Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Starmer lied to you. He didn't lie to the voters. They don't care that he lied to you. He lied BUT
Sums up Centrist mentality brilliantly, thanks for that
Voters are thick and they dont care about SKS lies cos he beat "JEZBOLLAH"
Abolishing tuition fees > Status Quo but also Something in Between > Abolishing tuition fees. Lets see what their proposals are come the election.
And people who expect policies to be identical 3 years on are a tad weird.
Yes, but it wasn't just the defeated 2019 manifesto, made obsolete by being rejected at the ballot box, but rather his own leadership manifesto afterwards.
Good for LDs though. Labour campaigners won't want to bang on about Tuition fees betrayal anymore.
I think universal free tuition fees has had its time now and does not make much sense for 2024-2034.
Should we stop charging students silly amounts of interest on debt that are significantly more than mortgage rates? Of course
Should we make university courses that meet skills shortages the country needs, cheap or free? Sure
Can we do more to offer more flexible and cheaper university level training generally? Yes, much more.
But in a world where we actually need more plumbers, electricians, builders and many generic knowledge jobs are being threatened by AI it is now time to move on from universal free 3 year tuition being covered.
The part that people miss is that tuition fees fund universities. Rather than receiving government funding as they used to, unis get the majority of their funding now from fees.
So if we cut the fees, we need to reinstate government funding. With adult social care the government axed direct funding and replaced it with cash raised by councils - at a level which managed to both starve adult social care of funding and piss voters off.
Cutting fees means directly funding students, and I just can't see that happening. Government funding was cut by 78% since 2010, and with the best will in the world it isn't going to be restored to that level plus inflation.
Students actually want an education and a university experience. A bodge job which both cuts their fees but makes our universities sub-standard would be bad. If Starmer is dodging that particular bullet then good.
The student loan issue is unsustainable. It started off as a bad idea under Blair and was made worse by Cameron. We lend about £17bn every year and have about £150bn of debt to be repaid. Most of it wont be,
The idea that we should tax young people starting out in life is just crass ,
I agree - the current system is absurd. But so it "lets abolish tuition fees". Bringing student loans back in house with a sane interest rate not set by whichever loanshark bank was sold the debt as a "revenue stream" for their balance sheet would be a start.
Problem is that student loans was a nice bit of QE under the table. Government prints tens of billions in loans. Sells them to banks for a nominal fee who class the debt as an asset on their balance sheet. That half the loans will default is a problem for next decade...
Personally I wouldnt have a loans system its just another stupid import from the US and no surprise their system is crumbling too,
Fund higher education by paying Unis a set fee per pupil. Cut the number of places back to about 25-30% of each cohort year not the current target of 50%. If this means vice chancellors cant pay themselves £500k a year thats a good thing. Pay for higher education by removing the foreign aid 0.7% mandate and reduce to something like 0.3%. which is closer to the global average, that should be worth about £10bn which covers the Uni costs. As for those who wont now go to Uni, apprenticeships offer a sensible way forward and suddenly there are several thousand people looking for jobs to fill all those vacancies we cant fill.
Currently the poor bastards in their 20s will be paying for their loans and just when they clear their debts the onus the defaulters will hit them and they will get taxed twice for the same mess. The system sucks,
Starmer was good over partygate. He just needs something like that to get his teeth into again, and then it all gets better for him.
There are also signs, as discussed by many yesterday, that the improvement in Tory fortunes is a hitting a ceiling, anyway, however he performs, with the Lib Dem rises also including more signs of an increased switching over to tactical voting.
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Your reflexive defensiveness about Boris is quite funny.
Never voted for liar Johnson
Will never vote for liar SKS
Unlike pathetic Centrists who have the Animal Farm syndrome
ie some liars are better than others
Politics is all about compromise unless one is a Corbynista purist. In which case the desire has to be for perpetual opposition. That way the corruption of compromise never needs to be put into practice.
Who did you vote for at GE 2017/2019 Pete
Did you compromise or were you happy to see the Tories win?
If you didnt vote Labour is it OK to call you a stinking Hypocrite?
The cabinet secretary forced ministers to weaken a highly critical statement on the departure of Sue Gray from the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, The Times has been told.
Simon Case intervened yesterday to block plans to accuse Gray of breaching the civil service code in a statement before the local elections. He is said to have got “cold feet” about allowing publication of details of an interim report accusing Gray of failing to act with honesty, integrity and impartiality.
Ministers have submitted the accusation to the Whitehall watchdog that is considering whether to ban Gray from taking up her job with Starmer for up to two years. The Labour leader yesterday said that he was confident that she did not breach the rules.
An internal inquiry had been paused after Gray refused to co-operate but last week ministers submitted evidence to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) based on its initial findings. One source familiar with the report said that it was “flimsy” and lacked evidence. Another said that there were significant legal issues.
In a one-page statement, Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, said he was unable to publish details, “in order to maintain confidentiality towards an individual former employee”.
The period since 2016 has truly been a low, dishonest decade.
1997 to 2007.....
, I think we can all give you Iraq, but that aside (and granted it is a big aside) compared to what has gone on since Cameron's calamitous "in or out" Referendum pledge, the New Labour Government were masters of probity, and head and shoulders better than the May, Johnson and post- Johnson administrations. Now that is not a ringing endorsement of New Labour, merely an indication of how deep in the gutter we now find ourselves.
And it is all too easily forgotten that Iraq was supported by HM Opposition rather more enthusiastically than by the governing Party itself. The LDs opposed gallantly, but the majority of MPs and a large proportion of the public supported, or didn't care.
There was much else that went wrong between 1997 and 2007 but compared with this lot? Nah, it's no contest.
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Your reflexive defensiveness about Boris is quite funny.
Never voted for liar Johnson
Will never vote for liar SKS
Unlike pathetic Centrists who have the Animal Farm syndrome
ie some liars are better than others
They are ALL liars. You do not win in politics telling the truth.
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Given John Major lost over 2000 council seats in 1995 and Theresa May lost over 1000 council seats in 2019 and Tony Blair also lost over 1,000 council seats in 1999, over 800 in 2003 and over 600 in 2007 at the equivalent stage of the local elections cycle, if Rishi loses only 490 he would not consider that a terrible result at all. Indeed it would be little different to the 485 council seats Boris lost last year
The cabinet secretary forced ministers to weaken a highly critical statement on the departure of Sue Gray from the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, The Times has been told.
Simon Case intervened yesterday to block plans to accuse Gray of breaching the civil service code in a statement before the local elections. He is said to have got “cold feet” about allowing publication of details of an interim report accusing Gray of failing to act with honesty, integrity and impartiality.
Ministers have submitted the accusation to the Whitehall watchdog that is considering whether to ban Gray from taking up her job with Starmer for up to two years. The Labour leader yesterday said that he was confident that she did not breach the rules.
An internal inquiry had been paused after Gray refused to co-operate but last week ministers submitted evidence to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) based on its initial findings. One source familiar with the report said that it was “flimsy” and lacked evidence. Another said that there were significant legal issues.
In a one-page statement, Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, said he was unable to publish details, “in order to maintain confidentiality towards an individual former employee”.
Thoughts and prayers for Dan Hodges and his fans who thought this would destroy Starmer.
Like Beergate, only the gullible and partisan fell for it.
Well we shall see tomorrow.
I expect thousands of Conservative Councillors to sweep in to office as the voting public shows its revulsion at Graygate and the corrupt Opposition Party.
I also expect Tottenham Hotspurs to remove Daniel Levy and make a sensible managerial appointment.
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Given John Major lost over 2000 council seats in 1995 and Theresa May lost over 1000 council seats in 2019 and Tony Blair also lost over 1,000 council seats in 1999, over 800 in 2003 and over 600 in 2007 at the equivalent stage of the local elections cycle, if Rishi loses only 490 he would not consider that a terrible result at all. Indeed it would be little different to the 485 council seats Boris lost last year
Put another way, the Tories lost 1,000 seats in 1995, then won hundreds back again in 1999. If the Tories lose hundreds more seats having already lost 1,000 the last time the same set were contested (causing Theresa May to resign), how is that anything other than very bad?
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LDs got 19% in 2019, much higher than their current voteshare and gained councils from Chelmsford to Guildford and South Oxfordshire they are now defending
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LD number is based on a 0.5% swing from the Conservatives. He also comments on why his model might be wrong:
By contrast, the Liberal Democrats have tended to overperform the model since the coalition government ended in 2015. If that tendency continues this year, the Liberal Democrats should be more likely to make net gains of around +240 seats. Even though continued overperformance relative to the basic model seems reasonable this year, it cannot work forever. So I have declined to adjust the model in a way that implies the party will outperform the polls indefinitely.
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Oh dear, poor BJO. Your obsession with Keir Starmer is not healthy.
He is right though, SKS is a liability for Labour, his interview round yesterday was very poor, he will struggle in a GE campaign.
Starmer is a liability. We all know that. What apparently you refuse to accept though is that Sunak is as big a liability. And when you compare the two parties the Tories are more riven with nutters than Labour.
So its a race to be the least shit. Not to be any good.
Sunak is nowhere near as big a liability as Johnson or Truss would have been. With everything that has happened over the past 3 years Starmer should not be struggling like he was yesterday. The moment he is put under any pressure he melts. 6 months ago I was convinced that Labour would get a majority of 150-200, Im not so sure now.
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Given John Major lost over 2000 council seats in 1995 and Theresa May lost over 1000 council seats in 2019 and Tony Blair also lost over 1,000 council seats in 1999, over 800 in 2003 and over 600 in 2007 at the equivalent stage of the local elections cycle, if Rishi loses only 490 he would not consider that a terrible result at all. Indeed it would be little different to the 485 council seats Boris lost last year
Put another way, the Tories lost 1,000 seats in 1995, then won hundreds back again in 1999. If the Tories lose hundreds more seats having already lost 1,000 the last time the same set were contested (causing Theresa May to resign), how is that anything other than very bad?
Still better than the 600 Labour lost in 2007 having lost 800 in 2003 and 1,000 in 1999
The cabinet secretary forced ministers to weaken a highly critical statement on the departure of Sue Gray from the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, The Times has been told.
Simon Case intervened yesterday to block plans to accuse Gray of breaching the civil service code in a statement before the local elections. He is said to have got “cold feet” about allowing publication of details of an interim report accusing Gray of failing to act with honesty, integrity and impartiality.
Ministers have submitted the accusation to the Whitehall watchdog that is considering whether to ban Gray from taking up her job with Starmer for up to two years. The Labour leader yesterday said that he was confident that she did not breach the rules.
An internal inquiry had been paused after Gray refused to co-operate but last week ministers submitted evidence to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) based on its initial findings. One source familiar with the report said that it was “flimsy” and lacked evidence. Another said that there were significant legal issues.
In a one-page statement, Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, said he was unable to publish details, “in order to maintain confidentiality towards an individual former employee”.
Thoughts and prayers for Dan Hodges and his fans who thought this would destroy Starmer.
Like Beergate, only the gullible and partisan fell for it.
Government source - “We’ve had an inquiry that shows Sue Gray broke the civil service code and that Keir Starmer is a duplicitous scumbag. It's definitely publishing on Tuesday. ”
Dan Hodges, Harry Cole and all other Tory client journalists - “Cheers, I’ll write it up.”
Proper journalist - “Wow, I will look out for it. What were the inquiry's terms, who set them, what evidence did it uncover, who were the witnesses, what did they say?”
I actually started an article on this a few days ago. It will probably be my next one. There is so much that has gone wrong that it is almost overwhelming.
(I have not finished it because I have been dealing with fee-paying work, some serious medical news and, more pleasingly, writing on gardening and other non-PB topics for my new website - https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/.)
As well as the obvious villains - the Post Office - the lawyers - both in-house and external, politicians and Fujitsu have some very serious questions to answer.
Here's just one. Why in God's name are Fujitsu still being given government contracts despite their role in this? Why is one of their former CEO's in charge of them during some of the relevant time a Crown representative (with responsibility for contracts with BaE) in the Cabinet Office? He boasts about his extensive IT experience but not any responsibility for one of the worst IT failings ever. Utterly coincidentally, he is married to a current Cabinet Minister and is the son of a former Conservative MP.
The lawyers involved too have not behaved well, to put it mildly.
I look forward to that. All the best with the serious medical news, whatever it might be.
I've had a look at the Wikipedia page to refresh my memory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal While it's useful, what it doesn't fully explain is how well known within the industry were the problems with the Post Office system, quite early on (I recall reading regular articles in Computer Weekly).
The collaboration of the judiciary with what were fatally flawed private prosecutions suggest many judges were no fit for their roles, either.
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LDs got 19% in 2019, much higher than their current voteshare and gained councils from Chelmsford to Guildford and South Oxfordshire they are now defending
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Oh dear, poor BJO. Your obsession with Keir Starmer is not healthy.
He is right though, SKS is a liability for Labour, his interview round yesterday was very poor, he will struggle in a GE campaign.
Starmer is a liability. We all know that. What apparently you refuse to accept though is that Sunak is as big a liability. And when you compare the two parties the Tories are more riven with nutters than Labour.
So its a race to be the least shit. Not to be any good.
Sunak is nowhere near as big a liability as Johnson or Truss would have been. With everything that has happened over the past 3 years Starmer should not be struggling like he was yesterday. The moment he is put under any pressure he melts. 6 months ago I was convinced that Labour would get a majority of 150-200, Im not so sure now.
Labour small majority or largest party in a hung parliament is my prediction.
It feels more 2010 than 1997, there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair then. Like Cameron in 2010 it is more a case of him being seem as a reasonably competent and centrist alternative to an unpopular government but with reservations about his party still which there weren't about New Labour
Martin Ross @martingrantross Men’s 2018 WC v Women’s 2019 WC global live average audience comparison by competition stage:
• Final: 517m v 82.2m • SFs: 321m v 38.4m • QFs: 261m v 27.2m • RO16: 246m v 22.7m • Group stage: 162m v 11.9m
Source: FIFA global audience report figures compiled by Publicis
Aggregate viewing figures of 1.020B for the women's WC and 11.947B for the men.
& the exact answer would depend on the third place playoff figures - but fair value for rights with those figures suggests the women's WC rights have a fair value of 8.5% of the men's.
The cabinet secretary forced ministers to weaken a highly critical statement on the departure of Sue Gray from the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, The Times has been told.
Simon Case intervened yesterday to block plans to accuse Gray of breaching the civil service code in a statement before the local elections. He is said to have got “cold feet” ...
That's not quite 'finding a backbone'. But it's a step up from rock bottom.
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LDs got 19% in 2019, much higher than their current voteshare and gained councils from Chelmsford to Guildford and South Oxfordshire they are now defending
If anything the Conservatives could end up being thumped across the Home Counties.
Hunt's Council, Waverley, is already LD controlled even if Gove's isn't.
My parents live in Tunbridge Wells where the LDs took control last year and the local Tories will likely gain seats there due to the unpopular budget and parking restrictions the LD administration is imposing
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Oh dear, poor BJO. Your obsession with Keir Starmer is not healthy.
He is right though, SKS is a liability for Labour, his interview round yesterday was very poor, he will struggle in a GE campaign.
Maybe, and I am not sure why Starmer would say what he said yesterday, unless the ghost of Nick Clegg (politician) still looms large. But did you see Sunak's Stockton Town footage last week (they lost to Long Eaton by the way,) it was toe-curling?
Or rather, fine as a drink if that's your bag but near villainous to market it as a health drink. Has a huge amount of calories and sugar and whatnot.
It is the Leavers I fear for most because as we have established they are most susceptible to such rubbish, not being the brightest sparks in the firework display, and therefore need saving from themselves.
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
Would Saddam have even been alive now? He’d have been in his mid 80’s.
His son, or sons, might have taken over, but they wouldn’t have had the backing.
Anyway, it was an illegal war, which the US, and very certainly the UK, should never have been involved in!
Iraq has actually worked out better than Afghanistan, an elected government has replaced Saddam while Afghanistan has reverted to the Taliban. The UN backed the latter not the former and Bin Laden ended up being killed in Pakistan anyway.
I have a feeling that fairly soon how the Mail and @DPJHodges got hold of that confidential non-report into Sue Gray days before a national election will itself become a story.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
Iraq 2003 was a US victory as is now clear, Vietnam was a US defeat. So we made the right call on both in that sense.
We, along with France are the second strongest militaries in the western alliance so of course the US cares what we think. We also have a veto on the UN Security Council as France, Russia and China do so the US cannot ignore us
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LDs got 19% in 2019, much higher than their current voteshare and gained councils from Chelmsford to Guildford and South Oxfordshire they are now defending
If anything the Conservatives could end up being thumped across the Home Counties.
Hunt's Council, Waverley, is already LD controlled even if Gove's isn't.
My parents live in Tunbridge Wells where the LDs took control last year and the local Tories will likely gain seats there due to the unpopular budget and parking restrictions the LD administration is imposing
When the Tories try to trumpet possible gains in Tunbridge Wells as a positive, then you know they are in deep trouble.
We are obsessed as a society with trivialities, for which only narcissism need suffice, rather than substance, which requires character and integrity.
Your keyboard seems to have replaced "the Tory membership" with "a society" for some reason.
Read the article. In this case Casino has half a point. What he doesn't address is this part of Marina Hyde's argument. ...I know some politicians and some pundits bang on disparagingly about the “woke mind virus” or whatever, but I often think they must be secretly thrilled with the virtue games of recent times. It really couldn’t suit them more. How much better to have people sidelined into endless 24- or 48-hour online meltdowns, in which they are either pitted against one another litigating the narcissism of small differences – the dream! – or obsessing about one person’s transgressions and leaving iniquitous and dysfunctional systems free to sail on regardless.
Some of this is thought to be generational, and I have nothing but sympathy for the generations that come after mine, who have been shut out of so much of what they are entitled to and which most of those who criticise them simply took for granted...
There is also a certain kind of mentality that obsesses over "process" to the point of ignoring actually processing stuff.
The situation in Hackney social derives, where a huge chunk of time and effort was spent on the "process" of "investigating" a social worker who has shouted, once, at a teenage girl, comes to mind.
The said social worker was upsetting everyone with her repeatedly raising the problem of suspected abuse of a baby....
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Oh dear, poor BJO. Your obsession with Keir Starmer is not healthy.
He is right though, SKS is a liability for Labour, his interview round yesterday was very poor, he will struggle in a GE campaign.
Maybe, and I am not sure why Starmer would say what he said yesterday, unless the ghost of Nick Clegg (politician) still looms large. But did you see Sunak's Stockton Town footage last week (they lost to Long Eaton by the way,) it was toe-curling?
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LDs got 19% in 2019, much higher than their current voteshare and gained councils from Chelmsford to Guildford and South Oxfordshire they are now defending
If anything the Conservatives could end up being thumped across the Home Counties.
Hunt's Council, Waverley, is already LD controlled even if Gove's isn't.
My parents live in Tunbridge Wells where the LDs took control last year and the local Tories will likely gain seats there due to the unpopular budget and parking restrictions the LD administration is imposing
When the Tories try to trumpet possible gains in Tunbridge Wells as a positive, then you know they are in deep trouble.
Hague's Tories regaining Tunbridge Wells from the LDs was one of the biggest victories for the Tories in the 1998 local elections and I was involved in that campaign as a young Conservative
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Oh dear, poor BJO. Your obsession with Keir Starmer is not healthy.
He is right though, SKS is a liability for Labour, his interview round yesterday was very poor, he will struggle in a GE campaign.
Starmer is a liability. We all know that. What apparently you refuse to accept though is that Sunak is as big a liability. And when you compare the two parties the Tories are more riven with nutters than Labour.
So its a race to be the least shit. Not to be any good.
Sunak is nowhere near as big a liability as Johnson or Truss would have been. With everything that has happened over the past 3 years Starmer should not be struggling like he was yesterday. The moment he is put under any pressure he melts. 6 months ago I was convinced that Labour would get a majority of 150-200, Im not so sure now.
Labour small majority or largest party in a hung parliament is my prediction.
It feels more 2010 than 1997, there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair then. Like Cameron in 2010 it is more a case of him being seem as a reasonably competent and centrist alternative to an unpopular government but with reservations about his party still which there weren't about New Labour
Yep, typically governments that have been in power for a long time tend to be booted out by a small margin rather than by landslide. 1997 is the exception rather than the rule.
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
OJ is hardly an 'ultra processed' food.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor. I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks. Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling. A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Given John Major lost over 2000 council seats in 1995 and Theresa May lost over 1000 council seats in 2019 and Tony Blair also lost over 1,000 council seats in 1999, over 800 in 2003 and over 600 in 2007 at the equivalent stage of the local elections cycle, if Rishi loses only 490 he would not consider that a terrible result at all. Indeed it would be little different to the 485 council seats Boris lost last year
Put another way, the Tories lost 1,000 seats in 1995, then won hundreds back again in 1999. If the Tories lose hundreds more seats having already lost 1,000 the last time the same set were contested (causing Theresa May to resign), how is that anything other than very bad?
It certainly isn't good but what the 2019 local elections showed was a general dissatisfaction with all three parties and a large numbers of voters looking for an alternative.
Enter Boris.
The numbers to look out for this year are not the seat changes but the NEVs.
We are obsessed as a society with trivialities, for which only narcissism need suffice, rather than substance, which requires character and integrity.
Your keyboard seems to have replaced "the Tory membership" with "a society" for some reason.
Read the article. In this case Casino has half a point. What he doesn't address is this part of Marina Hyde's argument. ...I know some politicians and some pundits bang on disparagingly about the “woke mind virus” or whatever, but I often think they must be secretly thrilled with the virtue games of recent times. It really couldn’t suit them more. How much better to have people sidelined into endless 24- or 48-hour online meltdowns, in which they are either pitted against one another litigating the narcissism of small differences – the dream! – or obsessing about one person’s transgressions and leaving iniquitous and dysfunctional systems free to sail on regardless.
Some of this is thought to be generational, and I have nothing but sympathy for the generations that come after mine, who have been shut out of so much of what they are entitled to and which most of those who criticise them simply took for granted...
There is also a certain kind of mentality that obsesses over "process" to the point of ignoring actually processing stuff.
The situation in Hackney social derives, where a huge chunk of time and effort was spent on the "process" of "investigating" a social worker who has shouted, once, at a teenage girl, comes to mind.
The said social worker was upsetting everyone with her repeatedly raising the problem of suspected abuse of a baby....
A sort of malevolent Bike Shedding.
Yes, I think the Post Office scandal was far more about a lack of critical thought, trust in the establishment and processes and people keeping their head down rather than standing up for others, than to do with narcissism and triviality.
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Oh dear, poor BJO. Your obsession with Keir Starmer is not healthy.
He is right though, SKS is a liability for Labour, his interview round yesterday was very poor, he will struggle in a GE campaign.
Starmer is a liability. We all know that. What apparently you refuse to accept though is that Sunak is as big a liability. And when you compare the two parties the Tories are more riven with nutters than Labour.
So its a race to be the least shit. Not to be any good.
Sunak is nowhere near as big a liability as Johnson or Truss would have been. With everything that has happened over the past 3 years Starmer should not be struggling like he was yesterday. The moment he is put under any pressure he melts. 6 months ago I was convinced that Labour would get a majority of 150-200, Im not so sure now.
Labour small majority or largest party in a hung parliament is my prediction.
It feels more 2010 than 1997, there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair then. Like Cameron in 2010 it is more a case of him being seem as a reasonably competent and centrist alternative to an unpopular government but with reservations about his party still which there weren't about New Labour
Yep, typically governments that have been in power for a long time tend to be booted out by a small margin rather than by landslide. 1997 is the exception rather than the rule.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
I've been noting recently that of comparable sized nations, South Korea appears to be a considerably more useful strategic partner for the US.
Martin Ross @martingrantross Men’s 2018 WC v Women’s 2019 WC global live average audience comparison by competition stage:
• Final: 517m v 82.2m • SFs: 321m v 38.4m • QFs: 261m v 27.2m • RO16: 246m v 22.7m • Group stage: 162m v 11.9m
Source: FIFA global audience report figures compiled by Publicis
Aggregate viewing figures of 1.020B for the women's WC and 11.947B for the men.
& the exact answer would depend on the third place playoff figures - but fair value for rights with those figures suggests the women's WC rights have a fair value of 8.5% of the men's.
Up to a point. FIFA would also need to know the value of those audiences in different advertising markets (and also, to be fair to FIFA, how likely those would be to spread the game).
The period since 2016 has truly been a low, dishonest decade.
1997 to 2007.....
Whatabout it ?
An equally appalling period in our lifetime millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr
That's a nonsense though. Iraq would have happened without the UK. Bush & Co were set on it.
Maybe, but it didnt mean our government had go along with it and to lie in order to go along with it,
There's no 'maybe' about it. The US were doing Iraq anyway so the statement that "millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr" is inaccurate and therefore merited a correction.
As to the whole thing being a shitshow that shouldn't have happened and that in any case we should have stayed out of - well yes obviously. Is there anybody at all these days who thinks any different?
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
OJ is hardly an 'ultra processed' food.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor. I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks. Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling. A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
I didn't really say OJ was ultra processed, but now you mention it, many brands of it are. Straight OJ in moderation is fine, it's the fact that it gets marketed as being healthy that's problematic.
Abolishing tuition fees > Status Quo but also Something in Between > Abolishing tuition fees. Lets see what their proposals are come the election.
And people who expect policies to be identical 3 years on are a tad weird.
Yes, but it wasn't just the defeated 2019 manifesto, made obsolete by being rejected at the ballot box, but rather his own leadership manifesto afterwards.
Good for LDs though. Labour campaigners won't want to bang on about Tuition fees betrayal anymore.
I think universal free tuition fees has had its time now and does not make much sense for 2024-2034.
Should we stop charging students silly amounts of interest on debt that are significantly more than mortgage rates? Of course
Should we make university courses that meet skills shortages the country needs, cheap or free? Sure
Can we do more to offer more flexible and cheaper university level training generally? Yes, much more.
But in a world where we actually need more plumbers, electricians, builders and many generic knowledge jobs are being threatened by AI it is now time to move on from universal free 3 year tuition being covered.
The part that people miss is that tuition fees fund universities. Rather than receiving government funding as they used to, unis get the majority of their funding now from fees.
So if we cut the fees, we need to reinstate government funding. With adult social care the government axed direct funding and replaced it with cash raised by councils - at a level which managed to both starve adult social care of funding and piss voters off.
Cutting fees means directly funding students, and I just can't see that happening. Government funding was cut by 78% since 2010, and with the best will in the world it isn't going to be restored to that level plus inflation.
Students actually want an education and a university experience. A bodge job which both cuts their fees but makes our universities sub-standard would be bad. If Starmer is dodging that particular bullet then good.
Lots can be done to reduce cost without lowering quality.
Average university degree is 3 x 30 week years. Why not simply make 2 x 45 week years versions available as alternatives?
Students get an extra years earnings, £25k or so, which is a bigger change than scrapping tuition fees would be.
Would Saddam have even been alive now? He’d have been in his mid 80’s.
His son, or sons, might have taken over, but they wouldn’t have had the backing.
Anyway, it was an illegal war, which the US, and very certainly the UK, should never have been involved in!
Iraq has actually worked out better than Afghanistan, an elected government has replaced Saddam while Afghanistan has reverted to the Taliban. The UN backed the latter not the former and Bin Laden ended up being killed in Pakistan anyway.
The outcome of military interventions has rather more to do with the conditions, culture and history of the country intervened in than anything the outsiders intervening get up to.
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Your reflexive defensiveness about Boris is quite funny.
Never voted for liar Johnson
Will never vote for liar SKS
Unlike pathetic Centrists who have the Animal Farm syndrome
ie some liars are better than others
They are ALL liars. You do not win in politics telling the truth.
Brilliant summary of SKS fans mentality
You know I'm not voting Labour don't you? How am I a "fan" when he doesn't have my vote and I describe him as not very good?
The period since 2016 has truly been a low, dishonest decade.
1997 to 2007.....
Whatabout it ?
An equally appalling period in our lifetime millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr
That's a nonsense though. Iraq would have happened without the UK. Bush & Co were set on it.
Maybe, but it didnt mean our government had go along with it and to lie in order to go along with it,
There's no 'maybe' about it. The US were doing Iraq anyway so the statement that "millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr" is inaccurate and therefore merited a correction.
As to the whole thing being a shitshow that shouldn't have happened and that in any case we should have stayed out of - well yes obviously. Is there anybody at all these days who thinks any different?
The war part and deposing Saddam Hussein worked fine. What caused the shitshow was the utter failure to plan in advance for what happened after the initial aim was achieved.
Abolishing tuition fees > Status Quo but also Something in Between > Abolishing tuition fees. Lets see what their proposals are come the election.
And people who expect policies to be identical 3 years on are a tad weird.
Yes, but it wasn't just the defeated 2019 manifesto, made obsolete by being rejected at the ballot box, but rather his own leadership manifesto afterwards.
Good for LDs though. Labour campaigners won't want to bang on about Tuition fees betrayal anymore.
I think universal free tuition fees has had its time now and does not make much sense for 2024-2034.
Should we stop charging students silly amounts of interest on debt that are significantly more than mortgage rates? Of course
Should we make university courses that meet skills shortages the country needs, cheap or free? Sure
Can we do more to offer more flexible and cheaper university level training generally? Yes, much more.
But in a world where we actually need more plumbers, electricians, builders and many generic knowledge jobs are being threatened by AI it is now time to move on from universal free 3 year tuition being covered.
The part that people miss is that tuition fees fund universities. Rather than receiving government funding as they used to, unis get the majority of their funding now from fees.
So if we cut the fees, we need to reinstate government funding. With adult social care the government axed direct funding and replaced it with cash raised by councils - at a level which managed to both starve adult social care of funding and piss voters off.
Cutting fees means directly funding students, and I just can't see that happening. Government funding was cut by 78% since 2010, and with the best will in the world it isn't going to be restored to that level plus inflation.
Students actually want an education and a university experience. A bodge job which both cuts their fees but makes our universities sub-standard would be bad. If Starmer is dodging that particular bullet then good.
Lots can be done to reduce cost without lowering quality.
Average university degree is 3 x 30 week years. Why not simply make 2 x 45 week years versions available as alternatives?
Students get an extra years earnings, £25k or so, which is a bigger change than scrapping tuition fees would be.
That's been tried - but the issue is that very few students can devote 2 full time years to studying - they need money from part time / holiday work to pay the bills.
I have a feeling that fairly soon how the Mail and @DPJHodges got hold of that confidential non-report into Sue Gray days before a national election will itself become a story.
How about delaying university entrance one year after A levels.
Thus allowing school leavers to do do some work or travel or something for themselves for a year and so get some experience outside a controlled academic environment.
They might then have a better idea of whether university is the thing for them or at least whether the course they wanted is still the right one.
Martin Ross @martingrantross Men’s 2018 WC v Women’s 2019 WC global live average audience comparison by competition stage:
• Final: 517m v 82.2m • SFs: 321m v 38.4m • QFs: 261m v 27.2m • RO16: 246m v 22.7m • Group stage: 162m v 11.9m
Source: FIFA global audience report figures compiled by Publicis
Aggregate viewing figures of 1.020B for the women's WC and 11.947B for the men.
& the exact answer would depend on the third place playoff figures - but fair value for rights with those figures suggests the women's WC rights have a fair value of 8.5% of the men's.
Up to a point. FIFA would also need to know the value of those audiences in different advertising markets (and also, to be fair to FIFA, how likely those would be to spread the game).
It might be slightly higher or lower than 8.5% depending on the relative continental sizes and advertising/spending power of the viewing demographics but that breakdown isn't provided so ceteris paribus 8.5% is correct.
My guess is the USA would have been the market where the women's WC was closest in viewing figures (And hence rights value) to the men.
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
OJ is hardly an 'ultra processed' food.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor. I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks. Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling. A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
While I mostly agree, I think care is needed with orange juice (and other juices). They are clearly processed, unless you slice your orange and squeeze it yourself. Many are made by dehydrating and rehydrating. Many come 'without bits', removing the last trace of any fibre that might help.
Better than a sugary can, or squash I'm sure, but better still to eat the whole orange.
"Circumstances change" will do the job for most normals. They don't expect dogmatic politics, clinging to something that was pledged before priorities changed.
The post-Brexit settlement is that a pledge isn't a pledge, and if you cling to something that you once said even as it becomes clear its no longer a good idea then you're mad.
Jacob Rees-Mogg did a complete u-turn on import controls, describing their solemn pledge of a few years ago as "an act of national self-harm" now. He isn't being attacked as a liar - the pledge was stupid and needed to go.
The difference with Starmer is that your flavour of absolutism doesn't accept that the pledge should never have been made.
Irony overload, self confessed Boris Johnson fanboy BJO shares concerns about dishonesty.
Hypocrisy overload champagne Centrist criticises Johnson dishonesty but doesnt give a shit when liar in chief makes johnson look like a fibbing novice.
SKS is a liar
The fact SKS is a liar will be an issue over and over and over and over at GE2024
The fact SKS is a proven liar will cost Lab a majority at GE 2024
You heard it here first
People like Roger would be fine if SKS came on TV this morning and said.
I never said its a pledge a solemn promise and because of that it will be in my Manifesto guaranteed, even though the evidence is available that is exactly what he said.
Owen Jones has SKS fans banged to rights
Your reflexive defensiveness about Boris is quite funny.
Never voted for liar Johnson
Will never vote for liar SKS
Unlike pathetic Centrists who have the Animal Farm syndrome
ie some liars are better than others
Politics is all about compromise unless one is a Corbynista purist. In which case the desire has to be for perpetual opposition. That way the corruption of compromise never needs to be put into practice.
Who did you vote for at GE 2017/2019 Pete
Did you compromise or were you happy to see the Tories win?
If you didnt vote Labour is it OK to call you a stinking Hypocrite?
I will take the fact you havent answered as a yes to my final question?
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
OJ is hardly an 'ultra processed' food.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor. I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks. Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling. A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
While I mostly agree, I think care is needed with orange juice (and other juices). They are clearly processed, unless you slice your orange and squeeze it yourself. Many are made by dehydrating and rehydrating. Many come 'without bits', removing the last trace of any fibre that might help.
Better than a sugary can, or squash I'm sure, but better still to eat the whole orange.
"In moderation".
Why anyone wants to ban it, rather than look at the rest of the products of the processed food industry, is beyond me.
The period since 2016 has truly been a low, dishonest decade.
1997 to 2007.....
Whatabout it ?
An equally appalling period in our lifetime millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr
That's a nonsense though. Iraq would have happened without the UK. Bush & Co were set on it.
Maybe, but it didnt mean our government had go along with it and to lie in order to go along with it,
There's no 'maybe' about it. The US were doing Iraq anyway so the statement that "millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr" is inaccurate and therefore merited a correction.
As to the whole thing being a shitshow that shouldn't have happened and that in any case we should have stayed out of - well yes obviously. Is there anybody at all these days who thinks any different?
The war part and deposing Saddam Hussein worked fine. What caused the shitshow was the utter failure to plan in advance for what happened after the initial aim was achieved.
This seems oddly familiar, somehow.
How do 'subsequent shitshows' now rank between Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya ?
How about delaying university entrance one year after A levels.
Thus allowing school leavers to do do some work or travel or something for themselves for a year and so get some experience outside a controlled academic environment.
They might then have a better idea of whether university is the thing for them or at least whether the course they wanted is still the right one.
Where are the jobs to do that?
30 years ago I managed to get a job between A levels and Uni but few other pupils had the opportunity to do so.
And having seen the chances my children got I suspect it would be harder now than then to find a job - 30 years ago many people went straight from School to Uni now most places want you to have a degree...
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
OJ is hardly an 'ultra processed' food.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor. I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks. Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling. A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
While I mostly agree, I think care is needed with orange juice (and other juices). They are clearly processed, unless you slice your orange and squeeze it yourself. Many are made by dehydrating and rehydrating. Many come 'without bits', removing the last trace of any fibre that might help.
Better than a sugary can, or squash I'm sure, but better still to eat the whole orange.
"In moderation".
Why anyone wants to ban it, rather than look at the rest of the products of the processed food industry, is beyond me.
I don't want to ban it.
Also one persons moderation is another's two litres a day,
How about delaying university entrance one year after A levels.
Thus allowing school leavers to do do some work or travel or something for themselves for a year and so get some experience outside a controlled academic environment.
They might then have a better idea of whether university is the thing for them or at least whether the course they wanted is still the right one.
I quite like this idea. Of all the many things wrong with our current model, one of the biggest is that university is simply seen as the next step on the treadmill. 18 year olds really shouldn't be going to university simply because it's the next thing to do.
How about delaying university entrance one year after A levels.
Thus allowing school leavers to do do some work or travel or something for themselves for a year and so get some experience outside a controlled academic environment.
They might then have a better idea of whether university is the thing for them or at least whether the course they wanted is still the right one.
Where are the jobs to do that?
30 years ago I managed to get a job between A levels and Uni but few other pupils had the opportunity to do so.
And having seen the chances my children got I suspect it would be harder now than then to find a job - 30 years ago many people went straight from School to Uni now most places want you to have a degree...
No shortage of job vacancies currently.
And 30 years ago you didn't leave university £50k in debt.
Encouraging teenagers to do that now before they have any experience of the outside world is financial abuse.
The period since 2016 has truly been a low, dishonest decade.
1997 to 2007.....
Whatabout it ?
An equally appalling period in our lifetime millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr
That's a nonsense though. Iraq would have happened without the UK. Bush & Co were set on it.
Maybe, but it didnt mean our government had go along with it and to lie in order to go along with it,
There's no 'maybe' about it. The US were doing Iraq anyway so the statement that "millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr" is inaccurate and therefore merited a correction.
As to the whole thing being a shitshow that shouldn't have happened and that in any case we should have stayed out of - well yes obviously. Is there anybody at all these days who thinks any different?
The war part and deposing Saddam Hussein worked fine. What caused the shitshow was the utter failure to plan in advance for what happened after the initial aim was achieved.
This seems oddly familiar, somehow.
How do 'subsequent shitshows' now rank between Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya ?
British forces have flown 8,000 combat missions over Iraq and Syria since 2015 without any noticeable results so Iraq must easily be the gold standard of shit shows.
The RAF are now just continuing with it to make closing Akrotiri problematic. Sucks for the Iraqis but we face difficult choices in a turbulent world.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
I did too. It was America at its worst and Blair at his worst. And did he lie to get his way? As near as makes no difference. Deserves all the shit that comes his way for the whole debacle.
However you do get a kind of retro-wise pile-on when it comes to the evil Tony and Iraq. Wildly exaggerated things get said quite freely. Often by people who were not massively opposed at the time. Certainly if they are Tory supporters they probably weren't.
Although of course everybody was passionately opposed at the time now, weren't they? The whole country were writing into the papers and on that march.
The cabinet secretary forced ministers to weaken a highly critical statement on the departure of Sue Gray from the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, The Times has been told.
Simon Case intervened yesterday to block plans to accuse Gray of breaching the civil service code in a statement before the local elections. He is said to have got “cold feet” about allowing publication of details of an interim report accusing Gray of failing to act with honesty, integrity and impartiality.
Ministers have submitted the accusation to the Whitehall watchdog that is considering whether to ban Gray from taking up her job with Starmer for up to two years. The Labour leader yesterday said that he was confident that she did not breach the rules.
An internal inquiry had been paused after Gray refused to co-operate but last week ministers submitted evidence to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) based on its initial findings. One source familiar with the report said that it was “flimsy” and lacked evidence. Another said that there were significant legal issues.
In a one-page statement, Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, said he was unable to publish details, “in order to maintain confidentiality towards an individual former employee”.
Thoughts and prayers for Dan Hodges and his fans who thought this would destroy Starmer.
Like Beergate, only the gullible and partisan fell for it.
That particular client journalist said on Twitter last night he had seen the Cabinet Office report. I do wonder if the legal issue which some have speculated has surfaced is the unauthorised disclosure of personal information by an employer about a (former) employee.... data protection breach?
We are obsessed as a society with trivialities, for which only narcissism need suffice, rather than substance, which requires character and integrity.
Your keyboard seems to have replaced "the Tory membership" with "a society" for some reason.
Read the article. In this case Casino has half a point. What he doesn't address is this part of Marina Hyde's argument. ...I know some politicians and some pundits bang on disparagingly about the “woke mind virus” or whatever, but I often think they must be secretly thrilled with the virtue games of recent times. It really couldn’t suit them more. How much better to have people sidelined into endless 24- or 48-hour online meltdowns, in which they are either pitted against one another litigating the narcissism of small differences – the dream! – or obsessing about one person’s transgressions and leaving iniquitous and dysfunctional systems free to sail on regardless.
Some of this is thought to be generational, and I have nothing but sympathy for the generations that come after mine, who have been shut out of so much of what they are entitled to and which most of those who criticise them simply took for granted...
There is also a certain kind of mentality that obsesses over "process" to the point of ignoring actually processing stuff.
The situation in Hackney social derives, where a huge chunk of time and effort was spent on the "process" of "investigating" a social worker who has shouted, once, at a teenage girl, comes to mind.
The said social worker was upsetting everyone with her repeatedly raising the problem of suspected abuse of a baby....
A sort of malevolent Bike Shedding.
Yes, I think the Post Office scandal was far more about a lack of critical thought, trust in the establishment and processes and people keeping their head down rather than standing up for others, than to do with narcissism and triviality.
I think there was a big element of actively avoiding the truth. To such people, presenting the truth would mean actively blaming people. This would cause a firestorm among the cliques and tongs at the top of the big organisations in question. The blame might even end up pointing at people responsible for he problem!
Much better that unimportant people be sent to prison and commit suicide.
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
OJ is hardly an 'ultra processed' food.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor. I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks. Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling. A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
While I mostly agree, I think care is needed with orange juice (and other juices). They are clearly processed, unless you slice your orange and squeeze it yourself. Many are made by dehydrating and rehydrating. Many come 'without bits', removing the last trace of any fibre that might help.
Better than a sugary can, or squash I'm sure, but better still to eat the whole orange.
Ah, but dehydration/rehydration may be a little of a red herring. Do I want to transport South African rain water around the world rather than rehydrate with food grade English potable water? Possibly not, unless it fundamentally changes the nutritional value of the underlying juice.
"Processing" covers a lot of very, very diverse things - judge the process by the process itself, not the mere fact it is a process.
I try to treat "organic" and "all natural" in the same way, rather than as some inalienable shorthand for "good". It's complicated and no doubt I make lots of choices on very partial information, but trying to exercise some extra level of judgement is no bad thing.
We are obsessed as a society with trivialities, for which only narcissism need suffice, rather than substance, which requires character and integrity.
Your keyboard seems to have replaced "the Tory membership" with "a society" for some reason.
Read the article. In this case Casino has half a point. What he doesn't address is this part of Marina Hyde's argument. ...I know some politicians and some pundits bang on disparagingly about the “woke mind virus” or whatever, but I often think they must be secretly thrilled with the virtue games of recent times. It really couldn’t suit them more. How much better to have people sidelined into endless 24- or 48-hour online meltdowns, in which they are either pitted against one another litigating the narcissism of small differences – the dream! – or obsessing about one person’s transgressions and leaving iniquitous and dysfunctional systems free to sail on regardless.
Some of this is thought to be generational, and I have nothing but sympathy for the generations that come after mine, who have been shut out of so much of what they are entitled to and which most of those who criticise them simply took for granted...
There is also a certain kind of mentality that obsesses over "process" to the point of ignoring actually processing stuff.
The situation in Hackney social derives, where a huge chunk of time and effort was spent on the "process" of "investigating" a social worker who has shouted, once, at a teenage girl, comes to mind.
The said social worker was upsetting everyone with her repeatedly raising the problem of suspected abuse of a baby....
A sort of malevolent Bike Shedding.
Yes, I think the Post Office scandal was far more about a lack of critical thought, trust in the establishment and processes and people keeping their head down rather than standing up for others, than to do with narcissism and triviality.
I think there was a big element of actively avoiding the truth. To such people, presenting the truth would mean actively blaming people. This would cause a firestorm among the cliques and tongs at the top of the big organisations in question. The blame might even end up pointing at people responsible for he problem!
Much better that unimportant people be sent to prison and commit suicide.
If that isn't narcissism, then what is?
More conflict avoidance imo. Elements of narcissism but to me the difference is its the organisation and process that is primary rather than the individual(s).
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LDs got 19% in 2019, much higher than their current voteshare and gained councils from Chelmsford to Guildford and South Oxfordshire they are now defending
You've been told several times that you're wrong.
The Lib Dems were getting 9-10% in the polls in April 2019. Not 19%. There are routes where the LDs end up losing out to the Tories (due to defending records, or local factors), but not due to the polls.
If you're continuing to compare the largest NEV you can find from 2019 to the GE election polls after all the correction, that's starting to be outright dishonest.
How about delaying university entrance one year after A levels.
Thus allowing school leavers to do do some work or travel or something for themselves for a year and so get some experience outside a controlled academic environment.
They might then have a better idea of whether university is the thing for them or at least whether the course they wanted is still the right one.
I quite like this idea. Of all the many things wrong with our current model, one of the biggest is that university is simply seen as the next step on the treadmill. 18 year olds really shouldn't be going to university simply because it's the next thing to do.
Trying to chose the path of your life at 18 is bizarre.
In the 1990s, when I was at uni, a good 15% of the people on the course I was on were older people. Who had either bombed out trying to go to uni, years before or never attempted it previously.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
I did too. It was America at its worst and Blair at his worst. And did he lie to get his way? As near as makes no difference. Deserves all the shit that comes his way for the whole debacle.
However you do get a kind of retro-wise pile-on when it comes to the evil Tony and Iraq. Wildly exaggerated things get said quite freely. Often by people who were not massively opposed at the time. Certainly if they are Tory supporters they probably weren't.
Although of course everybody was passionately opposed at the time now, weren't they? The whole country were writing into the papers and on that march.
Wrong, 63% of British voters backed sending troops into Iraq in 2003 as did I.
Blair and Bush as I said got it right, Iraq is now Saddam free. If Gore had won in 2000 Saddam would still be leading Iraq and backing Putin and Islamic militants. While it was under Biden that Afghanistan has returned to the Taliban. So in retrospect it is Gore and Biden who made the biggest mistakes in the Middle East, not Bush and Blair
The period since 2016 has truly been a low, dishonest decade.
1997 to 2007.....
Whatabout it ?
An equally appalling period in our lifetime millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr
That's a nonsense though. Iraq would have happened without the UK. Bush & Co were set on it.
Maybe, but it didnt mean our government had go along with it and to lie in order to go along with it,
There's no 'maybe' about it. The US were doing Iraq anyway so the statement that "millions died as a result of Blair cosying up to George Bush jnr" is inaccurate and therefore merited a correction.
As to the whole thing being a shitshow that shouldn't have happened and that in any case we should have stayed out of - well yes obviously. Is there anybody at all these days who thinks any different?
The war part and deposing Saddam Hussein worked fine. What caused the shitshow was the utter failure to plan in advance for what happened after the initial aim was achieved.
This seems oddly familiar, somehow.
How do 'subsequent shitshows' now rank between Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya ?
British forces have flown 8,000 combat missions over Iraq and Syria since 2015 without any noticeable results so Iraq must easily be the gold standard of shit shows.
The RAF are now just continuing with it to make closing Akrotiri problematic. Sucks for the Iraqis but we face difficult choices in a turbulent world.
How pro-western is the Iraqi government compared to Saddam ?
Given that Afghanistan ended with the Taliban back in control it takes some beating as a 'nation building' failure.
We are obsessed as a society with trivialities, for which only narcissism need suffice, rather than substance, which requires character and integrity.
Your keyboard seems to have replaced "the Tory membership" with "a society" for some reason.
Read the article. In this case Casino has half a point. What he doesn't address is this part of Marina Hyde's argument. ...I know some politicians and some pundits bang on disparagingly about the “woke mind virus” or whatever, but I often think they must be secretly thrilled with the virtue games of recent times. It really couldn’t suit them more. How much better to have people sidelined into endless 24- or 48-hour online meltdowns, in which they are either pitted against one another litigating the narcissism of small differences – the dream! – or obsessing about one person’s transgressions and leaving iniquitous and dysfunctional systems free to sail on regardless.
Some of this is thought to be generational, and I have nothing but sympathy for the generations that come after mine, who have been shut out of so much of what they are entitled to and which most of those who criticise them simply took for granted...
There is also a certain kind of mentality that obsesses over "process" to the point of ignoring actually processing stuff.
The situation in Hackney social derives, where a huge chunk of time and effort was spent on the "process" of "investigating" a social worker who has shouted, once, at a teenage girl, comes to mind.
The said social worker was upsetting everyone with her repeatedly raising the problem of suspected abuse of a baby....
A sort of malevolent Bike Shedding.
Yes, I think the Post Office scandal was far more about a lack of critical thought, trust in the establishment and processes and people keeping their head down rather than standing up for others, than to do with narcissism and triviality.
I think there was a big element of actively avoiding the truth. To such people, presenting the truth would mean actively blaming people. This would cause a firestorm among the cliques and tongs at the top of the big organisations in question. The blame might even end up pointing at people responsible for he problem!
Much better that unimportant people be sent to prison and commit suicide.
If that isn't narcissism, then what is?
More conflict avoidance imo. Elements of narcissism but to me the difference is its the organisation and process that is primary rather than the individual(s).
How about delaying university entrance one year after A levels.
Thus allowing school leavers to do do some work or travel or something for themselves for a year and so get some experience outside a controlled academic environment.
They might then have a better idea of whether university is the thing for them or at least whether the course they wanted is still the right one.
Where are the jobs to do that?
30 years ago I managed to get a job between A levels and Uni but few other pupils had the opportunity to do so.
And having seen the chances my children got I suspect it would be harder now than then to find a job - 30 years ago many people went straight from School to Uni now most places want you to have a degree...
No shortage of job vacancies currently.
And 30 years ago you didn't leave university £50k in debt.
Encouraging teenagers to do that now before they have any experience of the outside world is financial abuse.
So go and drum that story into every Secondary School head because the current route to work for anyone bright is -> School -> 6 form -> Uni.
Now a few people will hit lucky and discover what a degree apprenticeship is and most haven't a clue that they exist but that comes at a cost of losing your school friends who go off to uni.
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast Con -490 Lab +400 LD +20 Others +70
Stephen Fisher works on the exit poll so I am not doubting his psephological skills but that Lib Dem figure seems low to me.
The LDs got 19% in 2019, much higher than their current voteshare and gained councils from Chelmsford to Guildford and South Oxfordshire they are now defending
You've been told several times that you're wrong.
The Lib Dems were getting 9-10% in the polls in April 2019. Not 19%. There are routes where the LDs end up losing out to the Tories (due to defending records, or local factors), but not due to the polls.
If you're continuing to compare the largest NEV you can find from 2019 to the GE election polls after all the correction, that's starting to be outright dishonest.
Even so you are saying their position is at most unchanged, so again answers TSE's point on why the LDs will not make big gains on Thursday given the Tory voteshare is also similar to May 2019
I did in fact post it yesterday. Only second class though, so it might be a few days before it shows up
Seriously though, as Cyclefree said, so many things went wrong here for so long that it's hard to know where to start. The willingness to accept a computer system as infallible and proof of guilt is itself shocking, but the apparent lack of accountability for what went wrong baffles me.
There's been far too little discussion of some of the strikingly repressive legislation passed yesterday.
As I expect Cyclefree and other lawyers will often confirm, it's now only a matter of time before powers with as wide a scope as stopping and searching any protestors police believe are "intending to cause disruption" are widely abused. Likewise, on previous form, the new powers on stopping any demonstration "blocking infrastructure and roads" are eventually likely to become widely abused, to prevent any demonstration using a public road that some or other authorities don't like. This is just in the nature of policing and exercise of power, once you give people very wide leeway.
This is serious stuff, and requires much wider discussion.
Most of our neighbours do not have laws like this.
We are obsessed as a society with trivialities, for which only narcissism need suffice, rather than substance, which requires character and integrity.
Your keyboard seems to have replaced "the Tory membership" with "a society" for some reason.
Read the article. In this case Casino has half a point. What he doesn't address is this part of Marina Hyde's argument. ...I know some politicians and some pundits bang on disparagingly about the “woke mind virus” or whatever, but I often think they must be secretly thrilled with the virtue games of recent times. It really couldn’t suit them more. How much better to have people sidelined into endless 24- or 48-hour online meltdowns, in which they are either pitted against one another litigating the narcissism of small differences – the dream! – or obsessing about one person’s transgressions and leaving iniquitous and dysfunctional systems free to sail on regardless.
Some of this is thought to be generational, and I have nothing but sympathy for the generations that come after mine, who have been shut out of so much of what they are entitled to and which most of those who criticise them simply took for granted...
There is also a certain kind of mentality that obsesses over "process" to the point of ignoring actually processing stuff.
The situation in Hackney social derives, where a huge chunk of time and effort was spent on the "process" of "investigating" a social worker who has shouted, once, at a teenage girl, comes to mind.
The said social worker was upsetting everyone with her repeatedly raising the problem of suspected abuse of a baby....
A sort of malevolent Bike Shedding.
Yes, I think the Post Office scandal was far more about a lack of critical thought, trust in the establishment and processes and people keeping their head down rather than standing up for others, than to do with narcissism and triviality.
I think there was a big element of actively avoiding the truth. To such people, presenting the truth would mean actively blaming people. This would cause a firestorm among the cliques and tongs at the top of the big organisations in question. The blame might even end up pointing at people responsible for he problem!
Much better that unimportant people be sent to prison and commit suicide.
If that isn't narcissism, then what is?
More conflict avoidance imo. Elements of narcissism but to me the difference is its the organisation and process that is primary rather than the individual(s).
That's the excuse. The realty is self protection.
The people committing such acts wont generally be narcissists (1-5% of the population). The organisation and culture sucks in far too many ordinary people to such acts (or indeed lack of necessary actions).
I did in fact post it yesterday. Only second class though, so it might be a few days before it shows up
Seriously though, as Cyclefree said, so many things went wrong here for so long that it's hard to know where to start. The willingness to accept a computer system as infallible and proof of guilt is itself shocking, but the apparent lack of accountability for what went wrong baffles me.
The people who made the decisions are too senior to be blamed.
See the case against the trustees of Kids Company - it was actually said that holding them legally liable for their legal liability would be bad.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
I did too. It was America at its worst and Blair at his worst. And did he lie to get his way? As near as makes no difference. Deserves all the shit that comes his way for the whole debacle.
However you do get a kind of retro-wise pile-on when it comes to the evil Tony and Iraq. Wildly exaggerated things get said quite freely. Often by people who were not massively opposed at the time. Certainly if they are Tory supporters they probably weren't.
Although of course everybody was passionately opposed at the time now, weren't they? The whole country were writing into the papers and on that march.
Wrong, 63% of British voters backed sending troops into Iraq in 2003 as did I.
Blair and Bush as I said got it right, Iraq is now Saddam free. If Gore had won in 2000 Saddam would still be leading Iraq and backing Putin and Islamic militants. While it was under Biden that Afghanistan has returned to the Taliban. So in retrospect it is Gore and Biden who made the biggest mistakes in the Middle East, not Bush and Blair
I am not quite sure how you have failed to include Starmer in the retrospective blame game? I thought this was mandatory?
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
I did too. It was America at its worst and Blair at his worst. And did he lie to get his way? As near as makes no difference. Deserves all the shit that comes his way for the whole debacle.
However you do get a kind of retro-wise pile-on when it comes to the evil Tony and Iraq. Wildly exaggerated things get said quite freely. Often by people who were not massively opposed at the time. Certainly if they are Tory supporters they probably weren't.
Although of course everybody was passionately opposed at the time now, weren't they? The whole country were writing into the papers and on that march.
Wrong, 63% of British voters backed sending troops into Iraq in 2003 as did I.
Blair and Bush as I said got it right, Iraq is now Saddam free. If Gore had won in 2000 Saddam would still be leading Iraq and backing Putin and Islamic militants. While it was under Biden that Afghanistan has returned to the Taliban. So in retrospect it is Gore and Biden who made the biggest mistakes in the Middle East, not Bush and Blair
I am not quite sure how you have failed to include Starmer in the retrospective blame game? I thought this was mandatory?
Starmer opposed the Iraq War too of course, another reason why he is no Blair
Banning smoking is repressive. Better to liberalise marijuana use the better to regulate its strength and availability.
As for sugary foods, I rather think the culprit is ultra-high processed foods, not just sugar. Personally I avoid orange juice precisely because it is too sweet, but I doubt there many out there getting fat on it.
Excess sugar absolutely contributes to weight gain. Ultra processed foods shouldn't even really be called foods, dieticians now call then industrially manufactured edible products. If we could get a grip on what we eat, the nation would be a lot healthier and happier.
OJ is hardly an 'ultra processed' food.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor. I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks. Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling. A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
While I mostly agree, I think care is needed with orange juice (and other juices). They are clearly processed, unless you slice your orange and squeeze it yourself. Many are made by dehydrating and rehydrating. Many come 'without bits', removing the last trace of any fibre that might help.
Better than a sugary can, or squash I'm sure, but better still to eat the whole orange.
Ah, but dehydration/rehydration may be a little of a red herring. Do I want to transport South African rain water around the world rather than rehydrate with food grade English potable water? Possibly not, unless it fundamentally changes the nutritional value of the underlying juice.
"Processing" covers a lot of very, very diverse things - judge the process by the process itself, not the mere fact it is a process...
The tofu I mentioned above is, of course, a highly processed food.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
I did too. It was America at its worst and Blair at his worst. And did he lie to get his way? As near as makes no difference. Deserves all the shit that comes his way for the whole debacle.
However you do get a kind of retro-wise pile-on when it comes to the evil Tony and Iraq. Wildly exaggerated things get said quite freely. Often by people who were not massively opposed at the time. Certainly if they are Tory supporters they probably weren't.
Although of course everybody was passionately opposed at the time now, weren't they? The whole country were writing into the papers and on that march.
Wrong, 63% of British voters backed sending troops into Iraq in 2003 as did I.
Blair and Bush as I said got it right, Iraq is now Saddam free. If Gore had won in 2000 Saddam would still be leading Iraq and backing Putin and Islamic militants. While it was under Biden that Afghanistan has returned to the Taliban. So in retrospect it is Gore and Biden who made the biggest mistakes in the Middle East, not Bush and Blair
Not wrong because that's exactly my point! Not that it was right - it very much wasn't - but that lots of people who say now what an abomination it was were supportive or at least sanguine about it when it was happening. You're in a minority in not indulging in this. You stick like a mule with being wrong about it being right and there's a kind of perverse credit in that in my book. Better this imo than right wingers who use Iraq to pile into their hate figure Blair when they didn't oppose Iraq at the time.
Martin Ross @martingrantross Men’s 2018 WC v Women’s 2019 WC global live average audience comparison by competition stage:
• Final: 517m v 82.2m • SFs: 321m v 38.4m • QFs: 261m v 27.2m • RO16: 246m v 22.7m • Group stage: 162m v 11.9m
Source: FIFA global audience report figures compiled by Publicis
Aggregate viewing figures of 1.020B for the women's WC and 11.947B for the men.
& the exact answer would depend on the third place playoff figures - but fair value for rights with those figures suggests the women's WC rights have a fair value of 8.5% of the men's.
Up to a point. FIFA would also need to know the value of those audiences in different advertising markets (and also, to be fair to FIFA, how likely those would be to spread the game).
It might be slightly higher or lower than 8.5% depending on the relative continental sizes and advertising/spending power of the viewing demographics but that breakdown isn't provided so ceteris paribus 8.5% is correct.
My guess is the USA would have been the market where the women's WC was closest in viewing figures (And hence rights value) to the men.
But the USA is also where eyeballs on adverts cost most in the world, so that would raise the value of the women's tournament.
SKS is pretty sh*te at politics as well as being a sh*te leader. However, he is far better than the cabal he replaced - it’s not that long ago that people like Dianne “can’t add up” Abbott and Dawn “thick as mince” Butler were in frontline politics. Thank God these characters have been banished.
Anyway, SKS is the best we have currently and he will most likely eject this awful Government who have presided over 13 years of mis-rule.
Comments
Voters are thick and they dont care about SKS lies cos he beat "JEZBOLLAH"
Fund higher education by paying Unis a set fee per pupil. Cut the number of places back to about 25-30% of each cohort year not the current target of 50%. If this means vice chancellors cant pay themselves £500k a year thats a good thing. Pay for higher education by removing the foreign aid 0.7% mandate and reduce to something like 0.3%. which is closer to the global average, that should be worth about £10bn which covers the Uni costs. As for those who wont now go to Uni, apprenticeships offer a sensible way forward and suddenly there are several thousand people looking for jobs to fill all those vacancies we cant fill.
Currently the poor bastards in their 20s will be paying for their loans and just when they clear their debts the onus the defaulters will hit them and they will get taxed twice for the same mess. The system sucks,
There are also signs, as discussed by many yesterday, that the improvement in Tory fortunes is a hitting a ceiling, anyway, however he performs, with the Lib Dem rises also including more signs of an increased switching over to tactical voting.
https://electionsetc.com/2023/05/03/local-elections-seat-projections-for-2023/
His model compares the national polling 4 years ago with polling now to give a forecast based on historic movements.
Forecast
Con -490
Lab +400
LD +20
Others +70
Did you compromise or were you happy to see the Tories win?
If you didnt vote Labour is it OK to call you a stinking Hypocrite?
The cabinet secretary forced ministers to weaken a highly critical statement on the departure of Sue Gray from the civil service to become Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, The Times has been told.
Simon Case intervened yesterday to block plans to accuse Gray of breaching the civil service code in a statement before the local elections. He is said to have got “cold feet” about allowing publication of details of an interim report accusing Gray of failing to act with honesty, integrity and impartiality.
Ministers have submitted the accusation to the Whitehall watchdog that is considering whether to ban Gray from taking up her job with Starmer for up to two years. The Labour leader yesterday said that he was confident that she did not breach the rules.
An internal inquiry had been paused after Gray refused to co-operate but last week ministers submitted evidence to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) based on its initial findings. One source familiar with the report said that it was “flimsy” and lacked evidence. Another said that there were significant legal issues.
In a one-page statement, Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, said he was unable to publish details, “in order to maintain confidentiality towards an individual former employee”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sue-gray-latest-news-partygate-keir-starmer-civil-service-live-2023-5lkj6ctg8
Thoughts and prayers for Dan Hodges and his fans who thought this would destroy Starmer.
Like Beergate, only the gullible and partisan fell for it.
There was much else that went wrong between 1997 and 2007 but compared with this lot? Nah, it's no contest.
Not a single post has tried to argue that SKS isnt a massive liar only that its OK for Centrists to lie but not Tories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q6K5faghUg
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/02/keir-starmer-labour-tuition-fees-politics-sketch
I expect thousands of Conservative Councillors to sweep in to office as the voting public shows its revulsion at Graygate and the corrupt Opposition Party.
I also expect Tottenham Hotspurs to remove Daniel Levy and make a sensible managerial appointment.
I mean it shows how shit Corbyn was that he lost a PR battle against Virgin Trains.
https://twitter.com/martingrantross/status/1653519162981994501
Martin Ross
@martingrantross
Men’s 2018 WC v Women’s 2019 WC global live average audience comparison by competition stage:
• Final: 517m v 82.2m
• SFs: 321m v 38.4m
• QFs: 261m v 27.2m
• RO16: 246m v 22.7m
• Group stage: 162m v 11.9m
Source: FIFA global audience report figures compiled by Publicis
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/38479
By contrast, the Liberal Democrats have tended to overperform the model since the coalition government ended in 2015. If that tendency continues this year, the Liberal Democrats should be more likely to make net gains of around +240 seats. Even though continued overperformance relative to the basic model seems reasonable this year, it cannot work forever. So I have declined to adjust the model in a way that implies the party will outperform the polls indefinitely.
Dan Hodges, Harry Cole and all other Tory client journalists - “Cheers, I’ll write it up.”
Proper journalist - “Wow, I will look out for it. What were the inquiry's terms, who set them, what evidence did it uncover, who were the witnesses, what did they say?”
All the best with the serious medical news, whatever it might be.
I've had a look at the Wikipedia page to refresh my memory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
While it's useful, what it doesn't fully explain is how well known within the industry were the problems with the Post Office system, quite early on (I recall reading regular articles in Computer Weekly).
The collaboration of the judiciary with what were fatally flawed private prosecutions suggest many judges were no fit for their roles, either.
If anything the Conservatives could end up being thumped across the Home Counties.
It feels more 2010 than 1997, there is no enthusiasm for Starmer as there was for Blair then. Like Cameron in 2010 it is more a case of him being seem as a reasonably competent and centrist alternative to an unpopular government but with reservations about his party still which there weren't about New Labour
& the exact answer would depend on the third place playoff figures - but fair value for rights with those figures suggests the women's WC rights have a fair value of 8.5% of the men's.
But it's a step up from rock bottom.
My parents live in Tunbridge Wells where the LDs took control last year and the local Tories will likely gain seats there due to the unpopular budget and parking restrictions the LD administration is imposing
Or rather, fine as a drink if that's your bag but near villainous to market it as a health drink. Has a huge amount of calories and sugar and whatnot.
It is the Leavers I fear for most because as we have established they are most susceptible to such rubbish, not being the brightest sparks in the firework display, and therefore need saving from themselves.
Go on George!
His son, or sons, might have taken over, but they wouldn’t have had the backing.
Anyway, it was an illegal war, which the US, and very certainly the UK, should never have been involved in!
Quite funny really.
As i say nobody can make it OK for either Party to run on integrity now.
In the 1960s the UK resisted becoming involved in Vietnam (like Canada, but unlike Australia) and we could have avoided Iraq too... but our leaders still believe(d) in the "Special Relationship", for which we get ever diminishing returns as the US looks away from Europe and towards Asia. While the current Brexit mess leaves us even more dependent on a Washington that actually doesn´t care about a second rank declining power, the time is coming where we will need to face some critical home truths about ourselves, our interests and our capabilities.
I have a feeling that fairly soon how the Mail and @DPJHodges got hold of that confidential non-report into Sue Gray days before a national election will itself become a story.
We, along with France are the second strongest militaries in the western alliance so of course the US cares what we think. We also have a veto on the UN Security Council as France, Russia and China do so the US cannot ignore us
The situation in Hackney social derives, where a huge chunk of time and effort was spent on the "process" of "investigating" a social worker who has shouted, once, at a teenage girl, comes to mind.
The said social worker was upsetting everyone with her repeatedly raising the problem of suspected abuse of a baby....
A sort of malevolent Bike Shedding.
It's a decent source of potassium, and slightly less usefully, calcium. Drink in moderation, it's fine.
As an aside, after a recent brush with high blood pressure, it's notable just how much salt is in processed foods, which seems to be a major contributor.
I solved the problem by eating raw tofu and a bit of raw veg for breakfast and lunch for a couple of weeks.
Utterly tasteless and boring, but palatable, no salt, very low calories, very high in protein, and very filling.
A miracle diet for high blood pressure, apparently.
Enter Boris.
The numbers to look out for this year are not the seat changes but the NEVs.
As to the whole thing being a shitshow that shouldn't have happened and that in any case we should have stayed out of - well yes obviously. Is there anybody at all these days who thinks any different?
Just wait till The Sun and Mail get their attack dogs on this for 28 consequtive days
https://twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1653659600359419906
Average university degree is 3 x 30 week years. Why not simply make 2 x 45 week years versions available as alternatives?
Students get an extra years earnings, £25k or so, which is a bigger change than scrapping tuition fees would be.
This seems oddly familiar, somehow.
https://twitter.com/proudgranny24/status/1653666792349335552?s=61&t=c6bcp0cjChLfQN5Tc8A_6g
How about delaying university entrance one year after A levels.
Thus allowing school leavers to do do some work or travel or something for themselves for a year and so get some experience outside a controlled academic environment.
They might then have a better idea of whether university is the thing for them or at least whether the course they wanted is still the right one.
My guess is the USA would have been the market where the women's WC was closest in viewing figures (And hence rights value) to the men.
Better than a sugary can, or squash I'm sure, but better still to eat the whole orange.
The post-Brexit settlement is that a pledge isn't a pledge, and if you cling to something that you once said even as it becomes clear its no longer a good idea then you're mad.
Jacob Rees-Mogg did a complete u-turn on import controls, describing their solemn pledge of a few years ago as "an act of national self-harm" now. He isn't being attacked as a liar - the pledge was stupid and needed to go.
The difference with Starmer is that your flavour of absolutism doesn't accept that the pledge should never have been made.
Why anyone wants to ban it, rather than look at the rest of the products of the processed food industry, is beyond me.
30 years ago I managed to get a job between A levels and Uni but few other pupils had the opportunity to do so.
And having seen the chances my children got I suspect it would be harder now than then to find a job - 30 years ago many people went straight from School to Uni now most places want you to have a degree...
Also one persons moderation is another's two litres a day,
Of all the many things wrong with our current model, one of the biggest is that university is simply seen as the next step on the treadmill.
18 year olds really shouldn't be going to university simply because it's the next thing to do.
And 30 years ago you didn't leave university £50k in debt.
Encouraging teenagers to do that now before they have any experience of the outside world is financial abuse.
The RAF are now just continuing with it to make closing Akrotiri problematic. Sucks for the Iraqis but we face difficult choices in a turbulent world.
However you do get a kind of retro-wise pile-on when it comes to the evil Tony and Iraq. Wildly exaggerated things get said quite freely. Often by people who were not massively opposed at the time. Certainly if they are Tory supporters they probably weren't.
Although of course everybody was passionately opposed at the time now, weren't they? The whole country were writing into the papers and on that march.
Much better that unimportant people be sent to prison and commit suicide.
If that isn't narcissism, then what is?
"Processing" covers a lot of very, very diverse things - judge the process by the process itself, not the mere fact it is a process.
I try to treat "organic" and "all natural" in the same way, rather than as some inalienable shorthand for "good". It's complicated and no doubt I make lots of choices on very partial information, but trying to exercise some extra level of judgement is no bad thing.
The Lib Dems were getting 9-10% in the polls in April 2019. Not 19%.
There are routes where the LDs end up losing out to the Tories (due to defending records, or local factors), but not due to the polls.
If you're continuing to compare the largest NEV you can find from 2019 to the GE election polls after all the correction, that's starting to be outright dishonest.
In the 1990s, when I was at uni, a good 15% of the people on the course I was on were older people. Who had either bombed out trying to go to uni, years before or never attempted it previously.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2015/06/03/remembering-iraq
Blair and Bush as I said got it right, Iraq is now Saddam free. If Gore had won in 2000 Saddam would still be leading Iraq and backing Putin and Islamic militants. While it was under Biden that Afghanistan has returned to the Taliban. So in retrospect it is Gore and Biden who made the biggest mistakes in the Middle East, not Bush and Blair
Given that Afghanistan ended with the Taliban back in control it takes some beating as a 'nation building' failure.
Now a few people will hit lucky and discover what a degree apprenticeship is and most haven't a clue that they exist but that comes at a cost of losing your school friends who go off to uni.
Seriously though, as Cyclefree said, so many things went wrong here for so long that it's hard to know where to start. The willingness to accept a computer system as infallible and proof of guilt is itself shocking, but the apparent lack of accountability for what went wrong baffles me.
As I expect Cyclefree and other lawyers will often confirm, it's now only a matter of time before powers with as wide a scope as stopping and searching any protestors police believe are "intending to cause disruption" are widely abused. Likewise, on previous form, the new powers on stopping any demonstration "blocking infrastructure and roads" are eventually likely to become widely abused, to prevent any demonstration using a public road that some or other authorities don't like. This is just in the nature of policing and exercise of power, once you give people very wide leeway.
This is serious stuff, and requires much wider discussion.
Most of our neighbours do not have laws like this.
See the case against the trustees of Kids Company - it was actually said that holding them legally liable for their legal liability would be bad.
LAB will do well and get lots of gains but their adjusted national vote share will not be what they are looking for.
As others have said LDs will do better than their current polling implies but it won't be spectacular.
CON will indeed do poorly but not as much as some might expect.
Smaller parties including GRN and independents will do well as voters show their general dissatisfaction with both CON and LAB.
Overall - just like in 2019 - not too much guide to the next GE.
Anyway, SKS is the best we have currently and he will most likely eject this awful Government who have presided over 13 years of mis-rule.