The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
The previous 6 polls all had fieldwork conducted in part (or in one case in whole) on the day of the Budget.
Today's People Polling was conducted 2 days after Budget day, a reasonable interval to allow the full horrors to unravel once the smoke and mirrors had cleared.
I am generally sceptical of People Polling's results, given that they are one of the new kids on the block and have been posting figures at the top end of Labour leads. But regardless of house effects, the polling trend deserves attention. A 6% increase in the Labour lead in the first genuine post Budget poll might be a straw in the wind after a few polls in which the Labour lead had been eroded slightly.
Even if their absolute numbers are wrong, it's much harder to get changes in a like-for-like series of polls wrong.
(People polling came up with the Conservative 14% figure at peak Tussplosion. Are the Conservatives doing about 6 percentage points better now than then? Smells about right; better, but not enough to get them back in the game.)
Nice as it is to see Louise Casey say what I have been saying - repeatedly, on here - for the last 4 years, another report saying the same things that lots of others have said is not the solution. The previous 7 (by my count) reports have been ignored. Why will this one be any different?
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
People are just so sick of the Tories they aren't really paying attention to what the alternative is actually saying/doing.
They will probably notice more and more as we get closer to the election and Labour/Starmer gets more scrutiny but basically we're at an "anyone but Con" period now. The Liz/Kwasi debacle was the final straw.
The warning signs are there for what a Stamer government will actually be like though... Labour will be plumbing the depths of unpopularity within 18 months of taking office IMO.
I agree that after the Liz Truss debacle there was no way back for the Tories.
I am a bit more reticent to write off a first term Labour government though. Fundamentally, there are some things they will do that will be broadly popular (as there always are with any new government): and the fact that there are some fresh faces proposing them will generate some initial goodwill. They are also likely to be facing a Tory Party in considerable disarray which will give them a free pass on some things.
From where I am standing now they have 3 significant challenges:
1. To avoid getting drawn into distractions on cultural/“woke” issues. These need to be shut down immediately as matters that are currently “open debate” and not a priority. The absolute worst thing Starmer can do is distract Labour for months and months of his first term with debates about gender recognition etc.
2. Immigration - if they can put in place sensible and credible options to remove the small boat issue that will give them an amazing amount of breathing space; and
3. (This is by far the biggest challenge) the fact that there are significant structural weaknesses at the heart of our economy and our institutions (e.g the NHS) that either need to be confronted or they will only get worse. A government that fails to acknowledge this might get by for a few years and perhaps even into a second term by sticking their head in the sand, but at significant medium term cost. I see little in Labour at the moment that suggests they really understand how radical they are going to need to be, and that is the area of greatest concern to me ATM.
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
People are just so sick of the Tories they aren't really paying attention to what the alternative is actually saying/doing.
They will probably notice more and more as we get closer to the election and Labour/Starmer gets more scrutiny but basically we're at an "anyone but Con" period now. The Liz/Kwasi debacle was the final straw.
The warning signs are there for what a Stamer government will actually be like though... Labour will be plumbing the depths of unpopularity within 18 months of taking office IMO.
I agree that after the Liz Truss debacle there was no way back for the Tories.
I am a bit more reticent to write off a first term Labour government though. Fundamentally, there are some things they will do that will be broadly popular (as there always are with any new government): and the fact that there are some fresh faces proposing them will generate some initial goodwill. They are also likely to be facing a Tory Party in considerable disarray which will give them a free pass on some things.
From where I am standing now they have 3 significant challenges:
1. To avoid getting drawn into distractions on cultural/“woke” issues. These need to be shut down immediately as matters that are currently “open debate” and not a priority. The absolute worst thing Starmer can do is distract Labour for months and months of his first term with debates about gender recognition etc.
2. Immigration - if they can put in place sensible and credible options to remove the small boat issue that will give them an amazing amount of breathing space; and
3. (This is by far the biggest challenge) the fact that there are significant structural weaknesses at the heart of our economy and our institutions (e.g the NHS) that either need to be confronted or they will only get worse. A government that fails to acknowledge this might get by for a few years and perhaps even into a second term by sticking their head in the sand, but at significant medium term cost. I see little in Labour at the moment that suggests they really understand how radical they are going to need to be, and that is the area of greatest concern to me ATM.
1. You just know that's going to happen. Starmer won't be able to shut it down even if he wants to (which I don't think he does)
2. There's nothing at all to suggest Labour had a credible plan on small boats. But then, does anyone?
3. Labours instinct with the NHS (for example) will be to spend, spend, spend but it's going to be hard for Lab to govern with very little money to spend, taxes already at their limits and the unions having got a taste for militancy...
Chinese President Xi Jinping is welcomed by…. the Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshenko. He is the minister for tourism, sport, culture and communication.
The deputy? The tourist minister? Ok..
Putin didn’t want to be in a predetermined place outside.
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
People are just so sick of the Tories they aren't really paying attention to what the alternative is actually saying/doing.
They will probably notice more and more as we get closer to the election and Labour/Starmer gets more scrutiny but basically we're at an "anyone but Con" period now. The Liz/Kwasi debacle was the final straw.
The warning signs are there for what a Stamer government will actually be like though... Labour will be plumbing the depths of unpopularity within 18 months of taking office IMO.
I think that last part is quite likely if they don't get public consent for their programme. And they're running out of time for that...
Chinese President Xi Jinping is welcomed by…. the Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshenko. He is the minister for tourism, sport, culture and communication.
The deputy? The tourist minister? Ok..
Putin didn’t want to be in a predetermined place outside.
Just seen latest "People Polling". Can anyone understand their figures. Greens now on 13%, Cons 20% ? Even in Scotland the Greens support seems to be falling not doubt due to their involvement in the agreement with the SNP.
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
Anything that runs Chinese software or proprietary hardware.
So iPhones are fine as are say windows laptops that aren’t a Chinese brand.
Just seen latest "People Polling". Can anyone understand their figures. Greens now on 13%, Cons 20% ? Even in Scotland the Greens support seems to be falling not doubt due to their involvement in the agreement with the SNP.
It's obviously an outlier but the direction of traffic is clear and it's the reason a Labour majority government at the next election is a near certainty...
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
Yes also heard her today saying she was 100% on the voting , member numbers etc. Hard to imagine what changed her mind, surely could not have been the clown of a president who said he knew nothing about anything but we should sort it out even though I am President and you would think I would have a clue.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
Most people who profess a religion (which globally is most people) have the one that they were brought up with. Gosh.
He came in when Labour was 26 points behind, riddled with anti-Semitism and divided.
In the space of three years, he has overturned that lead and converted it into a 20 point lead of his own, resolved the anti-Semitism problem (source: BoD, EHRC), kicked Corbyn out of the party and taken the lead on the economy, something Labour has not held since the early 2000s.
I genuinely think he is the most able political operator Labour has had since Blair. Of course that isn't a high bar but bearing in mind his next immediate competition called Maxine Peak "an absolute diamond" when she wrote an anti-Semitic article and said JC - a two-time loser - was a "ten out of ten", I think we can rest easy that for once the Labour Party made a very sensible decision in choosing Sir Keir.
Welcome back BTW.
I absolutely agree with you about Starmer. The utter joy of todays politics is that the impossible is possible. After the 2019 General Election we were all clear that the Tories would win the election after that, and could cite all kinds of precedents to prove it.
And yet here we are. Name me another political leader who has so utterly and comprehensively transformed their party's position in such a short space of time? Sure, he has had boosts from events - the Boris comedy, the Truss lunacy etc. But to benefit from the misfortune of others you have to be in the right position and configured for that boost at the time the misfortune happens.
I'm not voting Labour because what's the point up here. But they will win the next election even if we assume a shallowing of the lead. And that was *impossible* from a position of Christmas 2019.
Why is there no point voting Labour in Scotland iyo?
They are a bunch of lying toerags and only a cigarette paper seperates them from the Tories
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
I think there's a bit of a risk of fighting the last war in terms of trade with China.
We (well, particularly Germany) thought we could mitigate the risk of Russian aggression by engaging with them economically and locking them into mutual dependency with the EU. It catastrophically didn't work.
However, the same tactic has worked in other situations - the EU itself being a case in point - and there's a danger we decide economic disengagement is the right answer with China too. It's certainly the right answer in the context of dual use technology where there is a cyber security risk, but more widely I'm not sure. China remains a rational actor albeit one with negative intentions for the West. It is much less resource self-sufficient than Russia and more likely to respond to realpolitik. Russia has become increasingly irrational and run as a mob outfit. I don't think the two can or should be compared.
Just seen latest "People Polling". Can anyone understand their figures. Greens now on 13%, Cons 20% ? Even in Scotland the Greens support seems to be falling not doubt due to their involvement in the agreement with the SNP.
The sad thing for the Greens is that 13%, even if correct, would probably bag them the sum total of 1 seat. The same one they already have.
Nice as it is to see Louise Casey say what I have been saying - repeatedly, on here - for the last 4 years, another report saying the same things that lots of others have said is not the solution. The previous 7 (by my count) reports have been ignored. Why will this one be any different?
GS set to trade claims on the $17bn in zeroed out bonds. As I said this morning, it's going to get very messy, I think potentially worse than if they'd let CS go insolvent and only protected depositors. We have pretty well set rules around that and a standard insolvency chain which the government could have subordinated to cover taxpayer losses on covering uninsured depositors.
I fear that the Swiss government has opened Pandora's box by shifting equity holders above bondholders.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
Wasn't that Obama's excuse for sitting in the congregation of the anti-Semitic pastor for donkeys years?
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
Really bizarre decision by UBS and the Swiss authorities.
The comment here in my bank, is that the Swiss authorities have torn up the meaning of “bond” and “share”.
I’m not quite sure how far back into history that rewinds finance…. The Romans had some differences between shares in a company and lending money….
The Swiss Finance Ministry saying that this is not a bailout but a commercial decision is talking out of their arse. It was the Swiss authorities who decided to wipe out the bondholders.
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
I think there's a bit of a risk of fighting the last war in terms of trade with China.
We (well, particularly Germany) thought we could mitigate the risk of Russian aggression by engaging with them economically and locking them into mutual dependency with the EU. It catastrophically didn't work.
However, the same tactic has worked in other situations - the EU itself being a case in point - and there's a danger we decide economic disengagement is the right answer with China too. It's certainly the right answer in the context of dual use technology where there is a cyber security risk, but more widely I'm not sure. China remains a rational actor albeit one with negative intentions for the West. It is much less resource self-sufficient than Russia and more likely to respond to realpolitik. Russia has become increasingly irrational and run as a mob outfit. I don't think the two can or should be compared.
I think your characterization of China is less true now that they are run by the personal dictatorship of Xi Jingping. While they were a collective authoritarian dictatorship, with the transition of power between individuals, then I would have agreed. How confident are you that Xi will remain rational?
Also, our first priority in our relations with China has to be ensuring that we are not so dependent on them that we lose our freedom of action. Whether a mutual economic dependence might encourage China to act less aggressively is a secondary concern. We almost always seem to overestimate the extent to which we can influence other countries.
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
Anything that runs Chinese software or proprietary hardware.
So iPhones are fine as are say windows laptops that aren’t a Chinese brand.
I'm probably ok then? - three phones all Korean, laptop Taiwanese, PCs (two at home and the work one I remote into) American.
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
People are just so sick of the Tories they aren't really paying attention to what the alternative is actually saying/doing.
They will probably notice more and more as we get closer to the election and Labour/Starmer gets more scrutiny but basically we're at an "anyone but Con" period now. The Liz/Kwasi debacle was the final straw.
The warning signs are there for what a Stamer government will actually be like though... Labour will be plumbing the depths of unpopularity within 18 months of taking office IMO.
I agree that after the Liz Truss debacle there was no way back for the Tories.
I am a bit more reticent to write off a first term Labour government though. Fundamentally, there are some things they will do that will be broadly popular (as there always are with any new government): and the fact that there are some fresh faces proposing them will generate some initial goodwill. They are also likely to be facing a Tory Party in considerable disarray which will give them a free pass on some things.
From where I am standing now they have 3 significant challenges:
1. To avoid getting drawn into distractions on cultural/“woke” issues. These need to be shut down immediately as matters that are currently “open debate” and not a priority. The absolute worst thing Starmer can do is distract Labour for months and months of his first term with debates about gender recognition etc.
2. Immigration - if they can put in place sensible and credible options to remove the small boat issue that will give them an amazing amount of breathing space; and
3. (This is by far the biggest challenge) the fact that there are significant structural weaknesses at the heart of our economy and our institutions (e.g the NHS) that either need to be confronted or they will only get worse. A government that fails to acknowledge this might get by for a few years and perhaps even into a second term by sticking their head in the sand, but at significant medium term cost. I see little in Labour at the moment that suggests they really understand how radical they are going to need to be, and that is the area of greatest concern to me ATM.
1. You just know that's going to happen. Starmer won't be able to shut it down even if he wants to (which I don't think he does)
2. There's nothing at all to suggest Labour had a credible plan on small boats. But then, does anyone?
3. Labours instinct with the NHS (for example) will be to spend, spend, spend but it's going to be hard for Lab to govern with very little money to spend, taxes already at their limits and the unions having got a taste for militancy...
I think Starmer is more likely to make a big mistake in respect to the EU/Europe than he is on woke issues. The SNP have already shown Labour what happens when you blunder into that mantrap.
Really bizarre decision by UBS and the Swiss authorities.
The comment here in my bank, is that the Swiss authorities have torn up the meaning of “bond” and “share”.
I’m not quite sure how far back into history that rewinds finance…. The Romans had some differences between shares in a company and lending money….
The Swiss Finance Ministry saying that this is not a bailout but a commercial decision is talking out of their arse. It was the Swiss authorities who decided to wipe out the bondholders.
Litigation incoming......
More to come out I suspect.
Goldman are trading claims on those bonds. I expect the Swiss government (via UBS) will have to pay out on them in the end.
GS set to trade claims on the $17bn in zeroed out bonds. As I said this morning, it's going to get very messy, I think potentially worse than if they'd let CS go insolvent and only protected depositors. We have pretty well set rules around that and a standard insolvency chain which the government could have subordinated to cover taxpayer losses on covering uninsured depositors.
I fear that the Swiss government has opened Pandora's box by shifting equity holders above bondholders.
Totally agree, although fortunately (albeit obviously) the EBA (European Banking Authority) have come out and reiterated “…common equity instruments are the first ones to absorb losses, and only after their full use would Additional Tier One be required to be written down.” - essentially saying that they don't know what they Swiss are doing, but it wouldn't have been done like that on their watch. This does at least appear to be stemming the initial contagion concerns for other European AT1.
Edit: But it does it at the risk of highlighting the 'non-standard' approach of the Swiss Regulator, and potentially causing more issues for UBS going forward
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
Yes also heard her today saying she was 100% on the voting , member numbers etc. Hard to imagine what changed her mind, surely could not have been the clown of a president who said he knew nothing about anything but we should sort it out even though I am President and you would think I would have a clue.
I suspect it's a strategy. If she comes out now, says the vote's fishy and that it's all a stitch-up what does she say then if she wins?
And yet, her campaign (and Regan's) have kicked up enough of a fuss that they can say it's all cracked in the event that she loses.
However, the same tactic has worked in other situations - the EU itself being a case in point - and there's a danger we decide economic disengagement is the right answer with China too. It's certainly the right answer in the context of dual use technology where there is a cyber security risk, but more widely I'm not sure. China remains a rational actor albeit one with negative intentions for the West. It is much less resource self-sufficient than Russia and more likely to respond to realpolitik. Russia has become increasingly irrational and run as a mob outfit. I don't think the two can or should be compared.
I get the impression that China has been doing more than the West in the way of making preparations so it isn't completely screwed in the event of a sudden wideranging economic disengagement[*], though. China is a rational actor, but it's been making moves that give a future China a greater range of rational options, some of which could badly screw us over if we're not prepared...
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
People are just so sick of the Tories they aren't really paying attention to what the alternative is actually saying/doing.
They will probably notice more and more as we get closer to the election and Labour/Starmer gets more scrutiny but basically we're at an "anyone but Con" period now. The Liz/Kwasi debacle was the final straw.
The warning signs are there for what a Stamer government will actually be like though... Labour will be plumbing the depths of unpopularity within 18 months of taking office IMO.
I agree that after the Liz Truss debacle there was no way back for the Tories.
I am a bit more reticent to write off a first term Labour government though. Fundamentally, there are some things they will do that will be broadly popular (as there always are with any new government): and the fact that there are some fresh faces proposing them will generate some initial goodwill. They are also likely to be facing a Tory Party in considerable disarray which will give them a free pass on some things.
From where I am standing now they have 3 significant challenges:
1. To avoid getting drawn into distractions on cultural/“woke” issues. These need to be shut down immediately as matters that are currently “open debate” and not a priority. The absolute worst thing Starmer can do is distract Labour for months and months of his first term with debates about gender recognition etc.
2. Immigration - if they can put in place sensible and credible options to remove the small boat issue that will give them an amazing amount of breathing space; and
3. (This is by far the biggest challenge) the fact that there are significant structural weaknesses at the heart of our economy and our institutions (e.g the NHS) that either need to be confronted or they will only get worse. A government that fails to acknowledge this might get by for a few years and perhaps even into a second term by sticking their head in the sand, but at significant medium term cost. I see little in Labour at the moment that suggests they really understand how radical they are going to need to be, and that is the area of greatest concern to me ATM.
1. You just know that's going to happen. Starmer won't be able to shut it down even if he wants to (which I don't think he does)
2. There's nothing at all to suggest Labour had a credible plan on small boats. But then, does anyone?
3. Labours instinct with the NHS (for example) will be to spend, spend, spend but it's going to be hard for Lab to govern with very little money to spend, taxes already at their limits and the unions having got a taste for militancy...
I think Starmer is more likely to make a big mistake in respect to the EU/Europe than he is on woke issues. The SNP have already shown Labour what happens when you blunder into that mantrap.
Woke is an "in government" problem much more than an "in opposition" problem, I think.
Nice as it is to see Louise Casey say what I have been saying - repeatedly, on here - for the last 4 years, another report saying the same things that lots of others have said is not the solution. The previous 7 (by my count) reports have been ignored. Why will this one be any different?
I think this one might, just possibly, be different, as the public have had enough.
This government will do nothing. Nor will Labour - other than some more EDI training courses.
Both Starmer & Khan were supportive of the Met for years while all this was going on.
The racism etc is not the problem. It's a symptom of the problem - a total lack of professionalism, a failure to understand what policing is about & a refusal to understand that the good character of who you employ is the single most important thing you can do to improve how you operate.
No amount of training can make up for bad character.
Really bizarre decision by UBS and the Swiss authorities.
The comment here in my bank, is that the Swiss authorities have torn up the meaning of “bond” and “share”.
I’m not quite sure how far back into history that rewinds finance…. The Romans had some differences between shares in a company and lending money….
The Swiss Finance Ministry saying that this is not a bailout but a commercial decision is talking out of their arse. It was the Swiss authorities who decided to wipe out the bondholders.
Litigation incoming......
More to come out I suspect.
When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.
Really bizarre decision by UBS and the Swiss authorities.
The comment here in my bank, is that the Swiss authorities have torn up the meaning of “bond” and “share”.
I’m not quite sure how far back into history that rewinds finance…. The Romans had some differences between shares in a company and lending money….
The Swiss Finance Ministry saying that this is not a bailout but a commercial decision is talking out of their arse. It was the Swiss authorities who decided to wipe out the bondholders.
Litigation incoming......
More to come out I suspect.
Goldman are trading claims on those bonds. I expect the Swiss government (via UBS) will have to pay out on them in the end.
What a shambles. Of all the countries one might expect to be able to deal with a relatively minor banking failure, the Swiss would have been high on most people’s list.
The average well-informed but non-industry punter, would have expected the shareholders to be wiped out, along with the staff bonus fund, with bondholders taking a large haircut. It appears that what’s been agreed here, is the exact opposite.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
An extraordinary poll just out shows the Greens on 13% and Labour on 45%, Cons on 20% and Reform on 6% .
That’s a horror show for the Tories given their combined share of their voter pool is a paltry 26% .
Nah - I think that’s rogue. Green % not plausible
There's a lot of online polling companies that have "motivated" panels.
At this stage my attitude to any pollster who is new to GB VI polling since the last election is "note and ignore". Maybe one of them will turn out to be right but I'd rather put my money on established firms.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is welcomed by…. the Deputy Prime Minister Chernyshenko. He is the minister for tourism, sport, culture and communication.
The deputy? The tourist minister? Ok..
Putin didn’t want to be in a predetermined place outside.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
Because freedom of religion is a basic human right?
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
Yes also heard her today saying she was 100% on the voting , member numbers etc. Hard to imagine what changed her mind, surely could not have been the clown of a president who said he knew nothing about anything but we should sort it out even though I am President and you would think I would have a clue.
I suspect it's a strategy. If she comes out now, says the vote's fishy and that it's all a stitch-up what does she say then if she wins?
And yet, her campaign (and Regan's) have kicked up enough of a fuss that they can say it's all cracked in the event that she loses.
Why take the risks of making a big fuss?
Looks like a deal may be in the offing:
Statement on ballot:
Due to the volatile nature of recent events Ash Regan has held off from media to forge a path forward in conjunction with SNP HQ.
The campaign team thanks Mike Russell for stepping in and understanding the situation.
There has been a surge in traffic in our campaign mailbox and social media from concerned members, looking for guidance on whether the ballot will go ahead unaltered or if the ballot will be reset.
My team have put forward proposals that provide assurance to members with minimum disruption to the election process that we can move ahead constructively on.
In 2015 selection contests for Westminster candidatures had varying end dates. In some cases, candidates were removed from the ballot before a race ended, where this happened members were able to update their vote. The facility exists within the Mi-Voice system.
This would have the benefit of not disrupting members who are happy with their vote while providing an opportunity to reconsider for those who are not.
In addition each candidate would be allowed to send one email to the members using the SNP mailing system – allowing a last minute updated message that reflects current events.
We thank Mike for taking this suggestion seriously and lend our support to the integrity of the ballot. It is important that all parties respect the outcome of the ballot and give full support to the new leader of the SNP.
Who the hell thinks Starmer is competent or trustworthy?
He has just ditched all the policies he said he'd follow to get elected leader. He said that Corbyn was his best mate when he needed his support, then banned him from standing as a Labour candidate. Etc etc.
Oh yes, and he's a lawyer.
People are just so sick of the Tories they aren't really paying attention to what the alternative is actually saying/doing.
They will probably notice more and more as we get closer to the election and Labour/Starmer gets more scrutiny but basically we're at an "anyone but Con" period now. The Liz/Kwasi debacle was the final straw.
The warning signs are there for what a Stamer government will actually be like though... Labour will be plumbing the depths of unpopularity within 18 months of taking office IMO.
I agree that after the Liz Truss debacle there was no way back for the Tories.
I am a bit more reticent to write off a first term Labour government though. Fundamentally, there are some things they will do that will be broadly popular (as there always are with any new government): and the fact that there are some fresh faces proposing them will generate some initial goodwill. They are also likely to be facing a Tory Party in considerable disarray which will give them a free pass on some things.
From where I am standing now they have 3 significant challenges:
1. To avoid getting drawn into distractions on cultural/“woke” issues. These need to be shut down immediately as matters that are currently “open debate” and not a priority. The absolute worst thing Starmer can do is distract Labour for months and months of his first term with debates about gender recognition etc.
2. Immigration - if they can put in place sensible and credible options to remove the small boat issue that will give them an amazing amount of breathing space; and
3. (This is by far the biggest challenge) the fact that there are significant structural weaknesses at the heart of our economy and our institutions (e.g the NHS) that either need to be confronted or they will only get worse. A government that fails to acknowledge this might get by for a few years and perhaps even into a second term by sticking their head in the sand, but at significant medium term cost. I see little in Labour at the moment that suggests they really understand how radical they are going to need to be, and that is the area of greatest concern to me ATM.
1. You just know that's going to happen. Starmer won't be able to shut it down even if he wants to (which I don't think he does)
2. There's nothing at all to suggest Labour had a credible plan on small boats. But then, does anyone?
3. Labours instinct with the NHS (for example) will be to spend, spend, spend but it's going to be hard for Lab to govern with very little money to spend, taxes already at their limits and the unions having got a taste for militancy...
I think Starmer is more likely to make a big mistake in respect to the EU/Europe than he is on woke issues. The SNP have already shown Labour what happens when you blunder into that mantrap.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
All this Boris talk of misleading and knowingly misleading does make me ponder the final episode of Yes Prime Minister, where the PM did mislead the House though it was genuinely not knowingly.
It was treated as nonetheless so serious that Hacker decided to blackmail a civil servant to lie about it rather than admit the inadvertent action.
Now, apparently, misleading is no big deal so long as it was Sue Gray's fault, no matter how obvious the truth was.
An extraordinary poll just out shows the Greens on 13% and Labour on 45%, Cons on 20% and Reform on 6% .
That’s a horror show for the Tories given their combined share of their voter pool is a paltry 26% .
Nah - I think that’s rogue. Green % not plausible
There's a lot of online polling companies that have "motivated" panels.
At this stage my attitude to any pollster who is new to GB VI polling since the last election is "note and ignore". Maybe one of them will turn out to be right but I'd rather put my money on established firms.
I wouldn't pay much attention to the absolute shares in new pollsters, but whatever unknown bias they do have should be reasonably as constant over time as for an established pollster. So I wouldn't have any qualms about using them in a polling average to look at variations in public support from month-to-month.
So it's one data point to suggest that the budget wasn't a rousing success.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
In Dingwall I suspect the options are limited, but an important part of a church is the community and how thriving it is and often that matters more than theology.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today and get big incentives from the state to keep startups in the UK like expanding investment schemes to cover billion dollar enterprises and helping fast growing companies with matched debt funding etc...
The UK is probably best placed in Europe to capture a very big slice of the future economy but I'm not sure that Labour will do anything about it, if anything I expect them to see tech as a potential source of tax to fund the NHS so will be yet another industry hollowed out for it.
The Western governments just need to ban it full stop. Its basically malware (and to think we had all the OTT stuff about Facebook, TikTok takes it to a totally different level and of course it isn't about being able to flog you hyper-targeted ads like Facebook). Trump was actually right on this one, but because Trump wanted to ban it, everybody went THAT'S RACIST, can't do that, etc etc etc. Bit like Lab leak theory, can entertain even the notation of that being a possibility because its a Trump pushed (conspiracy) theory.
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
We also need to ban Chinese phones like Huawei.
There is a valid question to pose here - which Chinese goods are ok and which are not? The bulk of my electronics are made in China including this laptop...
I think there's a bit of a risk of fighting the last war in terms of trade with China.
We (well, particularly Germany) thought we could mitigate the risk of Russian aggression by engaging with them economically and locking them into mutual dependency with the EU. It catastrophically didn't work.
However, the same tactic has worked in other situations - the EU itself being a case in point - and there's a danger we decide economic disengagement is the right answer with China too. It's certainly the right answer in the context of dual use technology where there is a cyber security risk, but more widely I'm not sure. China remains a rational actor albeit one with negative intentions for the West. It is much less resource self-sufficient than Russia and more likely to respond to realpolitik. Russia has become increasingly irrational and run as a mob outfit. I don't think the two can or should be compared.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today and get big incentives from the state to keep startups in the UK like expanding investment schemes to cover billion dollar enterprises and helping fast growing companies with matched debt funding etc...
The UK is probably best placed in Europe to capture a very big slice of the future economy but I'm not sure that Labour will do anything about it, if anything I expect them to see tech as a potential source of tax to fund the NHS so will be yet another industry hollowed out for it.
One of the most disappointing things since COVID, we all saw how over reliant we were on China, but how there was still good innovative, science and tech when push came to shove, but also that the UK was starting to fall behind e.g. mRNA vaccine tech, Imperial behind the curve due to lack of funding.
The government initially setup a group to investigate how the UK could become less reliant on especially China and drive much more home grown development in science and tech....and they shut it down (I think last year) without doing anything.
I believe there was also another group led by Patrick Vallance, looking at how to overhaul the public sector to actually record and use data properly, because as we saw they had to get people in from the private sector to write code just to work out deaths / cases of COVID due to mess of stat recording. I don't think anything came of that either.
Just seen latest "People Polling". Can anyone understand their figures. Greens now on 13%, Cons 20% ? Even in Scotland the Greens support seems to be falling not doubt due to their involvement in the agreement with the SNP.
The sad thing for the Greens is that 13%, even if correct, would probably bag them the sum total of 1 seat. The same one they already have.
In Scotland it is due to them being mental dingbat turds, with theh brains of the same.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
Sure, there is profit in being more tolerant of risk, but as we have seen in the USA, banks taking risks has a notable downside too.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today and get big incentives from the state to keep startups in the UK like expanding investment schemes to cover billion dollar enterprises and helping fast growing companies with matched debt funding etc...
The UK is probably best placed in Europe to capture a very big slice of the future economy but I'm not sure that Labour will do anything about it, if anything I expect them to see tech as a potential source of tax to fund the NHS so will be yet another industry hollowed out for it.
One of the most disappointing things since COVID, we all saw how over reliant we were on China, but how there was still good innovative, science and tech when push came to shove, but also that the UK was starting to fall behind e.g. mRNA vaccine tech, Imperial behind the curve due to lack of funding.
The government initially setup a group to investigate how the UK could become less reliant on especially China and drive much more home grown development in science and tech....and they shut it down (I think last year) without doing anything.
I believe there was also another group led by Patrick Vallance, looking at how to overhaul the public sector to actually record and use data properly, because as we saw they had to get people in from the private sector to write code just to work out deaths / cases of COVID due to mess of stat recording. I don't think anything came of that either.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
Sure, there is profit in being more tolerant of risk, but as we have seen in the USA, banks taking risks has a notable downside too.
And get US investors have seen their capital go up 3-4x while the FTSE is still basically where it was in the same timeframe. I know where I'd rather have invested.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today and get big incentives from the state to keep startups in the UK like expanding investment schemes to cover billion dollar enterprises and helping fast growing companies with matched debt funding etc...
The UK is probably best placed in Europe to capture a very big slice of the future economy but I'm not sure that Labour will do anything about it, if anything I expect them to see tech as a potential source of tax to fund the NHS so will be yet another industry hollowed out for it.
One of the most disappointing things since COVID, we all saw how over reliant we were on China, but how there was still good innovative, science and tech when push came to shove, but also that the UK was starting to fall behind e.g. mRNA vaccine tech, Imperial behind the curve due to lack of funding.
The government initially setup a group to investigate how the UK could become less reliant on especially China and drive much more home grown development in science and tech....and they shut it down (I think last year) without doing anything.
I believe there was also another group led by Patrick Vallance, looking at how to overhaul the public sector to actually record and use data properly, because as we saw they had to get people in from the private sector to write code just to work out deaths / cases of COVID due to mess of stat recording. I don't think anything came of that either.
Also the vaccine research institution.
Yes that was sold off. Although, I seemed to remember that MaxPB said it wasn't the worst idea, depending on the exact nature of the deal.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
In Dingwall I suspect the options are limited, but an important part of a church is the community and how thriving it is and often that matters more than theology.
Also the Presbyterian kirks have much the same theology and the same kirk structure (the differences are remarkably small, really, and as much to do with wider issues of politics and subordination to the state etc as anything else). Much more of a change to go to Episcopalianism or RCism with their bishops and their different approach.
Ash Regan's team have suggested SNP members should be able to vote again if they have cast their vote and wish to change it & that all 3 candidates get another mailing to members. A sensible compromise not without precedent as I understand it. #voteAshRegan
Laura Murray receives £40,000 damages for untrue comments made in piece by former Labour MP Ian Austin
Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent Thu 17 Mar 2022 12.53 GMT The Telegraph has apologised and paid £40,000 in damages for falsely describing a former aide to Jeremy Corbyn as an “anti-Jewish racist” and part of the “vile antisemitism of Corbyn’s Labour”.
The allegations about Laura Murray, which the Telegraph has accepted were untrue and without basis, were contained in an opinion piece by the former Labour MP and current independent peer Ian Austin, who has also apologised.
In the Telegraph’s apology, published on Thursday, it said: “We accept that there was and is no basis to suggest that Ms Murray is antisemitic. On the contrary; the court heard in unchallenged evidence [in the Riley case] that Ms Murray devoted significant time and energy to confronting and challenging antisemitism within the Labour party while she was employed there. The Telegraph and Ian Austin apologise to Ms Murray. We have agreed to pay her substantial damages.”
How on earth can Boris produce a 500 page document in his defence. 500 for goodness sake.
Classic obfuscation technique, as algakirk notes. Gives illusion of substance. If its nonsense and dismissed you then point to how much 'evidence' was ignored. You confuse every even non contentious point so that the deciders get mad, get lost, or your defenders can find a hook they forget to close off on their response.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
In Dingwall I suspect the options are limited, but an important part of a church is the community and how thriving it is and often that matters more than theology.
Also the Presbyterian kirks have much the same theology and the same kirk structure (the differences are remarkably small, really, and as much to do with wider issues of politics and subordination to the state etc as anything else). Much more of a change to go to Episcopalianism or RCism with their bishops and their different approach.
I may be unusual in thos, but as an atheist I have a lot more instinctive sympathy for the Presbyterian kirks than the Episcopalian ones. I'm running through why this may be so. I think 75% of it boils down to this: bishops are twats.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today...
Many worthwhile things that government do take a decade or more to reach fruition. Politically unexciting, and difficult to do at the time, but obvious blunders ten years later if not done.
How on earth can Boris produce a 500 page document in his defence. 500 for goodness sake.
Very easily these days. It's not designed to be read, of course.
CharGPT document summary - "Pfffft."
Leaked extract from the introduction....
The Curious Case of the Downing Street Soirées: In Which Yours Truly Remained Blissfully Ignorant
My dear friends and fellow countrymen, I am compelled to address a matter of profound importance and great consternation: the alleged bacchanalian festivities at Downing Street, of which I was, for the record, utterly and unreservedly unaware.
Picture, if you will, a jolly band of civil servants and advisors, cavorting within the hallowed halls of the Prime Minister's residence, while yours truly toiled away at the coalface of national governance. These elusive revellers, it seems, were as stealthy as Puck himself, frolicking in the shadows and evading the watchful eye of their diligent leader.
Indeed, I must confess to being as bamboozled as anyone by the notion that such revelry could have taken place beneath my very nose, without so much as a whisper or a murmur to betray its existence. Like the legendary Scarlet Pimpernel, these mysterious merrymakers have thus far eluded both detection and comprehension.
Yet, in the spirit of the great Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured to piece together the puzzle of this confounding caper, and to lay to rest the swirling rumours and innuendo that have besmirched the good name of Downing Street.
In the course of my investigation, I have discovered that the denizens of Number 10, like any other band of hardworking Britons, occasionally required respite from the rigours of their daily tasks. This, my friends, is only human; a fact that I have always been cognizant of, even as I have endeavoured to instil in them a work ethic worthy of our great nation.
Alas, it seems that in their pursuit of leisure and camaraderie, these well-intentioned souls may have inadvertently strayed into the realm of the imprudent. For this, they have my sympathies; after all, who among us has not, at one time or another, been carried away by the spirit of conviviality?
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today and get big incentives from the state to keep startups in the UK like expanding investment schemes to cover billion dollar enterprises and helping fast growing companies with matched debt funding etc...
The UK is probably best placed in Europe to capture a very big slice of the future economy but I'm not sure that Labour will do anything about it, if anything I expect them to see tech as a potential source of tax to fund the NHS so will be yet another industry hollowed out for it.
One of the most disappointing things since COVID, we all saw how over reliant we were on China, but how there was still good innovative, science and tech when push came to shove, but also that the UK was starting to fall behind e.g. mRNA vaccine tech, Imperial behind the curve due to lack of funding.
The government initially setup a group to investigate how the UK could become less reliant on especially China and drive much more home grown development in science and tech....and they shut it down (I think last year) without doing anything.
I believe there was also another group led by Patrick Vallance, looking at how to overhaul the public sector to actually record and use data properly, because as we saw they had to get people in from the private sector to write code just to work out deaths / cases of COVID due to mess of stat recording. I don't think anything came of that either.
Also the vaccine research institution.
Yes that was sold off. Although, I seemed to remember that MaxPB said it wasn't the worst idea, depending on the exact nature of the deal.
It went to a buyer that is investing some hundreds of millions expanding it and getting regular clients for it. The issue with the VMIC is that it was production without a client base, Catalent already has a big book of clients and will begin manufacturing hundreds of millions of doses of various types at the VMIC. The UK government would essentially have had to compete with other third party companies who specialise in this or save the VMIC for pandemics or disasters which is a waste of capacity.
IMO, the VMIC was a perfectly executed exercise. The state builds an asset to a minimum level of functionality, it sells it for more than it cost to build and the buyer invests its own money expanding it and extracting significantly more value than the state ever could have creating thousands of new jobs in the process and creating a new industry in the UK which we didn't have previously - third party vaccine manufacturing. As the expertise builds up pharma companies will see the UK as a location to build directly own facilities too.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today...
Many worthwhile things that government do take a decade or more to reach fruition. Politically unexciting, and difficult to do at the time, but obvious blunders ten years later if not done.
When Boris loses his seat, he is never going to have to write another column himself is he....GPT-4, prompt "write waffle article about (insert talking point of the week) in the style of me, Boris "Bozza" Johnson, enter....right time for Sunday lunch.
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
That’s a different question though.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
In Dingwall I suspect the options are limited, but an important part of a church is the community and how thriving it is and often that matters more than theology.
All I see is furin cleavage sites, and I wonder what that has to do with the church?
When Boris loses his seat, he is never going to have to write another column himself is he....GPT-4, prompt "write waffle article about (insert talking point of the week) in the style of me, Boris "Bozza" Johnson, enter....right time for Sunday lunch.
Maybe to be on the safe side two prompts - "write waffle article in favour of (insert talking point of the week)" and "write waffle article against (insert talking point of the week)".
I live with a church at either end of my road and aside from contributing to the food bank run by one of them I have so far resisted the urge to get involved with either of them.
Most people who profess a religion (which globally is most people) have the one that they were brought up with. Gosh.
I know you lurve Kate but there's no need to jump to her defence at every rustle of a sweetie paper.
I just think it's an odd formulation for an adherent of one of the more rigorous (not to say rigid) Christian sects. In any case according to Wiki she appears to have lived in Marybank, India, non specific Scotland, India, Glasgow then Dingwall in the first 18 years of life; that's a lot of religious establishments down a lot of roads.
It's a bigger problem within the EU than it is here, though we have well documented cases of UK companies listing in the US or shifting their legal HQ to the US.
One of the major difficulties for European startups is data regulation - startups prefer to operate in the US where there is much less uncertainty around what is and isn't possible to do with customer data. For example one of our clients operates in the UK and US, they have their servers in EU West-1, but to integrate with a customer profile builder tool they need to have all of their data in a US data centre because the company that does the profile doesn't want to touch customer data in the EU for fear of fines. For this company it's not such a big deal because they have the ability to replicate data in the US with AWS and because they don't have EU customers it's not a huge problem for them.
Another big problem, specifically in the EU, is, as mentioned, a complete lack of exit strategy. In the UK the exit strategy is "be bought by Google/Apple/etc..." for a figure north of £100m and if you're really good then above £500m. EU startups don't have this same exit strategy and EU investors are laughably risk averse (worse than UK investors) so a listing in Amsterdam isn't an option either.
The dynamic is that EU based startups will relocate to the UK a lot of the time to get access to UK startup finance and infrastructure, UK startups get to scale up and then start looking at a move to the US to access US capital and infrastructure.
To change this in the UK, at least, we need to fundamentally reassess our attitude to risk. The BoE and other regulators have spent the better part of a decade attempting to remove investment risk as part of their drive to make the banking sector safer. This has left UK capital extremely risk averse and funds will lump cash into government bonds and other ultra safe products rather than risk it in a VC fund. The road to go from where we are today to where the US is will need 10-15 years of reversing this attitude to risk and allowing for funds to feel comfortable losing money on bad bets because overall the market is up because capital is better allocated.
Cont...
The honest answer is the risk ecosystem is much more developed in the US (the funds I talk to have 30-40 PhD/MDs doing their diligence work). We just don’t have the scale.
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
The potential to scale is there, but the road is 10-15 years long if we start today...
Many worthwhile things that government do take a decade or more to reach fruition. Politically unexciting, and difficult to do at the time, but obvious blunders ten years later if not done.
Retail bank ring fencing for example!
Well, yes ! How many other things in the plus side of the ledger recently ?
Though more to the point, most political debate is about the very short term.
Comments
When I think for all the batshit danger stuff Trump came out with, I am pretty sure the intelligence agencies were briefing on both these.
(People polling came up with the Conservative 14% figure at peak Tussplosion. Are the Conservatives doing about 6 percentage points better now than then? Smells about right; better, but not enough to get them back in the game.)
Here are my suggestions from over a year ago - https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/02/11/what-should-the-met-do-now/
I am a bit more reticent to write off a first term Labour government though. Fundamentally, there are some things they will do that will be broadly popular (as there always are with any new government): and the fact that there are some fresh faces proposing them will generate some initial goodwill. They are also likely to be facing a Tory Party in considerable disarray which will give them a free pass on some things.
From where I am standing now they have 3 significant challenges:
1. To avoid getting drawn into distractions on cultural/“woke” issues. These need to be shut down immediately as matters that are currently “open debate” and not a priority. The absolute worst thing Starmer can do is distract Labour for months and months of his first term with debates about gender recognition etc.
2. Immigration - if they can put in place sensible and credible options to remove the small boat issue that will give them an amazing amount of breathing space; and
3. (This is by far the biggest challenge) the fact that there are significant structural weaknesses at the heart of our economy and our institutions (e.g the NHS) that either need to be confronted or they will only get worse. A government that fails to acknowledge this might get by for a few years and perhaps even into a second term by sticking their head in the sand, but at significant medium term cost. I see little in Labour at the moment that suggests they really understand how radical they are going to need to be, and that is the area of greatest concern to me ATM.
I’m not quite sure how far back into history that rewinds finance…. The Romans had some differences between shares in a company and lending money….
2. There's nothing at all to suggest Labour had a credible plan on small boats. But then, does anyone?
3. Labours instinct with the NHS (for example) will be to spend, spend, spend but it's going to be hard for Lab to govern with very little money to spend, taxes already at their limits and the unions having got a taste for militancy...
LAB: 45% (+3)
CON: 20% (-3)
GRN: 13% (+3)
LDM: 9% (+1)
REF: 6% (-1)
SNP: 5% (+1)
Via @PeoplePolling, On 17 March,
Changes w/ 8 March.
Once a drone that could autonomously lock onto a person by image recognition and chase them down was bad science fiction.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/
Friends in the drone thing have programmed their drones to return to them by recognising them….
So iPhones are fine as are say windows laptops that aren’t a Chinese brand.
The Swiss bank will pay a 2023 performance bonus to those eligible, it told its staff in a memo following its takeover."
https://www.ft.com/content/bbe83ac1-b42c-422b-a307-b365bbe12d41
We (well, particularly Germany) thought we could mitigate the risk of Russian aggression by engaging with them economically and locking them into mutual dependency with the EU. It catastrophically didn't work.
However, the same tactic has worked in other situations - the EU itself being a case in point - and there's a danger we decide economic disengagement is the right answer with China too. It's certainly the right answer in the context of dual use technology where there is a cyber security risk, but more widely I'm not sure. China remains a rational actor albeit one with negative intentions for the West. It is much less resource self-sufficient than Russia and more likely to respond to realpolitik. Russia has become increasingly irrational and run as a mob outfit. I don't think the two can or should be compared.
I think this one might, just possibly, be different, as the public have had enough.
I fear that the Swiss government has opened Pandora's box by shifting equity holders above bondholders.
Litigation incoming......
More to come out I suspect.
Also, our first priority in our relations with China has to be ensuring that we are not so dependent on them that we lose our freedom of action. Whether a mutual economic dependence might encourage China to act less aggressively is a secondary concern. We almost always seem to overestimate the extent to which we can influence other countries.
Edit: But it does it at the risk of highlighting the 'non-standard' approach of the Swiss Regulator, and potentially causing more issues for UBS going forward
And yet, her campaign (and Regan's) have kicked up enough of a fuss that they can say it's all cracked in the event that she loses.
Why take the risks of making a big fuss?
[*] may or may not be a euphemism for "war"...
Both Starmer & Khan were supportive of the Met for years while all this was going on.
The racism etc is not the problem. It's a symptom of the problem - a total lack of professionalism, a failure to understand what policing is about & a refusal to understand that the good character of who you employ is the single most important thing you can do to improve how you operate.
No amount of training can make up for bad character.
I've said all I can usefully say, really.
When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.
The average well-informed but non-industry punter, would have expected the shareholders to be wiped out, along with the staff bonus fund, with bondholders taking a large haircut. It appears that what’s been agreed here, is the exact opposite.
She was answering “why FCS not another church”. You are answering “why any church”
https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1637568398719582209?t=Xqn4l8BJIW1T56RIqnykxw&s=19
Statement on ballot:
Due to the volatile nature of recent events Ash Regan has held off from media to forge a path forward in conjunction with SNP HQ.
The campaign team thanks Mike Russell for stepping in and understanding the situation.
There has been a surge in traffic in our campaign mailbox and social media from concerned members, looking for guidance on whether the ballot will go ahead unaltered or if the ballot will be reset.
My team have put forward proposals that provide assurance to members with minimum disruption to the election process that we can move ahead constructively on.
In 2015 selection contests for Westminster candidatures had varying end dates. In some cases, candidates were removed from the ballot before a race ended, where this happened members were able to update their vote. The facility exists within the Mi-Voice system.
This would have the benefit of not disrupting members who are happy with their vote while providing an opportunity to reconsider for those who are not.
In addition each candidate would be allowed to send one email to the members using the SNP mailing system – allowing a last minute updated message that reflects current events.
We thank Mike for taking this suggestion seriously and lend our support to the integrity of the ballot. It is important that all parties respect the outcome of the ballot and give full support to the new leader of the SNP.
https://twitter.com/AshReganSNP/status/1637774947413106688?s=20
Our mindset is better suited to widow & orphan stocks not growth investments. (We have great science and great early VC FWIW). There’s a place for both, but widows & orphans aren’t as sexy for the media
It was treated as nonetheless so serious that Hacker decided to blackmail a civil servant to lie about it rather than admit the inadvertent action.
Now, apparently, misleading is no big deal so long as it was Sue Gray's fault, no matter how obvious the truth was.
So it's one data point to suggest that the budget wasn't a rousing success.
The UK is probably best placed in Europe to capture a very big slice of the future economy but I'm not sure that Labour will do anything about it, if anything I expect them to see tech as a potential source of tax to fund the NHS so will be yet another industry hollowed out for it.
In a bankruptcy equity should be wiped out before bondholders.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/03/19/us-china-russia-relations-00087633
The government initially setup a group to investigate how the UK could become less reliant on especially China and drive much more home grown development in science and tech....and they shut it down (I think last year) without doing anything.
I believe there was also another group led by Patrick Vallance, looking at how to overhaul the public sector to actually record and use data properly, because as we saw they had to get people in from the private sector to write code just to work out deaths / cases of COVID due to mess of stat recording. I don't think anything came of that either.
And if he had a good case, it would fit in a lot less than 500 pages.
They are used by powerful individuals and institutions all the time for a vast array of obfuscations.
It's why people like me have jobs lasting decades cleaning up after them.
There's panic here. But also I wonder pressure from or fear of those who would have lost out if the normal rules had been followed.
Ash Regan's team have suggested SNP members should be able to vote again if they have cast their vote and wish to change it & that all 3 candidates get another mailing to members. A sensible compromise not without precedent as I understand it. #voteAshRegan
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1637793025647599617?s=20
It's not designed to be read, of course.
CharGPT document summary - "Pfffft."
Wonder where else they have their money.
Laura Murray receives £40,000 damages for untrue comments made in piece by former Labour MP Ian Austin
Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent
Thu 17 Mar 2022 12.53 GMT
The Telegraph has apologised and paid £40,000 in damages for falsely describing a former aide to Jeremy Corbyn as an “anti-Jewish racist” and part of the “vile antisemitism of Corbyn’s Labour”.
The allegations about Laura Murray, which the Telegraph has accepted were untrue and without basis, were contained in an opinion piece by the former Labour MP and current independent peer Ian Austin, who has also apologised.
In the Telegraph’s apology, published on Thursday, it said: “We accept that there was and is no basis to suggest that Ms Murray is antisemitic. On the contrary; the court heard in unchallenged evidence [in the Riley case] that Ms Murray devoted significant time and energy to confronting and challenging antisemitism within the Labour party while she was employed there. The Telegraph and Ian Austin apologise to Ms Murray. We have agreed to pay her substantial damages.”
(I realise the likes of @AndyJS follow him around like a devoted puppy, but still...)
I'm running through why this may be so. I think 75% of it boils down to this: bishops are twats.
Politically unexciting, and difficult to do at the time, but obvious blunders ten years later if not done.
The Curious Case of the Downing Street Soirées: In Which Yours Truly Remained Blissfully Ignorant
My dear friends and fellow countrymen, I am compelled to address a matter of profound importance and great consternation: the alleged bacchanalian festivities at Downing Street, of which I was, for the record, utterly and unreservedly unaware.
Picture, if you will, a jolly band of civil servants and advisors, cavorting within the hallowed halls of the Prime Minister's residence, while yours truly toiled away at the coalface of national governance. These elusive revellers, it seems, were as stealthy as Puck himself, frolicking in the shadows and evading the watchful eye of their diligent leader.
Indeed, I must confess to being as bamboozled as anyone by the notion that such revelry could have taken place beneath my very nose, without so much as a whisper or a murmur to betray its existence. Like the legendary Scarlet Pimpernel, these mysterious merrymakers have thus far eluded both detection and comprehension.
Yet, in the spirit of the great Sherlock Holmes, I have endeavoured to piece together the puzzle of this confounding caper, and to lay to rest the swirling rumours and innuendo that have besmirched the good name of Downing Street.
In the course of my investigation, I have discovered that the denizens of Number 10, like any other band of hardworking Britons, occasionally required respite from the rigours of their daily tasks. This, my friends, is only human; a fact that I have always been cognizant of, even as I have endeavoured to instil in them a work ethic worthy of our great nation.
Alas, it seems that in their pursuit of leisure and camaraderie, these well-intentioned souls may have inadvertently strayed into the realm of the imprudent. For this, they have my sympathies; after all, who among us has not, at one time or another, been carried away by the spirit of conviviality?
....
IMO, the VMIC was a perfectly executed exercise. The state builds an asset to a minimum level of functionality, it sells it for more than it cost to build and the buyer invests its own money expanding it and extracting significantly more value than the state ever could have creating thousands of new jobs in the process and creating a new industry in the UK which we didn't have previously - third party vaccine manufacturing. As the expertise builds up pharma companies will see the UK as a location to build directly own facilities too.
It's never been a very healthy relationship.
I just think it's an odd formulation for an adherent of one of the more rigorous (not to say rigid) Christian sects. In any case according to Wiki she appears to have lived in Marybank, India, non specific Scotland, India, Glasgow then Dingwall in the first 18 years of life; that's a lot of religious establishments down a lot of roads.
How many other things in the plus side of the ledger recently ?
Though more to the point, most political debate is about the very short term.
Turkish Islamist Fatih Erbakan’s YRP refuses to join Erdoğan’s electoral alliance. That would probably cost Erdogan 1.5%+.
Every vote is important in this election
https://mobile.twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1637778932526206977