiership within weeks when he can still be PM potentially for nearly another 2 years?
This deal will not end his premiership
No, but it could turn it into the last year of May's premiership.
It’s turning more into the last days of Major’s premiership. He doesn’t have the huge Brexit challenges May had - just a bit of tidy up. Nor the populist king over the water credibly waiting to sweep in and get Brexit done. That ship has sunk. There are the backbench bastards just like in Major’s time, and the stale whiff of a government petering out with no feasible salvation over the horizon.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Like the original 2020 deal?
There's something in the small print, I'm increasingly sure of it. Hence the edited highlights being trailed.
There's always something in the small print. It may be a price worth paying, but it will be there. And whatever the objective reality, the subjective "Remainer Rishi Betrayed Boris and his Beautiful Brexit" narrative will take root.
1. Fulfil Article 6 of the Articles of Union, which requires that everyone in the United Kingdom is entitled to the same privileges.
2. Avoid any diversion of trade.
3. Not constitute a border in the Irish Sea.
4. Give the people of Northern Ireland a say in the making of the laws that govern them.
5. Result in “no checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain or from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.”
6. Ensure no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom unless agreed by the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly.
7. Preserve the letter and spirit of Northern Ireland’s constitutional guarantee requiring the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland for any diminution in its status as part of the United Kingdom
“Good Law Project has seen emails revealing that former No.10 advisor Dominic Cummings referred an offer from two middlemen representing US-based Innova Medical Group within a single hour of being approached.” https://twitter.com/Kit_Yates_Maths/status/1629393006943170562
This may be outrageous. But imagine the outcry from people if we had not got the LFTs.
People forget we were in a crisis. I fear if normal government procurement systems were in place, we might have been waiting a year later...
This contract took place in July 2020. At that time Britain was opened up, indeed our PM was encouraging us to "eat out to help out". It wasn't in the first wave.
Wow. Four months after the start of the crisis. LFTs were still available well over a year later, free of charge and in massive numbers. We needed to procure them. Maybe this deal was corrupt; perhaps it was one of the things necessary to allow us to live our lives months later, in between the lockdowns?
I am not convinced that the LFT programme of testing was an effective means of disease control, and would like this to be an issue looked at in the covid enquiry.
LFTs have low sensitivity to disease, with a high false negative rate even before poor technique in the general public. Hence they are poorly suited to testing asymptomatic people as a form of screening in a general population such as schools or health care staff.
That poor sensitivity is less of an issue as a rapid diagnostic test in symptomatic patients or their immediate contacts.
They seem to correlate very well indeed with infectious disease, though. They're also highly specific.
While they require several orders of magnitude more viral particles to produce a positive result than does PCR, it seems that that's still an order of magnitude below the amount of virus required for someone to be actively infectious (in the case of Covid).
Also, that's the current state of the art. It's a new technology (as a cheap mass produced diagnostic device), and although the principles are quite simple, I'm pretty sure it could be refined to be substantially more sensitive.
(I am a fan of them, as they have so far now twice prevented me from infecting anyone at either home or work.)
All very well but any deal without DUP approval is pointless as the main point of negotiations is to get them, as largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland, back into the Stormont Executive
I do not agree as that mission is impossible
The importance of a deal on NI is that it signals a new closer relationship with the EU which is long overdue
If the DUP refuse to enter Stormont then the NI secretary must call new elections in NI
Following your logic the will of the majority will be held hostage by a minority indefinitely
Well that was part of the point wasnt it? Itd be nice if they were past that point, but no.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs.
Subtitles are the secret to foreign language learning I think. I note my son’s French teacher has suggested the class watch Emily in Paris - a generally mediocre to poor comedy drama about a young American lady shagging her way through a 1 year secondment to the French capital - because it has a fair few passages of French speaking with English subtitles.
The excellent Putin and the West series on BBC is also great for French tuition. Francois Hollande speaks in a crystal clear French equivalent of RP, with subtitles. My son even commented he was easy to understand.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
I watched a lot of Scandi-Noir over lockdown and one night found myself about 30 minutes into an episode of something before I realised I hadn't got the subtitles on but had been following along anyway.
It's 90% nice jumpers, walking around with the lights off and people saying "tak".
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Like the original 2020 deal?
There's something in the small print, I'm increasingly sure of it. Hence the edited highlights being trailed.
There's always something in the small print. It may be a price worth paying, but it will be there. And whatever the objective reality, the subjective "Remainer Rishi Betrayed Boris and his Beautiful Brexit" narrative will take root.
Yes. Remember that more and more voted for May's deal as time went on, including Boris, because while they might not like it they deep down accepted it might be the best they could get. But it didn't matter as right from the start the frenzy overwhelmed it.
The best outcome for Sunak, the Tories and the country would be for him to push through the NI/EU deal and for Suella Braverman to resign in solidarity with her DUP mates. He could then appoint a HS with a bit of humanity and return to civilised discourse on asylum seekers, refugees etc.
As long as he's not seduced into appointing Lee Anderson as HS instead.
If he pushed it through relying on Labour votes lent by Starmer with most Conservative MPs voting against though, he would lose a VONC within weeks and Boris would be brought back as PM again.
The DUP would also still boycott the Stormont Executive if they oppose the terms of any new deal
Most conservative mps will not vote against it nor would he lose a vonc
This is you displaying your love of all things Johnson and if the DUP refuse to attend Stormont then new elections in NI will be called
Depends on the terms, remember even in the final round last year of the MPs votes more Conservative MPs voted for Truss and Mordaunt combined than for Sunak. Many Tory MPs most loyal to May and her Chequers deal were deselected in 2019 and replaced by harder Brexiteers.
Even when Tory MPs backed Sunak to become PM when Truss resigned that required the support of ERG hardliners like Braverman and Badenoch and Raab for Sunak
I am very confident Sunak will receive the backing of all but 100 dissident conservative mps if as many as that
He will not lose his premiership nor is Johnson coming back
When push comes to shove, I'm guessing it will be a lot less than 100.
If he pushed it through relying on Labour votes lent by Starmer with most Conservative MPs voting against though, he would lose a VONC within weeks and Boris would be brought back as PM again.
Nope
He would call an election
Which he would lose, heavily.
Why would he risk passing a deal which would end his premiership within weeks when he can still be PM potentially for nearly another 2 years?
This deal will not end his premiership
No, but it could turn it into the last year of May's premiership.
It’s turning more into the last days of Major’s premiership. He doesn’t have the huge Brexit challenges May had - just a bit of tidy up. Nor the populist king over the water credibly waiting to sweep in and get Brexit done. That ship has sunk. There are the backbench bastards just like in Major’s time, and the stale whiff of a government petering out with no feasible salvation over the horizon.
Only 38% of Tory MPs voted for Sunak last summer in the final round remember.
62% voted for Truss or Mordaunt. He doesn't have a majority of the party with just his core supporters
A ‘major international conference on wokeism’. Fack off.
By describing it as the "middle of nowhere" isn't he revealing himself to be just another sneering metropolitan elitist?
I'd be absolutely delighted if I was invited to a woke conference thing in the middle of Sweden. Love it over there.
(Though, given Scandi history on the far right, I'd be sure to check the list of other attendees...)
Also, is it in a university at all?
His tweet implies it’s in a secret clearing deep in the woods, which is sort of appropriate for the subject matter. Probably some gymnastics exercises with the local youth to start the day.
1. Fulfil Article 6 of the Articles of Union, which requires that everyone in the United Kingdom is entitled to the same privileges.
2. Avoid any diversion of trade.
3. Not constitute a border in the Irish Sea.
4. Give the people of Northern Ireland a say in the making of the laws that govern them.
5. Result in “no checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain or from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.”
6. Ensure no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom unless agreed by the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly.
7. Preserve the letter and spirit of Northern Ireland’s constitutional guarantee requiring the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland for any diminution in its status as part of the United Kingdom
Whether they are all met is what is moot.
Or whether they claim they are met. That last one in particular on 'spirit' looks designed to give an out even if all else is good.
Like a list of some specific reasons someone could do something including 'and for other appropriate reasons' as a catch all.
The best outcome for Sunak, the Tories and the country would be for him to push through the NI/EU deal and for Suella Braverman to resign in solidarity with her DUP mates. He could then appoint a HS with a bit of humanity and return to civilised discourse on asylum seekers, refugees etc.
As long as he's not seduced into appointing Lee Anderson as HS instead.
If he pushed it through relying on Labour votes lent by Starmer with most Conservative MPs voting against though, he would lose a VONC within weeks and Boris would be brought back as PM again.
The DUP would also still boycott the Stormont Executive if they oppose the terms of any new deal
Most conservative mps will not vote against it nor would he lose a vonc
This is you displaying your love of all things Johnson and if the DUP refuse to attend Stormont then new elections in NI will be called
If there is another election in Northern Ireland will the DUP do better or worse than last time?
Interesting footnote: I have to dictate my contributions and the workings of Mac turned the DUP into GOP! Have to correct by hand, one finger at a time.
I do not know but it will happen if the DUP effectively go on indefinite strike
Sorry to hear of your difficulties
Best wishes
Under the Good Friday Agreement the DUP as largest Unionist party have to be in the Stormont Executive.
The only way round that is for Dublin and London to amend the GFA with US and EU agreement to say only one of the largest Nationalist or Unionist parties need be in the Executive, plus the Alliance and one smaller Unionist or Nationalist party ie the UUP in this case
A ‘major international conference on wokeism’. Fack off.
By describing it as the "middle of nowhere" isn't he revealing himself to be just another sneering metropolitan elitist?
I'd be absolutely delighted if I was invited to a woke conference thing in the middle of Sweden. Love it over there.
(Though, given Scandi history on the far right, I'd be sure to check the list of other attendees...)
Also, is it in a university at all?
His tweet implies it’s in a secret clearing deep in the woods, which is sort of appropriate for the subject matter. Probably some gymnastics exercises with the local youth to start the day.
I expect Sunak to get a decent boost if he can get a deal with the EU .
It won't move the opinion polls one iota.
It's about Northern Ireland. It won't bring tomatoes back onto the shelves.
Yet there are plenty on the shelves.
I’ve been shopping this morning and the shelves are full of them. As they were in the same shop eat the start of the week. I was only after talk of shortages in the press those shelves were stripped.
Supply may be tighter than usual but there is still plenty of availability and FBPE clowns posting a few empty shelves at the end of the day won’t change it.
So the government is lying when it says shortages are due to bad weather in Spain (and not Brexit) because there are no shortages.
Sainsbury's yesterday had lots of empty boxes on show and many in short supply.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
A ‘major international conference on wokeism’. Fack off.
By describing it as the "middle of nowhere" isn't he revealing himself to be just another sneering metropolitan elitist?
I'd be absolutely delighted if I was invited to a woke conference thing in the middle of Sweden. Love it over there.
(Though, given Scandi history on the far right, I'd be sure to check the list of other attendees...)
Also, is it in a university at all?
His tweet implies it’s in a secret clearing deep in the woods, which is sort of appropriate for the subject matter. Probably some gymnastics exercises with the local youth to start the day.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
I also wonder how deaf modern teenagers are, come to think of it, with all the amplified music these days. There is apparently some concern about this. The RNID put a lot of effort into campaigning about dangerous earphones a few years back - catching then before they went deaf, so to speak, which I thought was very fore-sighted and altruistic of them (fewer customers!).
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
I watched a lot of Scandi-Noir over lockdown and one night found myself about 30 minutes into an episode of something before I realised I hadn't got the subtitles on but had been following along anyway.
It's 90% nice jumpers, walking around with the lights off and people saying "tak".
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
A ‘major international conference on wokeism’. Fack off.
By describing it as the "middle of nowhere" isn't he revealing himself to be just another sneering metropolitan elitist?
I'd be absolutely delighted if I was invited to a woke conference thing in the middle of Sweden. Love it over there.
(Though, given Scandi history on the far right, I'd be sure to check the list of other attendees...)
Also, is it in a university at all?
His tweet implies it’s in a secret clearing deep in the woods, which is sort of appropriate for the subject matter. Probably some gymnastics exercises with the local youth to start the day.
Beating each other with birch twigs ?
In the nude. While moments later decrying the LGBTQ+ takeover of academia.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Bonkers. I didn’t know it was a thing.
It makes sense on no level whatsoever, since they will typically be looking at their phone at the same time and thus better placed to hear than read what is being said. File under Kids, eh?
No, I think it makes sense. So many people nowadays speak a variant of English that is very hard to understand. Many of them make unsollicited phone calls, and they get very cross when I ask them to say it again.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
The best outcome for Sunak, the Tories and the country would be for him to push through the NI/EU deal and for Suella Braverman to resign in solidarity with her DUP mates. He could then appoint a HS with a bit of humanity and return to civilised discourse on asylum seekers, refugees etc.
As long as he's not seduced into appointing Lee Anderson as HS instead.
If he pushed it through relying on Labour votes lent by Starmer with most Conservative MPs voting against though, he would lose a VONC within weeks and Boris would be brought back as PM again.
The DUP would also still boycott the Stormont Executive if they oppose the terms of any new deal
Most conservative mps will not vote against it nor would he lose a vonc
This is you displaying your love of all things Johnson and if the DUP refuse to attend Stormont then new elections in NI will be called
Depends on the terms, remember even in the final round last year of the MPs votes more Conservative MPs voted for Truss and Mordaunt combined than for Sunak. Many Tory MPs most loyal to May and her Chequers deal were deselected in 2019 and replaced by harder Brexiteers.
Even when Tory MPs backed Sunak to become PM when Truss resigned that required the support of ERG hardliners like Braverman and Badenoch and Raab for Sunak
I am very confident Sunak will receive the backing of all but 100 dissident conservative mps if as many as that
He will not lose his premiership nor is Johnson coming back
Those 100 rebels will greatly diminish his powerbase in the PCP, and probably result in Ministerial resignations, though too many to withdraw the whip from. It will give a powerbase for future rebels to build upon.
It may be a very good thing for NI (hard to be sure until published as at present we just have spun briefings) but for Sunaks own position it may be Zugswang.
“The 3-day job is now 12,000% behind schedule, easily the same order of magnitude over budget, has an H&S record from their worst nightmares, and as yet hasn't come close to achieving a single one of its stated objectives.
Which U.K. government dept. Should he apply to?”
Fergusson Marine….
*Ferguson.
You need to get that stuff right if you’re going to do zingers. Or indeed ‘zingers’.
All very well but any deal without DUP approval is pointless as the main point of negotiations is to get them, as largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland, back into the Stormont Executive
If the choice is:
1. A deal, no trade war with the EU and no NI Assembly
Or
2. No deal, a trade war with the EU and no NI Assembly
There really is only one choice in the national interest.
We already have a deal and no trade war with the EU, the one Boris negotiated in 2019 and Parliament passed in January 2020.
All Sunak is trying to negotiate is a deal to get no border in the Irish Sea but anything that sees the ECJ have jurisdiction over GB will be voted down by the ERG and anything which cements ECJ jurisdiction over Northern Ireland will be vetoed by the DUP
Why did the DUP not leave Stormont as soon as Boris's deal passed, then?
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
'Bash your way to success (not fists though!)' by Ben Stokes?
I'd buy it.
It remains a highly strange feeling waking up to yet another day of English cricketing dominance, I have to say. Almost wrong. As a Gen Xer nostalgic for the 1990s I am programmed to expect heroic but ultimately pointless rearguard actions by Hussain and Thorpe. Not batsmen bashing it around the park and then the world’s top bowlers skittling out the other side.
One thing I do rather miss though is the languid effortlessness of Gower, Lara, Da Silva and some of the other wristy players of the 80s and 90s. We don’t really see that style of play anymore.
All very well but any deal without DUP approval is pointless as the main point of negotiations is to get them, as largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland, back into the Stormont Executive
If the choice is:
1. A deal, no trade war with the EU and no NI Assembly
Or
2. No deal, a trade war with the EU and no NI Assembly
There really is only one choice in the national interest.
We already have a deal and no trade war with the EU, the one Boris negotiated in 2019 and Parliament passed in January 2020.
All Sunak is trying to negotiate is a deal to get no border in the Irish Sea but anything that sees the ECJ have jurisdiction over GB will be voted down by the ERG and anything which cements ECJ jurisdiction over Northern Ireland will be vetoed by the DUP
Why did the DUP not leave Stormont as soon as Boris's deal passed, then?
As they pressed for further changes.
They left the Stormont executive when that was not delivered even when Boris was still PM
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Okay, that is not wise.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
He did, but we know how well that turned out, and doing the same thing again begins to look careless.
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
I re-watched all of that recently, thought it was fabulous. I hadn't remembered Daniel Craig playing the dissolute Geordie. A far cry from James Bond - quite an eye-opener.
She shouldn't face abuse for taking maternity leave, but the fact is she hasn't been a good MP. She was something of a last minute replacement for Jeremy Lefroy who announced his retirement just before Johnson became PM, having I suspect seen which way the wind was blowing. Even leaving aside her maternity leave, she has hardly been a visible figure in the seat, spending more time trying to get government roles. She wasn't even very good at that. The parallels with Pidcock are obvious.
A combination of lack of visibility, a character with all her uncle's charm, wit and intelligence, and her ineptitude in government add up to fairly compelling reasons for looking elsewhere. Stafford on paper is a safe seat but it's got quite a volatile electorate.
Whether that's the reason she's getting the boot of course is another question. But it did mean that nobody was going to oppose the Johnsonites if they moved against her. I doubt if her appeal to the wider membership will help.
“The 3-day job is now 12,000% behind schedule, easily the same order of magnitude over budget, has an H&S record from their worst nightmares, and as yet hasn't come close to achieving a single one of its stated objectives.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
'Bash your way to success (not fists though!)' by Ben Stokes?
I'd buy it.
It remains a highly strange feeling waking up to yet another day of English cricketing dominance, I have to say. Almost wrong. As a Gen Xer nostalgic for the 1990s I am programmed to expect heroic but ultimately pointless rearguard actions by Hussain and Thorpe. Not batsmen bashing it around the park and then the world’s top bowlers skittling out the other side.
One thing I do rather miss though is the languid effortlessness of Gower, Lara, Da Silva and some of the other wristy players of the 80s and 90s. We don’t really see that style of play anymore.
I agree. Babar Azam is the closest, albeit he's more elegant than wristy.
I expect Sunak to get a decent boost if he can get a deal with the EU .
It won't move the opinion polls one iota.
It's about Northern Ireland. It won't bring tomatoes back onto the shelves.
Yet there are plenty on the shelves.
I’ve been shopping this morning and the shelves are full of them. As they were in the same shop eat the start of the week. I was only after talk of shortages in the press those shelves were stripped.
Supply may be tighter than usual but there is still plenty of availability and FBPE clowns posting a few empty shelves at the end of the day won’t change it.
I know that isn't correct, because my wife came back from Sainsbury's just before all this blew up complaining of there being no salad and we had no idea why. We just assumed a Sainsbury's cockup. It was then all over the news a couple of days later. So it certainly wasn't panic buying at that point in time.
Same situation where I am going back before it became news. Even my weekly delivery has been 'unavailable' for quite a lot of fresh veg, salad and fruit (even allowing for their random 'unavailable' abilities). Also tried ordering some of it via Amazon Fresh and had similar problems where it was listed but if you tried to actually buy it there were no delivery dates where it was available.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
As things stand in the SNP FM betting, if the election were run 6 times Humza would win it three times, Forbes twice and Regan once.
Is there any value among these?
My instinct is that Humza is too short. Is this just because someone must win and there is a strong case against all of them?
Humza is totally useless but as The Murrells lickspittle and fact they will count the votes , there is a case for the betting. If not rigged then he woudl be 1000-1 minimum based on ability.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
It is a bit lacking confidence and unnecessary bad look encouraging suspicion. But I answered this question last week. It’s to do with the Brexit purity point of principle that completely destroys the Conservative Party after the election defeat.
Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, AND NOT BREXIT versus, the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal. ITS STILL BREXIT
If you are in the second of those, as Sunak is, then it amends Boris deal for the better, gets NI government back on track, which is very important, and it hasn’t a chance of failing in the commons with Starmer’s votes (will be interesting to see how many Labour MPs defy Leader and don’t support it).
Sunak has no choice but to go for it. This is happening. You don’t tease people like this and not go through with it, it would be Sunak’s Brown Moment “Election? No I wasn’t planning an election.” to chicken out now.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
You want to watch Jerome Flynn in 1923 trying to do a Scottish accent. FFS surely they could have found a Scottish actor for the part. Makes Dick Van Dyke sound cockney.
“The 3-day job is now 12,000% behind schedule, easily the same order of magnitude over budget, has an H&S record from their worst nightmares, and as yet hasn't come close to achieving a single one of its stated objectives.
She shouldn't face abuse for taking maternity leave, but the fact is she hasn't been a good MP. She was something of a last minute replacement for Jeremy Lefroy who announced his retirement just before Johnson became PM, having I suspect seen which way the wind was blowing. Even leaving aside her maternity leave, she has hardly been a visible figure in the seat, spending more time trying to get government roles. She wasn't even very good at that. The parallels with Pidcock are obvious.
A combination of lack of visibility, a character with all her uncle's charm, wit and intelligence, and her ineptitude in government add up to fairly compelling reasons for looking elsewhere. Stafford on paper is a safe seat but it's got quite a volatile electorate.
Whether that's the reason she's getting the boot of course is another question. But it did mean that nobody was going to oppose the Johnsonites if they moved against her. I doubt if her appeal to the wider membership will help.
Theo soon-to-be ex-MP has a great Wikipedia page. She is related to everyone from American presidents to Olympic sprinters via Jacob Rees-Mogg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Clarke
But the Dispatches programme on Russian meddling broadcast just before the vote might not have helped this Russophile MP.
Strippers, Spies & Russian Money: Dispatches
The extraordinary story of Russia's covert efforts to corrupt British democracy and politics in the years before invading Ukraine. MI5 declined to comment on the programme for operational reasons.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
Nothing at all to do with doping within his teams, even if he didn't know about it?
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
Nothing at all to do with doping within his teams, even if he didn't know about it?
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
You want to watch Jerome Flynn in 1923 trying to do a Scottish accent. FFS surely they could have found a Scottish actor for the part. Makes Dick Van Dyke sound cockney.
Everyone is watching 1923. It’s brilliant innit.
The prequels are much much better than Yellowstone.
One things come as a surprise, I didn’t know Harrison Ford could act this good. 🤭
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
Yeah, that's exactly how they did at Sky. Brailsford employed Geert Leinders just because he was an expert on marginal gains.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
It is a bit lacking confidence and unnecessary bad look encouraging suspicion. But I answered this question last week. It’s to do with the Brexit purity point of principle that completely destroys the Conservative Party after the election defeat.
Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, AND NOT BREXIT versus, the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal. ITS STILL BREXIT
If you are in the second of those, as Sunak is, then it amends Boris deal for the better, gets NI government back on track, which is very important, and it hasn’t a chance of failing in the commons with Starmer’s votes (will be interesting to see how many Labour MPs defy Leader and don’t support it).
Sunak has no choice but to go for it. This is happening. You don’t tease people like this and not go through with it, it would be Sunak’s Brown Moment “Election? No I wasn’t planning an election.” to chicken out now.
The other difference is that Rishi believes in Brexit for its own sake, that it will be a good thing. Whereas Johnson and the DUP have always had more of a "means to an end" attitude.
Is a a Brexit that doesn't make Johnson PM a Real Brexit?
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
Yeah, that's exactly how they did at Sky. Brailsford employed Geert Leinders just because he was an expert on marginal gains.
Is the 'marginal gain' the name for a vein near the taint where they inject things?
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
Was it worse than his Kentucky Fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl in Knives Out?
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
I watched a lot of Scandi-Noir over lockdown and one night found myself about 30 minutes into an episode of something before I realised I hadn't got the subtitles on but had been following along anyway.
It's 90% nice jumpers, walking around with the lights off and people saying "tak".
I'm now reminded of this little Norwegian comedy sketch taking the (gentle) p*ss out of the Danish language :
I have been critical before of Sunak not taking centre stage nearly enough for a PM, just getting on with it behind the scenes. It can work for a Chancellor but not a PM where it makes the government look leaderless and directionless.
But a result like this would help, it certainly would.
Sunak's problem is clear.
The Tory party has become the mirror image of Labour. I have generally voted Tory in GEs for 50 years. Through Blair and everything else. Now I won't. Why?
Labour go through phases of being electable - like now. And other phases. In the other times the leadership and/or dominant groups render it unacceptable for centrist non-populist One Nation voters to vote for them. They then NEVER win. Not once.
Tory membership, MPs and voters now include a substantial group of populist, amoral, illiberal and divisive people. Some in the cabinet. The sort who make it impossible for centrists to vote for them.
Just like Labour always have to choose between leftish populism and winning, so the Tories are now their mirror.
I was certainly a lot more comfortable with the socially liberal, fiscally conservative government of the Coalition and Cameron+Osborne. I do fear that that party has moved a long way from that with the nutters that were in the ERG much more dominant. This is unfortunate, to say the least. Sunak is a step back in the right direction but he still seems to be at their beck and call. If he can face them down on the protocol that would be a very good start on the journey back to being an electable party again.
I am sure nobody cares what I think but under Cameron/Osborne I would have at least considered voting Tory, I am not saying I agree with what they did (essentially in hindsight but I didn't much like austerity even when it was being introduced) but I think up to Brexit Cameron was actually a decent enough PM, he didn't drag us into the culture wars continuously and at least had some kind of principles. The current Tory Party is bankrupt.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
It is a bit lacking confidence and unnecessary bad look encouraging suspicion. But I answered this question last week. It’s to do with the Brexit purity point of principle that completely destroys the Conservative Party after the election defeat.
Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, AND NOT BREXIT versus, the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal. ITS STILL BREXIT
If you are in the second of those, as Sunak is, then it amends Boris deal for the better, gets NI government back on track, which is very important, and it hasn’t a chance of failing in the commons with Starmer’s votes (will be interesting to see how many Labour MPs defy Leader and don’t support it).
Sunak has no choice but to go for it. This is happening. You don’t tease people like this and not go through with it, it would be Sunak’s Brown Moment “Election? No I wasn’t planning an election.” to chicken out now.
The other difference is that Rishi believes in Brexit for its own sake, that it will be a good thing. Whereas Johnson and the DUP have always had more of a "means to an end" attitude.
Is a a Brexit that doesn't make Johnson PM a Real Brexit?
An awful lot of people in business pushed for leave in 2016 without expecting Boris Johnson’s pure Brexit, and now want changes. And that has to apply to pragmatic politicians like Rishi Sunak too. So I am right in saying that, but at the same time you are right in saying teeny points of principle are blown out of all proportion due to political ambition, and how they can be used to bludgeon a rival.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
It is a bit lacking confidence and unnecessary bad look encouraging suspicion. But I answered this question last week. It’s to do with the Brexit purity point of principle that completely destroys the Conservative Party after the election defeat.
Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, AND NOT BREXIT versus, the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal. ITS STILL BREXIT
If you are in the second of those, as Sunak is, then it amends Boris deal for the better, gets NI government back on track, which is very important, and it hasn’t a chance of failing in the commons with Starmer’s votes (will be interesting to see how many Labour MPs defy Leader and don’t support it).
Sunak has no choice but to go for it. This is happening. You don’t tease people like this and not go through with it, it would be Sunak’s Brown Moment “Election? No I wasn’t planning an election.” to chicken out now.
Yeah but we are assuming we all know what is in the deal. I suspect it would be an improvement on what the Johnson deal was. But until we can see it, we don't know.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
Yeah, that's exactly how they did at Sky. Brailsford employed Geert Leinders just because he was an expert on marginal gains.
Marginal gains in doping counts given the whole sport is dirty.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
I watched a lot of Scandi-Noir over lockdown and one night found myself about 30 minutes into an episode of something before I realised I hadn't got the subtitles on but had been following along anyway.
It's 90% nice jumpers, walking around with the lights off and people saying "tak".
I'm now reminded of this little Norwegian comedy sketch taking the (gentle) p*ss out of the Danish language :
Bookmakers have started sharing information about punters so that if you self-exclude from one, this will be passed on to the others. The sinister side is that if any one bookmaker decides your betting is getting out of hand, you will be banned across the industry. You may have noticed messages about changed privacy terms when you bet recently. https://thedatashed.co.uk/case-study/gamstop/
Class-action lawsuit against the bookies, in 3,2,1…
Won’t be long before everyone starts hanging around shops again.
I'm trying to decide if the risk of customer details being stolen from the Single Customer View database is more or less than the risk from individual bookmaker databases.
The Gambling Commission has rightly become exercised by risks of vulnerable "addicts" doing their life savings and has knee-jerked itself into disproportionate "solutions" like this one.
That sort of ‘solution’ would be fine, so long as it worked only one way. It would be useful, from the point of view of a problem gambler, to be able to ban himself from everywhere.
The problem, and where careful regulation is required, is with the bookies’ sharing data on who are their ‘problem’ customers - those who keep winning. That’s cartel behaviour, and even a relative libertarian like me doesn’t have a problem with a gambling regulator clamping down on such behaviour.
This is the kind of thing where I go, get rid of the lot of them, including Lords and Ladies.
FFS, everyone knows Andrew is a deeply dodgy man, a man who if he wasn't in the Royal Family would be in jail. I think he's a nonce and most people agree.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
This is the kind of thing where I go, get rid of the lot of them, including Lords and Ladies.
FFS, everyone knows Andrew is a deeply dodgy man, a man who if he wasn't in the Royal Family would be in jail. I think he's a nonce and most people agree.
If he was not rich with good lawyers he might be in jail. You don't need to be royal to get away with stuff.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
Yeah, that's exactly how they did at Sky. Brailsford employed Geert Leinders just because he was an expert on marginal gains.
Is the 'marginal gain' the name for a vein near the taint where they inject things?
Epo is injected subcutaneously. When I was a stagiaire in France in the 80s you could buy pre-loaded amphetamine syringes OTC in Italy! We used to bang those straight into the radial artery in an act that was the height of Corinthian sportsmanship. We also used to do just slightly less than lethal doses of sleepers to make us miss dinner and keep the weight down.
Problem is, Sunak is surely really of the ERG, his politics basically match what they were going on about during the Cameron years
There's a subtle but important distinction on the Conservative right, between dries and right-wingers. Right wingers are the ones who want a Union Jack on every street and dries are the ones who would fear the cost of doing that. Dries want deregulation to enhance the GDP, right wingers don't mind red tape and long as it's British red tape.
Rishi is dry, very dry. A lot of the opposition to a Eurodeal will be right wing, especially if it boils down to the ECJ and NI. The ERG kept both groups together since they shared a common enemy, but that was then.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Okay, that is not wise.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
He did, but we know how well that turned out, and doing the same thing again begins to look careless.
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
The signs on Rishi's deal are getting a bit worse. No text, then the rubbish about the King, now 3 line whip on the same day it is revealed?
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Okay, that is not wise.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
He did, but we know how well that turned out, and doing the same thing again begins to look careless.
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
The signs on Rishi's deal are getting a bit worse. No text, then the rubbish about the King, now 3 line whip on the same day it is revealed?
The last may not be a commentary on the deal itself so much as recognition that no amount of talking will make passing it more likely even if it is good, since its just more time for those against it to mischaracterise it, so best it were done quickly.
But it being a bad deal is also a possibility, admittedly.
Has anyone yet written a management text along the lines of “Bazball your business: what England Cricketing success can teach us about enterprise transformation”?
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
David Brailsford was successful in sport because he adopted Agile business practices of finding small gains and rapid iteration. He introduced the concept of microservices to the world of cycling and other sports.
Nothing at all to do with doping within his teams, even if he didn't know about it?
Given that the whole sport was/is dirty the playing field was still level.
Sky's success was based on insane salary budget. At one point Wout Poels was getting paid over 1m € just to be Froomey's dom. That and a very innovative approach to out of competition 'professionalism' where the testing regime was much looser.
Problem is, Sunak is surely really of the ERG, his politics basically match what they were going on about during the Cameron years
There's a subtle but important distinction on the Conservative right, between dries and right-wingers. Right wingers are the ones who want a Union Jack on every street and dries are the ones who would fear the cost of doing that. Dries want deregulation to enhance the GDP, right wingers don't mind red tape and long as it's British red tape.
Rishi is dry, very dry. A lot of the opposition to a Eurodeal will be right wing, especially if it boils down to the ECJ and NI. The ERG kept both groups together since they shared a common enemy, but that was then.
Rishi has made no attempt to attack the bloated size of the state, that's not dry at all.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Okay, that is not wise.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
He did, but we know how well that turned out, and doing the same thing again begins to look careless.
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
The signs on Rishi's deal are getting a bit worse. No text, then the rubbish about the King, now 3 line whip on the same day it is revealed?
The one thing that is certain is that Sunak will do the deal if he thinks it is right for the majority and to enable a new improved relationship with the EU for the benefit of everyone, no matter some dissidents in his party or indeed the DUP
Indeed this may well be his legacy as he clears up the mess Johnson left behind
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Okay, that is not wise.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
He did, but we know how well that turned out, and doing the same thing again begins to look careless.
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
The signs on Rishi's deal are getting a bit worse. No text, then the rubbish about the King, now 3 line whip on the same day it is revealed?
The last may not be a commentary on the deal itself so much as recognition that no amount of talking will make passing it more likely even if it is good, since its just more time for those against it to mischaracterise it, so best it were done quickly.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Okay, that is not wise.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
He did, but we know how well that turned out, and doing the same thing again begins to look careless.
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
The signs on Rishi's deal are getting a bit worse. No text, then the rubbish about the King, now 3 line whip on the same day it is revealed?
The last may not be a commentary on the deal itself so much as recognition that no amount of talking will make passing it more likely even if it is good, since its just more time for those against it to mischaracterise it, so best it were done quickly.
'It's a view'
I wasn't discounting the possibility its a bad deal, just that the speed of forcing it through is probably not a sign one way or another.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
The point Hitchens never addresses in his version of events is that Putin has always been a Russian imperialist. He's never respected Ukraine as an independent state. He admires Stalin. He has a bust of Peter The Great. He's built an autocratic state. He's always thought Russia was entitled to a sphere of influence. So what do you do when those states don't want to be part of that sphere of influence? Blaming it all on Bush's suggestion of bringing Ukraine into Nato which never went anywhere is just plain silly.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
Was it worse than his Kentucky Fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl in Knives Out?
Not sure. I've not spent long enough in Louisiana to comment on the authenticity of that one.
Excellent and correct. But, short on solutions and while Freedland is sound on how broken everything is, he can't say that there hasn't been an awful lot of public money spent. Nor can he look at social democratic Scotland and say 'This is how it's brilliantly done with even more money'.
The possibility that by about end of 2025 the public will have concluded that there is no such thing as an electable party is real.
Rather lightweight by Freedland imo; some of it is true, but he's making the Starmer error of heaping it all on the politicians in power, ignoring circs such as Covid. Which means that Starmer has painted himself into a corner where everything can be solved by politicians like himself, and rubbed out his excuses in advance.
He's got a collection of complaints, and he's even gone for the 'anonymous Yank General says that army is not fit for purpose' translated to "brass say", which is just something rolled out reliably before every Defence Review. The Army won't be repaired just by throwing more money around; it is in an institutional mess.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
I re-watched all of that recently, thought it was fabulous. I hadn't remembered Daniel Craig playing the dissolute Geordie. A far cry from James Bond - quite an eye-opener.
Great closing scene - him trudging over the bridge to Don't Look Back In Anger. I'd watch it all again if I wasn't already watching too much tv.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
You want to watch Jerome Flynn in 1923 trying to do a Scottish accent. FFS surely they could have found a Scottish actor for the part. Makes Dick Van Dyke sound cockney.
I've not seen that, but you do come across some terrible "Scottish" accents on US TV. I've never really understood it, as I'd have thought that with a bit of time and training any decent actor could master most accents. It's just laziness.
My teenage kids do this. It's one of those bewildering trends.
Not the same, but anecdotally it's how I learned written Danish - watching the Forsyte Saga and countless other BBC shows in Denmark with Danish subtitles. You pick up the language without even trying. It was invaluable at uni, and for the last 15 years, I've been earning £10K/year in my spare time translating from Danish, and that's where it started.
Nowadays, of course, I just have subtitles on because I'm a bit deaf.
Subtitles are commoner than they used to be, and probably better (they used to be pretty crap at times). Plus a house with teenagers is noisier than a house with OAPs. Conversely, it means you can turn the sound down that bit more if there is someone else doing something that needs peace.
Also, a lot of modern tellies have poor speakers (hence soundbars and even additional external speakers) and modern directors encourage actors to mumble in regional accents over intrusive background music.
Speaking of regional accents (the horror!) I was watching a bit of Our Friends in the North the other day. How did Daniel Craig's career survive his terrible effort at a North East accent in that?
I re-watched all of that recently, thought it was fabulous. I hadn't remembered Daniel Craig playing the dissolute Geordie. A far cry from James Bond - quite an eye-opener.
Great closing scene - him trudging over the bridge to Don't Look Back In Anger. I'd watch it all again if I wasn't already watching too much tv.
The rumour is the NI deal will be published Monday and voted on same day. Isn't that the worst possible way to pass a deal? No consideration, scrutiny. Most won't have read it even?
Okay, that is not wise.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
He did, but we know how well that turned out, and doing the same thing again begins to look careless.
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
The signs on Rishi's deal are getting a bit worse. No text, then the rubbish about the King, now 3 line whip on the same day it is revealed?
The one thing that is certain is that Sunak will do the deal if he thinks it is right for the majority and to enable a new improved relationship with the EU for the benefit of everyone, no matter some dissidents in his party or indeed the DUP
Indeed this may well be his legacy as he clears up the mess Johnson left behind
These comments from you feel increasingly agitated. Stop worrying. If Rishi's deal is good, he will be rightly praised by all. If it's a pile of shit, it will hasten the end of his sorry premiership. Everyone's a winner.
The point Hitchens never addresses in his version of events is that Putin has always been a Russian imperialist. He's never respected Ukraine as an independent state. He admires Stalin. He has a bust of Peter The Great. He's built an autocratic state. He's always thought Russia was entitled to a sphere of influence. So what do you do when those states don't want to be part of that sphere of influence? Blaming it all on Bush's suggestion of bringing Ukraine into Nato which never went anywhere is just plain silly.
Well you know how Peter arrives at his positions.
What would my brother have said? ... Right. So I'll say the exact opposite.
The point Hitchens never addresses in his version of events is that Putin has always been a Russian imperialist. He's never respected Ukraine as an independent state. He admires Stalin. He has a bust of Peter The Great. He's built an autocratic state. He's always thought Russia was entitled to a sphere of influence. So what do you do when those states don't want to be part of that sphere of influence? Blaming it all on Bush's suggestion of bringing Ukraine into Nato which never went anywhere is just plain silly.
Well you know how Peter arrives at his positions.
What would my brother have said? ... Right. So I'll say the exact opposite.
Comments
(Morning all from a chilly Nottinghamshire.)
Is there any value among these?
My instinct is that Humza is too short. Is this just because someone must win and there is a strong case against all of them?
There's something in the small print, I'm increasingly sure of it. Hence the edited highlights being trailed.
There's always something in the small print. It may be a price worth paying, but it will be there. And whatever the objective reality, the subjective "Remainer Rishi Betrayed Boris and his Beautiful Brexit" narrative will take root.
2. Avoid any diversion of trade.
3. Not constitute a border in the Irish Sea.
4. Give the people of Northern Ireland a say in the making of the laws that govern them.
5. Result in “no checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain or from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.”
6. Ensure no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom unless agreed by the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly.
7. Preserve the letter and spirit of Northern Ireland’s constitutional guarantee requiring the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland for any diminution in its status as part of the United Kingdom
Whether they are all met is what is moot.
While they require several orders of magnitude more viral particles to produce a positive result than does PCR, it seems that that's still an order of magnitude below the amount of virus required for someone to be actively infectious (in the case of Covid).
Also, that's the current state of the art. It's a new technology (as a cheap mass produced diagnostic device), and although the principles are quite simple, I'm pretty sure it could be refined to be substantially more sensitive.
(I am a fan of them, as they have so far now twice prevented me from infecting anyone at either home or work.)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-64766691
The excellent Putin and the West series on BBC is also great for French tuition. Francois Hollande speaks in a crystal clear French equivalent of RP, with subtitles. My son even commented he was easy to understand.
62% voted for Truss or Mordaunt. He doesn't have a majority of the party with just his core supporters
Like a list of some specific reasons someone could do something including 'and for other appropriate reasons' as a catch all.
The only way round that is for Dublin and London to amend the GFA with US and EU agreement to say only one of the largest Nationalist or Unionist parties need be in the Executive, plus the Alliance and one smaller Unionist or Nationalist party ie the UUP in this case
1:43 Newcastle - Leading Force
1:50 Kempton - The Churchill Lad
2:32 Chepstow - Hometown Hero
3:00 Kempton - Black Gerry
Enjoy your Saturday 🙋♀️
Because they will, you just know it. The new David Brailsford of corporate nonsense.
EDIT: yes, of course they have as a quick google demonstrates. https://queencharles.com.au/tpost/l0ihl1oxa1-what-can-ben-stokes-and-bazball-teach-us
I'd buy it.
But didn't Johnson effectively do the same thing?
How on earth did I miss on out daisies so long?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEIfplmJ0J4
We now need a scoreline prediction from your game today.
You need to get that stuff right if you’re going to do zingers. Or indeed ‘zingers’.
One thing I do rather miss though is the languid effortlessness of Gower, Lara, Da Silva and some of the other wristy players of the 80s and 90s. We don’t really see that style of play anymore.
I do know die Peitsche is the whip, though.
They left the Stormont executive when that was not delivered even when Boris was still PM
Besides, part of Rishi's shtick is that he's more honourable, a better man, than that cad Johnson.
A combination of lack of visibility, a character with all her uncle's charm, wit and intelligence, and her ineptitude in government add up to fairly compelling reasons for looking elsewhere. Stafford on paper is a safe seat but it's got quite a volatile electorate.
Whether that's the reason she's getting the boot of course is another question. But it did mean that nobody was going to oppose the Johnsonites if they moved against her. I doubt if her appeal to the wider membership will help.
Brexit means not being subject to EU law any more, so any brexit deal with even a teeny bit of a role for EU law is a sell out, AND NOT BREXIT
versus,
the best Brexit deal for UK economy and business can include some small EU legal involvement only over very limited areas of the deal. ITS STILL BREXIT
If you are in the second of those, as Sunak is, then it amends Boris deal for the better, gets NI government back on track, which is very important, and it hasn’t a chance of failing in the commons with Starmer’s votes (will be interesting to see how many Labour MPs defy Leader and don’t support it).
Sunak has no choice but to go for it. This is happening. You don’t tease people like this and not go through with it, it would be Sunak’s Brown Moment “Election? No I wasn’t planning an election.” to chicken out now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Clarke
But the Dispatches programme on Russian meddling broadcast just before the vote might not have helped this Russophile MP.
Strippers, Spies & Russian Money: Dispatches
The extraordinary story of Russia's covert efforts to corrupt British democracy and politics in the years before invading Ukraine. MI5 declined to comment on the programme for operational reasons.
You can watch the programme at
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/strippers-spies-russian-money-dispatches
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/brailsford-not-well-placed-to-be-advising-others-sports-following-failures-at-british-cycling-and-team-sky-says-mp
The prequels are much much better than Yellowstone.
One things come as a surprise, I didn’t know Harrison Ford could act this good. 🤭
Is a a Brexit that doesn't make Johnson PM a Real Brexit?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk
Or - having realised I have offended against an Internet Convention - I should say "Qtwtian".
I hope that's right.
An internet pedant comments.
There’s a lot going on.
‘I’ve heard Charles has always been jealous of Andrew…’
Lady Victoria Hervey questions whether ‘poor advice’ offered to Prince Andrew could have been a ‘set-up’ by the firm.
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1629248924681633792
https://www.facebook.com/CooncilJuice1/videos/rab-c-nesbitt-in-london/344526796111987/
The problem, and where careful regulation is required, is with the bookies’ sharing data on who are their ‘problem’ customers - those who keep winning. That’s cartel behaviour, and even a relative libertarian like me doesn’t have a problem with a gambling regulator clamping down on such behaviour.
FFS, everyone knows Andrew is a deeply dodgy man, a man who if he wasn't in the Royal Family would be in jail. I think he's a nonce and most people agree.
But the big test for Bazball is to come. At some point England will lose a few games and a series or two. What happens then?
Rishi is dry, very dry. A lot of the opposition to a Eurodeal will be right wing, especially if it boils down to the ECJ and NI. The ERG kept both groups together since they shared a common enemy, but that was then.
But it being a bad deal is also a possibility, admittedly.
Indeed this may well be his legacy as he clears up the mess Johnson left behind
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/25/my-whole-bed-shook-south-wales-hit-by-37-magnitude-earthquake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fd392zi2uc
The point Hitchens never addresses in his version of events is that Putin has always been a Russian imperialist. He's never respected Ukraine as an independent state. He admires Stalin. He has a bust of Peter The Great. He's built an autocratic state. He's always thought Russia was entitled to a sphere of influence. So what do you do when those states don't want to be part of that sphere of influence? Blaming it all on Bush's suggestion of bringing Ukraine into Nato which never went anywhere is just plain silly.
He's got a collection of complaints, and he's even gone for the 'anonymous Yank General says that army is not fit for purpose' translated to "brass say", which is just something rolled out reliably before every Defence Review. The Army won't be repaired just by throwing more money around; it is in an institutional mess.
What would my brother have said? ... Right. So I'll say the exact opposite.