@KieranPAndrews EXC: A senior SNP minister was secretly paid a £33,000 salary top-up while leader of the party at Westminster in a deal that infuriated colleagues
Angus Robertson's wages were enhanced after the SNP became the UK’s third largest party in 2015
@KieranPAndrews EXC: A senior SNP minister was secretly paid a £33,000 salary top-up while leader of the party at Westminster in a deal that infuriated colleagues
Angus Robertson's wages were enhanced after the SNP became the UK’s third largest party in 2015
O/T, one factor to consider when it comes to 2024 for battleground states like North Carolina and Arizona is the number of Tech jobs that are being shed as funding dries up. I'm not thinking the likes of Meta et al, more the start-up firms.
It has been a mantra that such jobs have brought in more liberal, professional voters into these sorts of states. The question is whether this now reverses out if / when these jobs go.
Hard to say in terms of the data so far but, if the view is it helped the Democrat vote when these jobs rose, the opposite should also be true. The flipside is that, if these voters are leaving these states, where are they going?
Longer-term, perhaps the more pertinent trend is the continued fall off - as has happened for the past several years - in Higher Ed enrolment trends.
On Dominic Raab this article in the times is good, Tim Shipmans account of what actually happened over the last 48 hours, and the background to the report.
Why do I like Masterchef so much? I dunno. But I do. I get positively EXCITED by a new episode, and root for individual chefs, and heckle the ones that do “goose thighs five ways”
Mad, really
All the chefs I know HATE Gordon Ramsey and his crap TV shows.
What has that to do with Masterchef ?
Sorry, my mistake. No doubt reflecting my dislike of just about ALL these "reality" TV fancy "cooking" shows.
With sole exception of "Great British Baking Show" back when Mary Berry was the main star. The rest make me wanna barf.
Bake Off remains the gold standard. The one slight risk to it is if Paul Hollywood gets too big for his boots and thinks he can go solo. He's good but he's not quite as good as he thinks imho.
I tried and failed to watch "Paul Hollywood Eats Japan". Gave up after about 10 minutes. There was a voice-over explaining all the amazing things he was going to do and how amazing he was and how amazing....
('Destination Flavour: Japan' is very good though - Australian dude of S.E Asian/Brit background going round interesting places and really being respectful of the cuisine.)
On Earth Day, I think it appropriate to honor an environmental hero, George H. W. Bush: "These things happened under Bush: The 1990 Clean Air Act, the strongest air pollution legislation in the world; international agreements to abolish CFCs; the end of ocean disposal of sludge; the Exxon Valdez cleanup, which was flawed but did work; bans on driftnet fishing and importation of fish caught in driftnets; acceleration of Superfund cleanups; a moratorium on most offshore oil exploration; new drinking water standards; the Rio global warming treaty; the Basel conventions, which in most cases bars the First World from exporting hazardous wastes to the Third (negotiated by Bush, ratified under Clinton); . . . ." From Gregg Easterbrook's "A Moment on Earth", p. 456.
That's just the first half of the paragraph listing Bush's achievements. There are many more. (Easterbrook says that he did not vote for Bush.)
The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act have saved, certainly, tens of thousands of lives in the United States. And the introduction of cap-and-trade made the improvements come faster, and at a lower cost, than originally estimated.
When our son and daughter in law visited us from Vancouver she wanted to go to Wrexham because of the celebrities involved
She bought several souvenirs and the person in front of her had come from the US and was in the process of buying 40 scarves
When the staff heard my daughter in law's Canadian accent and she is from Vancouver she was treated almost like a celebrity herself
Utterly remarkable story of international fame and success
I was taken to watch Wrexham aged nine on 5th May 1960. It was the Welsh cup final replay against Cardiff City, the previous match at Ninian Park having been drawn three days earlier. Wrexham won 1-0, the goal scored by a 17-year-old schoolboy called Arfon Griffiths, who was carried off shoulder high by his team mates at the end. They were they presented with a big silver cup and everyone cheered their hearts out. This is what football is all about. Or so I thought at the time.
In later years Arfon Griffiths became the manager who took them up to the old 2nd Division where they briefly rubbed shoulders with the likes of West Ham and Leicester City.
Note how Esher and Walton peaked in Conservative voteshare under Cameron but in 2019 the Conservatives got no higher a voteshare there than Major did in 1997.
That confirms that while Boris did have real appeal with the working class and lower middle classes and Leavers, hence his landslide win in 2019, in posh, wealthy, highly educated Remain seats his appeal was much less acute. That does therefore offer some hope to Raab. For while the polling shows Rishi has clearly lost the Redwall seats back to Starmer Labour he is more popular amongst Remainers and those who voted LD in 2019 than Boris was
Interesting. The Boris factor is another reason why I suspect the Scottish Tories will do better, relatively, than their southern counterparts. Boris was a real drag on their vote in 2019. (The other reason, of course, is that their main opponent is the SNP who let's say, seem to be performing sub-optimally at the moment and, certainly, compared to 2019.)
The Conservatives are only down about 6% in Scotland, compared to 15% nationally.
But, in part, that’s due to their being a floor of 15% of Scots who vote Conservative.
If the Conservative vote share holds up better than the SNP vote share, the SCons will gain.
The Conservative vote is efficiently distributed in Scotland, being concentrated in the Borders, and SNP-Con marginals.
There's also the Humza factor. How relatable is he in places like Dumfries & Galloway or the farmers, fisherfolk and oil & gas men of Banff & Buchan?
PB Yoons moving on from SKS/SLab being the saviours of the Union then. The most recent Scottish Westminster poll has Unionist parties on 53%, the same as 2019 (& almost 10% worse than 2017). If the bearded Muslim factor is a thing, it’s not turning voters on to Unionism,
The latest Scottish Westminster poll actually has a 9% swing from SNP to Labour since 2019.
It would also see the Conservatives hold all their Scottish seats
Ben and Jerry’s is an odd brand. Just had it advertising at me on Facebook not for its product but about how I should feel sorry for the boat people and campaigning for open door immigration.
What happened to just manufacturing tasty ice cream at an affordable price? Anyway not giving them another penny if they want to be that in my face with their wokeness.
That's an extremely disturbing tweet from Beijing.
I fear it might tell us rather a lot.
Not really. They’ve always argued that, as a breakaway province, Taiwan has no legitimacy.
This is just the logical extension of that position.
Extending it to any independent nation that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union is upping the ante.
These nations were never part of Russia, as Taiwan was China.
Taiwan was never part of the PRC.
Was it part of the ROC prior to the communist revolution?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Notes … Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years. Ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese (specifically the Hakkas and Hoklos) immigration to western Taiwan began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning, the first predominantly Han Chinese state in Taiwanese history. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The Republic of China, which had overthrown the Qing in 1911, took control of Taiwan following the surrender of Japan in 1945. Japan would renounce sovereignty over Taiwan in 1952…
On Earth Day, I think it appropriate to honor an environmental hero, George H. W. Bush: "These things happened under Bush: The 1990 Clean Air Act, the strongest air pollution legislation in the world; international agreements to abolish CFCs; the end of ocean disposal of sludge; the Exxon Valdez cleanup, which was flawed but did work; bans on driftnet fishing and importation of fish caught in driftnets; acceleration of Superfund cleanups; a moratorium on most offshore oil exploration; new drinking water standards; the Rio global warming treaty; the Basel conventions, which in most cases bars the First World from exporting hazardous wastes to the Third (negotiated by Bush, ratified under Clinton); . . . ." From Gregg Easterbrook's "A Moment on Earth", p. 456.
That's just the first half of the paragraph listing Bush's achievements. There are many more. (Easterbrook says that he did not vote for Bush.)
The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act have saved, certainly, tens of thousands of lives in the United States. And the introduction of cap-and-trade made the improvements come faster, and at a lower cost, than originally estimated.
George HW Bush of course reportedly voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Essentially an establishment moderate he was the last Republican Presidential candidate to win states like New Jersey, Maine, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Vermont, Illinois and California
Ben and Jerry’s is an odd brand. Just had it advertising at me on Facebook not for its product but about how I should feel sorry for the boat people and campaigning for open door immigration.
What happened to just manufacturing tasty ice cream at an affordable price? Anyway not giving them another penny if they want to be that in my face with their wokeness.
That particular brand has always been woke. The founders were hippies who boasted their values were integral to their business model.
That's an extremely disturbing tweet from Beijing.
I fear it might tell us rather a lot.
Xi Jinping is a genocidal dictator with aggressive foreign policy ideas. Of course we shouldn't do business with them. Doing business makes them richer and more powerful.
I hope he meets a sticky end.
His economy can't motor ahead in splendid isolation and his demographics aren't any better than the West's either.
There's a lot of scope to turn the thumbscrews there, even though it will come at a cost to us.
I don’t see a problem. The negotiations on the Ukraine / Republic Of China border will be just fine
Ben and Jerry’s is an odd brand. Just had it advertising at me on Facebook not for its product but about how I should feel sorry for the boat people and campaigning for open door immigration.
What happened to just manufacturing tasty ice cream at an affordable price? Anyway not giving them another penny if they want to be that in my face with their wokeness.
Their position has always irritated me. But I drew the line after their campaign to stop giving Ukraine weapons. Fucking hippies.
That's an extremely disturbing tweet from Beijing.
I fear it might tell us rather a lot.
Not really. They’ve always argued that, as a breakaway province, Taiwan has no legitimacy.
This is just the logical extension of that position.
Extending it to any independent nation that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union is upping the ante.
These nations were never part of Russia, as Taiwan was China.
Taiwan was never part of the PRC.
Was it part of the ROC prior to the communist revolution?
It was. 1945-49. But it has been a part of China for a very surprisingly short time in its history. And a great deal of that it was de jure not de facto. 1662-1895, only really the low lying West and North was under somewhat sporadic control. The rest remained Polynesian native tribes. There were frequent pirate raids on the Mainland from the relatively lawless island. Was a Japanese colony 1895-1945.
Ben and Jerry’s is an odd brand. Just had it advertising at me on Facebook not for its product but about how I should feel sorry for the boat people and campaigning for open door immigration.
What happened to just manufacturing tasty ice cream at an affordable price? Anyway not giving them another penny if they want to be that in my face with their wokeness.
Their position has always irritated me. But I drew the line after their campaign to stop giving Ukraine weapons. Fucking hippies.
The irony is that fucking hippies and the like are the first people against the wall or at best on watchlists under the sort of regimes they don’t want anyone to stand up to.
It’s one of those situations where you want the Ben & Jerry execs to move to Moscow and agitate from there whilst the just stop oil mob are locating to the gulf.
Incidentally. The most common explanation for the Polynesian settlement of the Pacific was that it came out of Taiwan, which is believed to be the origin of the peoples. There is a very heavy Polynesian vibe there today. Communitarian. Anti-authoritarian. Sexually liberated. Seafaring. Outward looking. International. Tolerant and easy going. Not at all Chinese in these outlooks.
When our son and daughter in law visited us from Vancouver she wanted to go to Wrexham because of the celebrities involved
She bought several souvenirs and the person in front of her had come from the US and was in the process of buying 40 scarves
When the staff heard my daughter in law's Canadian accent and she is from Vancouver she was treated almost like a celebrity herself
Utterly remarkable story of international fame and success
I confess to being one of those people who forget from time to time that Wrexham is in Wales.
Isn't part of the Racecourse actually in England? Or is that an urban myth?
You're thinking of Chester's ground which straddles the border and which caused all sorts of mayhem during Lockdown with different rules applying at the entrance and in the ground!
When our son and daughter in law visited us from Vancouver she wanted to go to Wrexham because of the celebrities involved
She bought several souvenirs and the person in front of her had come from the US and was in the process of buying 40 scarves
When the staff heard my daughter in law's Canadian accent and she is from Vancouver she was treated almost like a celebrity herself
Utterly remarkable story of international fame and success
I confess to being one of those people who forget from time to time that Wrexham is in Wales.
Isn't part of the Racecourse actually in England? Or is that an urban myth?
You're thinking of Chester's ground which straddles the border and which caused all sorts of mayhem during Lockdown with different rules applying at the entrance and in the ground!
Seems significant. What I think is happening is the Chinese Foreign Affairs establishment is split between realists and ideologues - the "wolf warriors" like the ambassador to France. In which case this is the ideologues asserting themselves. A prominent wolf warrior Zhao Lijian was demoted from his position as MFA spokesman at the end of last year. The key question is which faction is favoured by Xi Jinping. I suspect more the ideologues.
By the way the realists aren't in any sense doves but they do believe in building alliances and a degree of subtlety.
Ben and Jerry’s is an odd brand. Just had it advertising at me on Facebook not for its product but about how I should feel sorry for the boat people and campaigning for open door immigration.
What happened to just manufacturing tasty ice cream at an affordable price? Anyway not giving them another penny if they want to be that in my face with their wokeness.
Ben & Jerry's has something of a history of exploiting migrant workers including illegal migrant child workers.
They are also apparently rather more hostile to Israel than they are to Russia.
When our son and daughter in law visited us from Vancouver she wanted to go to Wrexham because of the celebrities involved
She bought several souvenirs and the person in front of her had come from the US and was in the process of buying 40 scarves
When the staff heard my daughter in law's Canadian accent and she is from Vancouver she was treated almost like a celebrity herself
Utterly remarkable story of international fame and success
I confess to being one of those people who forget from time to time that Wrexham is in Wales.
Isn't part of the Racecourse actually in England? Or is that an urban myth?
You're thinking of Chester's ground which straddles the border and which caused all sorts of mayhem during Lockdown with different rules applying at the entrance and in the ground!
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
That's an extremely disturbing tweet from Beijing.
I fear it might tell us rather a lot.
Not really. They’ve always argued that, as a breakaway province, Taiwan has no legitimacy.
This is just the logical extension of that position.
Extending it to any independent nation that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union is upping the ante.
These nations were never part of Russia, as Taiwan was China.
Taiwan was never part of the PRC.
Was it part of the ROC prior to the communist revolution?
It was. 1945-49. But it has been a part of China for a very surprisingly short time in its history. And a great deal of that it was de jure not de facto. 1662-1895, only really the low lying West and North was under somewhat sporadic control. The rest remained Polynesian native tribes. There were frequent pirate raids on the Mainland from the relatively lawless island. Was a Japanese colony 1895-1945.
To put it another way Taiwan was Chinese for a shorter period than Ireland was British, Iceland was Danish or Sicily was under Spanish rule.
Sad to hear of the passing of Dame Edna Everage. (Even more baffled that US politics has gotten to the point where an act like Dame Edna is the greatest threat facing society today, according to many Republican politicians.)
It's a category error to compare comedy drag acts like Dame Edna or Lily Savage with the current porn-adjacent movement.
All together now: PB has no memory
Paul O'Grady/Lily Savage would have disagreed, vehemently and obscenely, with that. Saying today's drag scene is more obscene than that of the 1960s/70s is silly, and when AIDS hit in the 80's it didn't help. We forget how scabrous, badly decorated, damp ridden and wildly unpleasant were public spaces and public entertainment were n the post-war period, and think that the sensitivities of our warm, disabled friendly, microaggression-afeared double-glazed world reflect those of the past. They do not.
This is what O'Grady had to say about it:
“In my day we had the likes of Phil Starr, who was a glorious comedian… we had Marc Fleming, Auntie Flo, Mrs Shufflewick. We had great comedians in drag.
“This new brigade who just parade around going, sashay, shantay – that’s not drag to me.”
O’Grady drew a distinction between the on-the-night performance that is drag, and the full-characterisation that typifies the Drag Race stars.
“Drag is doing an act. That’s dressing up. That [Drag Race] is transvestism,” O’Grady said.
“Drag is an act, where you get up, you do your act, you get changed and you go home – you don’t parade round the streets doing all this business.”
“I’ve no interest in it whatsoever, none at all.”
When it was put to him that Drag Race had brought drag to a new generation and out in the open, O’Grady said: “I don’t like that.
“I always believed Lily Savage belonged in a pub, especially a gay bar, where you could rant and rave.”
That quote would not support your characterisation of "porn-adjacent", which was the point I thought you were making. However my point, which that drag in the 2020s is *far* more family-friendly than it's 20th century antecedents still stands. As does my ancillary point, which was we forget what life was like in the Cold War world.
It depends what you mean by family-friendly.
The paradox of modern culture is that it is simultaneously more censorious and more sexualised. We like to imagine we are more progressive than in previous decades, but a latter-day Lily Savage couldn't get away with telling the same jokes on mainstream prime time TV these days.
Round the Horne was pure, unmitigated, and very funny, filth, back in the day.
Now it's merely Beyond our Ken.
That’s how it is with these things - here today and Goon tomorrow
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
Ben and Jerry’s is an odd brand. Just had it advertising at me on Facebook not for its product but about how I should feel sorry for the boat people and campaigning for open door immigration.
What happened to just manufacturing tasty ice cream at an affordable price? Anyway not giving them another penny if they want to be that in my face with their wokeness.
Their position has always irritated me. But I drew the line after their campaign to stop giving Ukraine weapons. Fucking hippies.
The irony is that fucking hippies and the like are the first people against the wall or at best on watchlists under the sort of regimes they don’t want anyone to stand up to.
It’s one of those situations where you want the Ben & Jerry execs to move to Moscow and agitate from there whilst the just stop oil mob are locating to the gulf.
Such people tend to morph into regime supporters in totalitarian countries.
Perhaps unpredictably the idea going round now is that changes to the civil service are needed. Difficult to disagree after the Raab episode.
I find it easy to disagree that politicising the civil service is either required or a good thing.
Funny how these solutions become necessary when a decision goes against. There was brief talk of the need to politicise judges after the prorogation decision, despite no evidence they act in political manner (it was a unanimous decision, even from justices who sided with the government on the need for parliament to get a vote on the Brexit act in the first place).
Perhaps unpredictably the idea going round now is that changes to the civil service are needed. Difficult to disagree after the Raab episode.
I am finding the notion that Raab was innocent so the Civil Service must be guilty is a rather sinister and troubling developing narrative designed to replace time served career Civil Servants with party political half wits. Now, colour me skeptical, but how do we think that might end?
This is taken directly from Donald Trump's Haynes manual titled "incumbency"..What next?
I was hoping they would lose and stay rooted firmly to the bottom where they belong,
Alas @Ydoethur, we will never know what mess Yorkshire would have made of Minor County West, as your club was incapable of hosting the fixture.
No playing at Bristols. Meanwhile, cricket has been played this season at Taunton, Worcestershire, Cardiff, the village green at Mardale (the one under a reservoir). Even the Creature from the Black Lagoon has picked up half a dozen wickets at his home basin, despite conditions unsuited to his leg spin.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Anything is possible, but don't you think Raab's catalogue of incompetence makes him a poor judge of anyone else's work performance?
This is such bullshine. You have to hand it to CCHQ, they are driving the narrative, even if it is the wrong way down a one way street.
Perhaps unpredictably the idea going round now is that changes to the civil service are needed. Difficult to disagree after the Raab episode.
I find it easy to disagree that politicising the civil service is either required or a good thing.
Funny how these solutions become necessary when a decision goes against. There was brief talk of the need to politicise judges after the prorogation decision, despite no evidence they act in political manner (it was a unanimous decision, even from justices who sided with the government on the need for parliament to get a vote on the Brexit act in the first place).
Marina Hyde's take-down of Raab is rather splendid:
Speaking of the bizarre double standards of expectation that have been at play throughout this unedifying case, it was Raab who – after he succeeded Davis at DExEU – announced in public: “We are, and I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this … but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.” Imagine saying that out loud as a secretary of state, then beetling off to insult some underling for failing to pander to one of your Microsoft Word idiosyncrasies. Ditto Raab’s failure to read the 32-page Good Friday agreement. Raab eventually resigned as Brexit secretary because he couldn’t support a deal he himself had negotiated. But honestly, mate, tell me again how all you demand from people are the same high professional standards to which you hold yourself.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
No but none of us know the details of what happened.
Raab has behaved unwisely I would say but there's certainly been worse people in high office.
Starting with:
The strain shows, say current and former Brown aides: among other things, it has inflamed a temper that has always been the subject of gallows humour among those who work with him.
The prime minister, 58, has hurled pens and even a stapler at aides, according to one; he also says he once saw the leader of Britain's 61 million people shove a laser printer off a desk in a rage.
Another aide was warned to watch out for "flying Nokias" when he joined Brown's team.
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he "recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
Perhaps unpredictably the idea going round now is that changes to the civil service are needed. Difficult to disagree after the Raab episode.
Extremely easy to disagree. Raab was the problem, not the Civil Servants.
I do think there is an issue about disciplinary processes for ministers and parliamentarians that has nothing to do with the civil service and which those ministers and parliamentarians make difficult for themselves by refusing to be bound by employment norms.
The thing about plans like Maude's is they come across as schizophrenic because the motivation is a mess. Take this bit.
Appearing to back a dramatic break with the past, he adds: “We need a much more robust culture, with less groupthink, more rugged disagreement, and the confidence both to offer challenge and to accept it.
“That includes accepting candid feedback. Today, there is no external accountability for the quality of advice, other than to ministers. There could be value in regular external audits, conducted by qualified outsiders, with published results.
The second paragraph could be considered to touch upon some real concerns about quality and accountability, perhaps not unreasonable.
But the first paragraph I call bullshit on immediately. This is coming up at all because those like Raab see civil servants as liberal remainer enemies out to get them, and they want to have greater power as a result. Maude doesn't want a robust culture of challenge and rugged disagreement. He wants to see greater effectiveness in delivery policy outcomes of government, an understandable motivation, but it is 'obstruction' or challenge from civil servants they see as a blockage. So the truth is he doesn't want a culture which is more robust, he wants one where dictats are not interferred with, even if there is reason to raise concerns. He doesn't want less groupthink, he wants nothink, because the whole thing being complained about is too much thinking and objecting to a political directive.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
No but none of us know the details of what happened.
Raab has behaved unwisely I would say but there's certainly been worse people in high office.
Starting with:
The strain shows, say current and former Brown aides: among other things, it has inflamed a temper that has always been the subject of gallows humour among those who work with him.
The prime minister, 58, has hurled pens and even a stapler at aides, according to one; he also says he once saw the leader of Britain's 61 million people shove a laser printer off a desk in a rage.
Another aide was warned to watch out for "flying Nokias" when he joined Brown's team.
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he "recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
Does that mean China has no status in international law? After all, the legal government is in Taipei...*
*yes, yes, I know Chiang's government had no more actual legitimacy than Mao's.
It means China doesn't recognise international law except did the bits it makes up as it goes along.
It doesn't mean we can't do business with it. We just have to have no illusions about it being a dangerous and very powerful potential adversary.
Isn't more likely that the Chinese ambassador to France was speaking out of turn and might be sacked in the morning, or that his remarks have been a bit misreported?
Have you got a link to the original remarks?
It is certainly possible he was speaking out of turn (though it has been reported widely enough that if it was misreported I think that would be clear by now) and it will be rolled back.
Nonetheless, let's think about that for a moment - why would a seasoned diplomat stumble and speak out of turn so dramatically, about an issue which is guaranteed to get a lot of attention? What very careful line were they instructed to walk that risked a blunder like that in the first place?
We often seen politicians or diplomats stick to very precise terminology and phrasing for specific reasons - see Putin with his Special Military Operation - and that can tie them up in knots a little, and lead to some ridiculousness. So, assuming it is unlikely China has a total incompetent idiot in place as ambassador (not certain, but lets assume) then whatever line Mr Diplomat was trying to stick to was at best something which was close enough to what he said that he overreached.
Have you got a link to the original? What language was he speaking? As you say the precise words used are important. I have this translation I assume from French:
"In international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have the status, the effective status in international law, because there is no international agreement to materialise their status of a sovereign country"
Which is still seems quite a departure from official Chinese foreign policy, but is a little bit more unclear than simply saying they are "not sovereign states" as in the tweet above.
Russia is also one of these "ex-Soviet Union countries"
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
No but none of us know the details of what happened.
Raab has behaved unwisely I would say but there's certainly been worse people in high office.
Starting with:
The strain shows, say current and former Brown aides: among other things, it has inflamed a temper that has always been the subject of gallows humour among those who work with him.
The prime minister, 58, has hurled pens and even a stapler at aides, according to one; he also says he once saw the leader of Britain's 61 million people shove a laser printer off a desk in a rage.
Another aide was warned to watch out for "flying Nokias" when he joined Brown's team.
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he "recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
So why didn't we get any investigations into bullying back then ?
Unfortunately as a culture we have not always been very good on issues like this. Not all change is good, but not accepting bullies and arseholes as just the price of doing business would be a positive step. It doesn't work, it isn't necessary, and it's just an excuse for people to excercise petty authority. Brown's behaviour as reported seems pretty pathetic, but past acceptance does not require future acceptance.
I hope, for their sakes, that politicians do not really encounter people like Malcolm Tucker, or behave even close to that themselves (though given it is drawn from real life that is unlikely). Fun though such things are to watch in a comedy or drama it would be totally unacceptable in real life.
Does that mean China has no status in international law? After all, the legal government is in Taipei...*
*yes, yes, I know Chiang's government had no more actual legitimacy than Mao's.
It means China doesn't recognise international law except did the bits it makes up as it goes along.
It doesn't mean we can't do business with it. We just have to have no illusions about it being a dangerous and very powerful potential adversary.
Isn't more likely that the Chinese ambassador to France was speaking out of turn and might be sacked in the morning, or that his remarks have been a bit misreported?
Have you got a link to the original remarks?
It is certainly possible he was speaking out of turn (though it has been reported widely enough that if it was misreported I think that would be clear by now) and it will be rolled back.
Nonetheless, let's think about that for a moment - why would a seasoned diplomat stumble and speak out of turn so dramatically, about an issue which is guaranteed to get a lot of attention? What very careful line were they instructed to walk that risked a blunder like that in the first place?
We often seen politicians or diplomats stick to very precise terminology and phrasing for specific reasons - see Putin with his Special Military Operation - and that can tie them up in knots a little, and lead to some ridiculousness. So, assuming it is unlikely China has a total incompetent idiot in place as ambassador (not certain, but lets assume) then whatever line Mr Diplomat was trying to stick to was at best something which was close enough to what he said that he overreached.
Have you got a link to the original? What language was he speaking? As you say the precise words used are important. I have this translation I assume from French:
"In international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have the status, the effective status in international law, because there is no international agreement to materialise their status of a sovereign country"
Which is still seems quite a departure from official Chinese foreign policy, but is a little bit more unclear than simply saying they are "not sovereign states" as in the tweet above.
Russia is also one of these "ex-Soviet Union countries"
It doesn't seem that big a distinction. Questioning the status of the country as sovereign is at best of a kind with not being a sovereign state.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
But the report suggests Raab was somewhat more forthright than merely "abrasive", and by a country mile.
Hats off to the PB faithful, working "the Dom is innocent" narrative very hard indeed.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Anything is possible, but don't you think Raab's catalogue of incompetence makes him a poor judge of anyone else's work performance?
This is such bullshine. You have to hand it to CCHQ, they are driving the narrative, even if it is the wrong way down a one way street.
Alternatively someone who is incompetent might get angrier with receiving crap than the competent do.
The competent often world-wearingly correct the crap they receive and get on with things whereas the incompetent don't have that ability and so get angry instead.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
Given that senior officials had spoken to Raab informally on several occasions without an apparent improvement in his behaviour I think it likely that a large organisation that takes these things seriously would likely have him on a formal warning at this point.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
Given that senior officials had spoken to Raab informally on several occasions without an apparent improvement in his behaviour I think it likely that a large organisation that takes these things seriously would likely have him on a formal warning at this point.
It's worth noting that some people are worried this decision will provoke a flood of complaints in future, yet the very fact that complaints against Cabinet Ministers is so rare (despite historic examples of worse behaviour) would indicate there is not a culture of being snowflakey about things, and I don't see why that would change.
Yes, there were trivialities in the leaked issues raised, and dismissed matters (which is good), but in political organisations big and small professionals would put up with a lot before even considering complaining, which would be a near nuclear option. A quiet word with the councillor/minister/MP to suggest corrective action would itself be the result of serious concerns, since top officials would not do that lightly. Getting to this point would be near unprecedented, and whilst we may have gotten more sensitive about these matters, it doesn't follow that any increase in professional standards is an unreasonable imposition.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
That question is clearly not related to the Raab case, who was found to be a bully not merely abrasive, according to the only person whose opinion on this actually mattered - Rishi Sunak. Who handed Raab one of the £55 TikTok blades, and asked him to disembowel his political career. Don’t miss the bottom line that it’s Rishi Sunak’s opinion Raab had been bullying people.
The fact Raab, like Patel, likely to have survived under Boris, possibly not a good thing?
Having got rid of Raab, the Sunday Express has the civil service victors/unelected remainer bureaucrats targeting Suella Braverman next. Anyone going to argue that isn’t a very good use of their time and effort 😈
Does that mean China has no status in international law? After all, the legal government is in Taipei...*
*yes, yes, I know Chiang's government had no more actual legitimacy than Mao's.
It means China doesn't recognise international law except did the bits it makes up as it goes along.
It doesn't mean we can't do business with it. We just have to have no illusions about it being a dangerous and very powerful potential adversary.
Isn't more likely that the Chinese ambassador to France was speaking out of turn and might be sacked in the morning, or that his remarks have been a bit misreported?
Have you got a link to the original remarks?
It is certainly possible he was speaking out of turn (though it has been reported widely enough that if it was misreported I think that would be clear by now) and it will be rolled back.
Nonetheless, let's think about that for a moment - why would a seasoned diplomat stumble and speak out of turn so dramatically, about an issue which is guaranteed to get a lot of attention? What very careful line were they instructed to walk that risked a blunder like that in the first place?
We often seen politicians or diplomats stick to very precise terminology and phrasing for specific reasons - see Putin with his Special Military Operation - and that can tie them up in knots a little, and lead to some ridiculousness. So, assuming it is unlikely China has a total incompetent idiot in place as ambassador (not certain, but lets assume) then whatever line Mr Diplomat was trying to stick to was at best something which was close enough to what he said that he overreached.
Have you got a link to the original? What language was he speaking? As you say the precise words used are important. I have this translation I assume from French:
"In international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have the status, the effective status in international law, because there is no international agreement to materialise their status of a sovereign country"
Which is still seems quite a departure from official Chinese foreign policy, but is a little bit more unclear than simply saying they are "not sovereign states" as in the tweet above.
Russia is also one of these "ex-Soviet Union countries"
It's nonsense as far as China is concerned given China recognised Ukraine I think in 1992 and set up an embassy there.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
No but none of us know the details of what happened.
Raab has behaved unwisely I would say but there's certainly been worse people in high office.
Starting with:
The strain shows, say current and former Brown aides: among other things, it has inflamed a temper that has always been the subject of gallows humour among those who work with him.
The prime minister, 58, has hurled pens and even a stapler at aides, according to one; he also says he once saw the leader of Britain's 61 million people shove a laser printer off a desk in a rage.
Another aide was warned to watch out for "flying Nokias" when he joined Brown's team.
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he "recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
So why didn't we get any investigations into bullying back then ?
Unfortunately as a culture we have not always been very good on issues like this. Not all change is good, but not accepting bullies and arseholes as just the price of doing business would be a positive step. It doesn't work, it isn't necessary, and it's just an excuse for people to excercise petty authority. Brown's behaviour as reported seems pretty pathetic, but past acceptance does not require future acceptance.
I hope, for their sakes, that politicians do not really encounter people like Malcolm Tucker, or behave even close to that themselves (though given it is drawn from real life that is unlikely). Fun though such things are to watch in a comedy or drama it would be totally unacceptable in real life.
Bullies and arseholes and tolerated even lauded if they are successful.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
No but none of us know the details of what happened.
Raab has behaved unwisely I would say but there's certainly been worse people in high office.
Starting with:
The strain shows, say current and former Brown aides: among other things, it has inflamed a temper that has always been the subject of gallows humour among those who work with him.
The prime minister, 58, has hurled pens and even a stapler at aides, according to one; he also says he once saw the leader of Britain's 61 million people shove a laser printer off a desk in a rage.
Another aide was warned to watch out for "flying Nokias" when he joined Brown's team.
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he "recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
So why didn't we get any investigations into bullying back then ?
Because there has simply been a paradigm shift in culture over the past 14 years. It started off positive but now the pendulum has swung too far in the wrong direction. The Raab report is evidence of how absurd and dysfunctional the situation has become.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
But the report suggests Raab was somewhat more forthright than merely "abrasive", and by a country mile.
Hats off to the PB faithful, working "the Dom is innocent" narrative very hard indeed.
And the Tory papers too? Why? You would have thought it more sensible to back Sunak sacking Raab rather than stir up this largely fanciful trouble, without first thinking through this fanciful stirring it actually leads to trouble for Sunak and Tory unity. Hence the Sunday Telegraph front page, noxt to tomorrow’s brilliant Matt cartoon.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Anything is possible, but don't you think Raab's catalogue of incompetence makes him a poor judge of anyone else's work performance?
This is such bullshine. You have to hand it to CCHQ, they are driving the narrative, even if it is the wrong way down a one way street.
Alternatively someone who is incompetent might get angrier with receiving crap than the competent do.
The competent often world-wearingly correct the crap they receive and get on with things whereas the incompetent don't have that ability and so get angry instead.
I am sorry, this is such cobblers. The evidence from the report would appear to have Raab banged to rights with no criticism of the performance of Civil Servants. Raab has defiantly defended his wrongdoing by claiming he has been the victim of a conspiracy, and the PB faithful are defying the evidence and agreeing with him. Unbelievable!
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
No but none of us know the details of what happened.
Raab has behaved unwisely I would say but there's certainly been worse people in high office.
Starting with:
The strain shows, say current and former Brown aides: among other things, it has inflamed a temper that has always been the subject of gallows humour among those who work with him.
The prime minister, 58, has hurled pens and even a stapler at aides, according to one; he also says he once saw the leader of Britain's 61 million people shove a laser printer off a desk in a rage.
Another aide was warned to watch out for "flying Nokias" when he joined Brown's team.
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he "recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
Ministers angry about the civil service and worried they will face activist complaints for ill behaviour have a cunning solution of course - treat everyone with courtesy and respect, and just persistently and professionally insist upon the political priorities being delivered and quality of work upheld.
It will be much harder for civil servants to go slow, obstruct or interfere with a minister's priorities if they are not even being treated like crap, no excuse to use for why the institution might be failing.
Who knows, they might even feel motivated to put in extra effort to achieve the set goals, since they can see their ultimate boss is just a decent sort trying to deliver, let's put in some extra hours to work out the kinks in this proposal they did not see coming.
I was hoping they would lose and stay rooted firmly to the bottom where they belong,
Alas @Ydoethur, we will never know what mess Yorkshire would have made of Minor County West, as your club was incapable of hosting the fixture.
No playing at Bristols. Meanwhile, cricket has been played this season at Taunton, Worcestershire, Cardiff, the village green at Mardale (the one under a reservoir). Even the Creature from the Black Lagoon has picked up half a dozen wickets at his home basin, despite conditions unsuited to his leg spin.
Howzaaaaaaaaaat?
Those webbed hands would be great in the slips, too.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
But the report suggests Raab was somewhat more forthright than merely "abrasive", and by a country mile.
Hats off to the PB faithful, working "the Dom is innocent" narrative very hard indeed.
His Excellency Baron Raabid of Barking and the Isle of Dogs, His Majesty's Governor of Gibraltar.
Not sure how (or rather if) it affects Lord Raabid's impending appointment, that 95.9% of Gibraltar voters, voted AGAINST Brexit?
I was hoping they would lose and stay rooted firmly to the bottom where they belong,
Alas @Ydoethur, we will never know what mess Yorkshire would have made of Minor County West, as your club was incapable of hosting the fixture.
No playing at Bristols. Meanwhile, cricket has been played this season at Taunton, Worcestershire, Cardiff, the village green at Mardale (the one under a reservoir). Even the Creature from the Black Lagoon has picked up half a dozen wickets at his home basin, despite conditions unsuited to his leg spin.
Howzaaaaaaaaaat?
Those webbed hands would be great in the slips, too.
Talk about unfair physical advantages - no black lagoon creatures in regular teams, they can have their own teams!
The thing about plans like Maude's is they come across as schizophrenic because the motivation is a mess. Take this bit.
Appearing to back a dramatic break with the past, he adds: “We need a much more robust culture, with less groupthink, more rugged disagreement, and the confidence both to offer challenge and to accept it.
“That includes accepting candid feedback. Today, there is no external accountability for the quality of advice, other than to ministers. There could be value in regular external audits, conducted by qualified outsiders, with published results.
The second paragraph could be considered to touch upon some real concerns about quality and accountability, perhaps not unreasonable.
But the first paragraph I call bullshit on immediately. This is coming up at all because those like Raab see civil servants as liberal remainer enemies out to get them, and they want to have greater power as a result. Maude doesn't want a robust culture of challenge and rugged disagreement. He wants to see greater effectiveness in delivery policy outcomes of government, an understandable motivation, but it is 'obstruction' or challenge from civil servants they see as a blockage. So the truth is he doesn't want a culture which is more robust, he wants one where dictats are not interferred with, even if there is reason to raise concerns. He doesn't want less groupthink, he wants nothink, because the whole thing being complained about is too much thinking and objecting to a political directive.
Yeah these plans were always riddled with contradictions, as you describe. Having political appointees wouldn't lead to more challenge, it would lead to less challenge. Often Ministers just don't realise how complex the consequences of their policies are, they would prefer to live in a fantasy world.
So this pathetic government are now placing civil servants into the line of fire . All we get from the Tories is a constant stream of hate and bile aimed at a particular group to deflect from the fxcking disaster they’ve made of the last 13 years .
Ministers angry about the civil service and worried they will face activist complaints for ill behaviour have a cunning solution of course - treat everyone with courtesy and respect, and just persistently and professionally insist upon the political priorities being delivered and quality of work upheld.
It will be much harder for civil servants to go slow, obstruct or interfere with a minister's priorities if they are not even being treated like crap, no excuse to use for why the institution might be failing.
Who knows, they might even feel motivated to put in extra effort to achieve the set goals, since they can see their ultimate boss is just a decent sort trying to deliver, let's put in some extra hours to work out the kinks in this proposal they did not see coming.
Indeed - and when dealing with the genuinely obstructive, there is a splendid delight in patting them on the back as they walk towards the elephant trap that you have arranged for them. Indeed, the really special ones often dig the trap for you, which saves no end of effort
Ministers angry about the civil service and worried they will face activist complaints for ill behaviour have a cunning solution of course - treat everyone with courtesy and respect, and just persistently and professionally insist upon the political priorities being delivered and quality of work upheld.
It will be much harder for civil servants to go slow, obstruct or interfere with a minister's priorities if they are not even being treated like crap, no excuse to use for why the institution might be failing.
Who knows, they might even feel motivated to put in extra effort to achieve the set goals, since they can see their ultimate boss is just a decent sort trying to deliver, let's put in some extra hours to work out the kinks in this proposal they did not see coming.
For what it's worth, please note that the politico famous for his love of the word "bully" was himself the victim of bullying as a child.
In his case, because as a boy, he was a rich kid who wore glasses.
Several encounters with poorer and ruder youths (who could also see him coming way before he saw them) young Theodore Roosevelt took up physical exercise and the then-manly art of self-defense, to toughen himself. AND ensure he was in the position to thrash anyone who picked a fight with him. OR otherwise deserved a sound thrashing.
"Bully!" as TR liked to say when meeting one of his personal heroes at the White House: John L. Sullivan aka the Boston Strong Boy, the last bare-knuckle heavyweight boxing champion of the world.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
But the report suggests Raab was somewhat more forthright than merely "abrasive", and by a country mile.
Hats off to the PB faithful, working "the Dom is innocent" narrative very hard indeed.
His Excellency Baron Raabid of Barking and the Isle of Dogs, His Majesty's Governor of Gibraltar.
Not sure how (or rather if) it affects Lord Raabid's impending appointment, that 95.9% of Gibraltar voters, voted AGAINST Brexit?
Two points that spring to mind if you bestow Raab the Governorship of Gibraltar;
a) he would want to declare war on Spain, and
b) fortunately, he has the geographical wherewithal to get himself no further than Dover.
I was hoping they would lose and stay rooted firmly to the bottom where they belong,
Alas @Ydoethur, we will never know what mess Yorkshire would have made of Minor County West, as your club was incapable of hosting the fixture.
No playing at Bristols. Meanwhile, cricket has been played this season at Taunton, Worcestershire, Cardiff, the village green at Mardale (the one under a reservoir). Even the Creature from the Black Lagoon has picked up half a dozen wickets at his home basin, despite conditions unsuited to his leg spin.
Howzaaaaaaaaaat?
Those webbed hands would be great in the slips, too.
Talk about unfair physical advantages - no black lagoon creatures in regular teams, they can have their own teams!
The residency rules need to be tightened, if this one had a grandmother mermaid off the coast of Anglesey. This foreign invasion would soon be scaling new heights in the county game. And getting Genned up in conditions ahead of their next tour.
If they claimed they couldn’t get in the team just because they are green colour, all the enquiries would get set back to zero. 🙇♀️
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Do you think simply being a bit abrasive occasionally counts as bullying?
But the report suggests Raab was somewhat more forthright than merely "abrasive", and by a country mile.
Hats off to the PB faithful, working "the Dom is innocent" narrative very hard indeed.
His Excellency Baron Raabid of Barking and the Isle of Dogs, His Majesty's Governor of Gibraltar.
Not sure how (or rather if) it affects Lord Raabid's impending appointment, that 95.9% of Gibraltar voters, voted AGAINST Brexit?
The odd thing is that Gibraltarians were understandably worried about the border becoming harder. In fact, it is set to be erased (for people, not goods) as Gibraltar is to become a quasi member of Schengen.
Of course, gibraltarians who might want to save money by living across the border in Spain had a much better reason to vote Remain.
Wow. I agree with @TheScreamingEagles - better than sex. Just perfect in every way.
There was so much nostalgia, humour, moving moments and love in the final episode I think I hugged my wife about five times, when I wasn't grinning from ear to ear.
No he isn't. Hodges has just swallowed Raab's BS narrative, hook line and sinker. Raab has been caught out and he has carefully crafted a scapegoat for his BS defence.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Its possible that Raab is a bully and that the civil servants were useless wimps.
Anything is possible, but don't you think Raab's catalogue of incompetence makes him a poor judge of anyone else's work performance?
This is such bullshine. You have to hand it to CCHQ, they are driving the narrative, even if it is the wrong way down a one way street.
Alternatively someone who is incompetent might get angrier with receiving crap than the competent do.
The competent often world-wearingly correct the crap they receive and get on with things whereas the incompetent don't have that ability and so get angry instead.
I am sorry, this is such cobblers. The evidence from the report would appear to have Raab banged to rights with no criticism of the performance of Civil Servants. Raab has defiantly defended his wrongdoing by claiming he has been the victim of a conspiracy, and the PB faithful are defying the evidence and agreeing with him. Unbelievable!
We know that there's plenty of incompetent civil servants in Whitehall.
Comments
It has been a mantra that such jobs have brought in more liberal, professional voters into these sorts of states. The question is whether this now reverses out if / when these jobs go.
Hard to say in terms of the data so far but, if the view is it helped the Democrat vote when these jobs rose, the opposite should also be true. The flipside is that, if these voters are leaving these states, where are they going?
Longer-term, perhaps the more pertinent trend is the continued fall off - as has happened for the past several years - in Higher Ed enrolment trends.
Good to see you posting again
https://twitter.com/thejackbeyer/status/1649846072687067136/photo/4
The insurance claim should be interesting: "I only left it near the beach..."
Here’s to ten thousand posts…
Useful link, thank you
('Destination Flavour: Japan' is very good though - Australian dude of S.E Asian/Brit background going round interesting places and really being respectful of the cuisine.)
"These things happened under Bush: The 1990 Clean Air Act, the strongest air pollution legislation in the world; international agreements to abolish CFCs; the end of ocean disposal of sludge; the Exxon Valdez cleanup, which was flawed but did work; bans on driftnet fishing and importation of fish caught in driftnets; acceleration of Superfund cleanups; a moratorium on most offshore oil exploration; new drinking water standards; the Rio global warming treaty; the Basel conventions, which in most cases bars the First World from exporting hazardous wastes to the Third (negotiated by Bush, ratified under Clinton); . . . ."
From Gregg Easterbrook's "A Moment on Earth", p. 456.
That's just the first half of the paragraph listing Bush's achievements. There are many more. (Easterbrook says that he did not vote for Bush.)
The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act have saved, certainly, tens of thousands of lives in the United States. And the introduction of cap-and-trade made the improvements come faster, and at a lower cost, than originally estimated.
In later years Arfon Griffiths became the manager who took them up to the old 2nd Division where they briefly rubbed shoulders with the likes of West Ham and Leicester City.
She said 'Because there's a lot of Crimea.'
It would also see the Conservatives hold all their Scottish seats
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1649154165640134658?s=20
What happened to just manufacturing tasty ice cream at an affordable price? Anyway not giving them another penny if they want to be that in my face with their wokeness.
… Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years. Ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese (specifically the Hakkas and Hoklos) immigration to western Taiwan began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning, the first predominantly Han Chinese state in Taiwanese history. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The Republic of China, which had overthrown the Qing in 1911, took control of Taiwan following the surrender of Japan in 1945. Japan would renounce sovereignty over Taiwan in 1952…
Essentially an establishment moderate he was the last Republican Presidential candidate to win states like New Jersey, Maine, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Vermont, Illinois and California
Hyufd was echoing such beliefs earlier this week.
But I drew the line after their campaign to stop giving Ukraine weapons. Fucking hippies.
But it has been a part of China for a very surprisingly short time in its history.
And a great deal of that it was de jure not de facto.
1662-1895, only really the low lying West and North was under somewhat sporadic control.
The rest remained Polynesian native tribes.
There were frequent pirate raids on the Mainland from the relatively lawless island.
Was a Japanese colony 1895-1945.
It’s one of those situations where you want the Ben & Jerry execs to move to Moscow and agitate from there whilst the just stop oil mob are locating to the gulf.
Global economics doesn’t work quite like that.
Alex Kokcharov
@AlexKokcharov
·
14h
Is he aware that Russia is also “a former Soviet republic”?…
There is a very heavy Polynesian vibe there today.
Communitarian. Anti-authoritarian. Sexually liberated. Seafaring. Outward looking. International. Tolerant and easy going.
Not at all Chinese in these outlooks.
Half the ground is in each.
Caused havoc with COVID rules for matches ISTR.
"(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
Dom Raab is an idiot, and he fell into a civil-service trap. Rishi Sunak won't make the same mistake > Mail Plus > https://mailplus.co.uk/edition/comment/273939/theres-a-brutal-war-going-on-that-pits-ministers-against-the-blob...-and-one-side-is-being-routed?collection=14163&&contentLayout=Today’s%20live%20updates"
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1649784032199098368
By the way the realists aren't in any sense doves but they do believe in building alliances and a degree of subtlety.
They are also apparently rather more hostile to Israel than they are to Russia.
EXCLUSIVE: Afghanistan has become a terrorism staging ground again, leaked documents reveal
https://twitter.com/DanLamothe/status/1649825942297010176
Edit. It is still part of the RoC now of course, who did clean up their act once they lost the mainland.
Do the crime, serve the time! No Dom, the dog did not eat your homework.
Perhaps unpredictably the idea going round now is that changes to the civil service are needed. Difficult to disagree after the Raab episode.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/22/frustration-at-labour-and-lib-dem-hqs-as-local-parties-go-rogue-to-create-progressive-alliance
This is taken directly from Donald Trump's Haynes manual titled "incumbency"..What next?
No playing at Bristols. Meanwhile, cricket has been played this season at Taunton, Worcestershire, Cardiff, the village green at Mardale (the one under a reservoir). Even the Creature from the Black Lagoon has picked up half a dozen wickets at his home basin, despite conditions unsuited to his leg spin.
Howzaaaaaaaaaat?
This is such bullshine. You have to hand it to CCHQ, they are driving the narrative, even if it is the wrong way down a one way street.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/21/dominic-raab-hardman-rishi-sunak-scandal
Speaking of the bizarre double standards of expectation that have been at play throughout this unedifying case, it was Raab who – after he succeeded Davis at DExEU – announced in public: “We are, and I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this … but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.” Imagine saying that out loud as a secretary of state, then beetling off to insult some underling for failing to pander to one of your Microsoft Word idiosyncrasies. Ditto Raab’s failure to read the 32-page Good Friday agreement. Raab eventually resigned as Brexit secretary because he couldn’t support a deal he himself had negotiated. But honestly, mate, tell me again how all you demand from people are the same high professional standards to which you hold yourself.
Raab has behaved unwisely I would say but there's certainly been worse people in high office.
Starting with:
The strain shows, say current and former Brown aides: among other things, it has inflamed a temper that has always been the subject of gallows humour among those who work with him.
The prime minister, 58, has hurled pens and even a stapler at aides, according to one; he also says he once saw the leader of Britain's 61 million people shove a laser printer off a desk in a rage.
Another aide was warned to watch out for "flying Nokias" when he joined Brown's team.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2009/apr/24/gordon-brown-angry
Government sources variously suggested during his tenure at the Treasury that he was "psychologically flawed" and a "control freak" with a nasty temper.
The former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, even likened Mr Brown's tendency to treat colleagues with contempt as "Stalinist ruthlessness".
But it appears free-falling opinion polls and reports Labour is now turning in on itself have pushed the Prime Minister to untold levels of frustration.
One Labour MP told the Evening Standard he "recently got through three mobile phones in one week by hurling against the wall in anger".
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559576/MP-claims-raging-Gordon-breaks-phones-week-hurling-wall.html
So why didn't we get any investigations into bullying back then ?
I do think there is an issue about disciplinary processes for ministers and parliamentarians that has nothing to do with the civil service and which those ministers and parliamentarians make difficult for themselves by refusing to be bound by employment norms.
Appearing to back a dramatic break with the past, he adds: “We need a much more robust culture, with less groupthink, more rugged disagreement, and the confidence both to offer challenge and to accept it.
“That includes accepting candid feedback. Today, there is no external accountability for the quality of advice, other than to ministers. There could be value in regular external audits, conducted by qualified outsiders, with published results.
The second paragraph could be considered to touch upon some real concerns about quality and accountability, perhaps not unreasonable.
But the first paragraph I call bullshit on immediately. This is coming up at all because those like Raab see civil servants as liberal remainer enemies out to get them, and they want to have greater power as a result. Maude doesn't want a robust culture of challenge and rugged disagreement. He wants to see greater effectiveness in delivery policy outcomes of government, an understandable motivation, but it is 'obstruction' or challenge from civil servants they see as a blockage. So the truth is he doesn't want a culture which is more robust, he wants one where dictats are not interferred with, even if there is reason to raise concerns. He doesn't want less groupthink, he wants nothink, because the whole thing being complained about is too much thinking and objecting to a political directive.
"In international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have the status, the effective status in international law, because there is no international agreement to materialise their status of a sovereign country"
Which is still seems quite a departure from official Chinese foreign policy, but is a little bit more unclear than simply saying they are "not sovereign states" as in the tweet above.
Russia is also one of these "ex-Soviet Union countries"
I hope, for their sakes, that politicians do not really encounter people like Malcolm Tucker, or behave even close to that themselves (though given it is drawn from real life that is unlikely). Fun though such things are to watch in a comedy or drama it would be totally unacceptable in real life.
Hats off to the PB faithful, working "the Dom is innocent" narrative very hard indeed.
The competent often world-wearingly correct the crap they receive and get on with things whereas the incompetent don't have that ability and so get angry instead.
Yes, there were trivialities in the leaked issues raised, and dismissed matters (which is good), but in political organisations big and small professionals would put up with a lot before even considering complaining, which would be a near nuclear option. A quiet word with the councillor/minister/MP to suggest corrective action would itself be the result of serious concerns, since top officials would not do that lightly. Getting to this point would be near unprecedented, and whilst we may have gotten more sensitive about these matters, it doesn't follow that any increase in professional standards is an unreasonable imposition.
The fact Raab, like Patel, likely to have survived under Boris, possibly not a good thing?
Having got rid of Raab, the Sunday Express has the civil service victors/unelected remainer bureaucrats targeting Suella Braverman next. Anyone going to argue that isn’t a very good use of their time and effort 😈
See Alex Ferguson or Gordon Ramsey as examples.
It started off positive but now the pendulum has swung too far in the wrong direction. The Raab report is evidence of how absurd and dysfunctional the situation has become.
He’d have been remembered as a great but flawed Chancellor.
I wouldn’t defend either him or Raab.
It will be much harder for civil servants to go slow, obstruct or interfere with a minister's priorities if they are not even being treated like crap, no excuse to use for why the institution might be failing.
Who knows, they might even feel motivated to put in extra effort to achieve the set goals, since they can see their ultimate boss is just a decent sort trying to deliver, let's put in some extra hours to work out the kinks in this proposal they did not see coming.
Not sure how (or rather if) it affects Lord Raabid's impending appointment, that 95.9% of Gibraltar voters, voted AGAINST Brexit?
Having political appointees wouldn't lead to more challenge, it would lead to less challenge.
Often Ministers just don't realise how complex the consequences of their policies are, they would prefer to live in a fantasy world.
In his case, because as a boy, he was a rich kid who wore glasses.
Several encounters with poorer and ruder youths (who could also see him coming way before he saw them) young Theodore Roosevelt took up physical exercise and the then-manly art of self-defense, to toughen himself. AND ensure he was in the position to thrash anyone who picked a fight with him. OR otherwise deserved a sound thrashing.
"Bully!" as TR liked to say when meeting one of his personal heroes at the White House: John L. Sullivan aka the Boston Strong Boy, the last bare-knuckle heavyweight boxing champion of the world.
a) he would want to declare war on Spain, and
b) fortunately, he has the geographical wherewithal to get himself no further than Dover.
If they claimed they couldn’t get in the team just because they are green colour, all the enquiries would get set back to zero. 🙇♀️
Of course, gibraltarians who might want to save money by living across the border in Spain had a much better reason to vote Remain.
Wow. I agree with @TheScreamingEagles - better than sex. Just perfect in every way.
There was so much nostalgia, humour, moving moments and love in the final episode I think I hugged my wife about five times, when I wasn't grinning from ear to ear.
Some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Reynolds_(civil_servant)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Case
Now were the civil servants that Raab dealt with incompetent ?
I don't know and nor do you.
But its certainly a possibility.