Categories
Why I’m reluctant to bet on a LAB majority pt2 – politicalbetting.com
Why I’m reluctant to bet on a LAB majority pt2 – politicalbetting.com
Probably the biggest Westminster by-election shock of recent times was the failure by LAB to take Boris Johnson’s old seat at Uxbridge in the July contest.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
That situation was unique and equally not helped by Labour not pointing it he was only doing so because the Treasury was forcing the implementation to be extended throughout London...
I was disappointed in Labour more by their inability / unwillingness to point out that the ULEZ zone is Sunak's fault than the fact they lost by a small amount.
Something we should be looking at doing here.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/holidays/article-12483669/How-Macron-destroying-dream-owning-holiday-home-France-Britons-facing-60-property-tax-hike.html
As for this statement "British citizens can no longer spend more than 90 days in EU countries in any 180-day period." Is this the case for all Brits or just those who were not living in the EU prior to Brexit ?
Lol.
Bet he's got all of Keeping Up Appearances on VHS too.
PB - should I walk up the Long Mynd?
Everyone here goes on about it
If your bad result is still good, that’s a good situation to be in.
As the old weather proverb says “long foretold, long last; short notice, soon passed”.
Straight drama is in no way edgy or provactive. Your defences are already up. You know before it starts it's going to try to make you feel something. And real life is never as one dimensional as drama makes it look. Good sitcoms are amongst the highest of art forms; they are funny, but because they are funny, the not-straightforwardly-funny bits hit home that much more. I'd say the only times I've ever cried at fictional telly has been at sitcoms.
And OFITG is a good sitcom. Among the top ten British sitcoms ever written.
Also, the first series was bleak. As was the ending.
He's just got off at Swinton.
I used to love the Horseshoe at Bridges (on the opposite side of the Mynd) years ago as a proper unspoilt rural pub. It's now called the Bridges and has gone all nose-to-tail gastro but apparently it's still ok - haven't been there for several years.
Darkness is at the heart of everything David Renwick ever did - see also Jonathon Creek (the later episodes in particular). In OFITG there is an obvious lack of children and grandchildren, and there are hint throughout the show of a trauma from a long time ago. I think its the contrast between Meldrews rants at the stuff that happens to him/them, but at heart its because he cares. See the episode where Margaret contemplates an affair.
I don't discount it - I just don't think its very likely. Even if they still have the talent at Central Office I suspect the politicos would overrule them. Mr Sunak's genius at winning political campaigns was revealed about this time last year when even Liz Truss had few problems with him.
I also suspect the Cons could hold some marginals - the problem will be that they seem odds-on to lose a sizable number of (theoretically) non-marginals.
As has been written elsewhere - Uxbridge seems doomed to join Darlington, Crosby and Bradford West in the long, long, list of BEs that proved less than predictive
Blackadder goes forth (earlier series were upper class).
To the manor born
Motherland
Fawlty towers (borderline)
Peep show
Black books
Miranda
US: Seinfeld, Frazier, Friends, Curb your Enthusiasm, modern family
Brown Clee is also nice (and a county top) and offers quite surprisingly expansive views.
https://fullfact.org/online/ulez-expansion-letter/
Although there has been work by ICAO and other bodies to eradicate non-unique waypoint names there are duplicates around the world. In order to avoid confusion latest standards state that such identical designators should be geographically widely spaced. In this specific event, both of the waypoints were located outside of the UK, one towards the beginning of the route and one towards the end; approximately 4000 nautical miles apart.
I'm genuinely amazed that such a thing is allowed. If you are processing a graph and there are duplicate IDs/names that is just asking for trouble. It seems to have been assumed that if they are far enough apart it won't cause a problem in practice, well clearly that's not correct.
Here's the fix.
Yeah, get cracking on that, it's ridiculous that they aren't unique.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_See_God,_Tell_Him?wprov=sfla1
Interesting thoughts on Corbyn, and you'd have a better idea of the man's "big tent" personal instincts of course.
Although wouldn't another take be that he was just being realistic on this point? If he'd been exclusive in the way Momentum headbangers might have wanted, he'd literally not be able to fill the front bench, and would even have risked a proper split (100+ MPs rather than the 28 of the SDP or half dozen of Change UK).
I wonder what you think of McDonnell in all this? Whilst I can kind of buy into the story that Corbyn's personal instinct was NOT to be ruthless and let a thousand flowers bloom in the Labour Party, I find that harder to believe with McDonnell. Was he not a pretty ruthless guy, who was also realistic about how far he could push it? Similarly, but more so, Seamus Milne?
--------------
Even after the revolt/coup attempt he was able to fill the front bench. But the key decision was not pushing systematic deselection, as Chris Williamson and the hard-core wing of Momentum wanted. Lots of centrist MPs were reselected with minimal opposition. If Corbyn had been as ruthless as Starmer is being now, the 2017 candidates would have been much more left-wing and the revolt would have been dampened. I'm not convinced that it would have made much difference to the election - most people vote for the party, especially when the candidate is little-known. But Corbyn is as rigid in his personal principles as he is on policy - he was flatly against targeting individuals, so it largely didn't happen.
I don't know much more about Seamus Milne than we've all read. I do know (and like) John McDonnell. He is far more a "normal" politician, which includes both ruthlessness and pragmatism as called for in any particular situation. He reminds me more than anyone of Ed Balls, except for being obviously more left-wing. I think he'd have been much more likely to go for deselections, though as you say constrained by how far he could push it. I'm not sure he'd have been a more successful leader. Partly he had similar gaffes that would have been exploited. Also, I'm not sure he'd have got the 35 signatures. As Alex Nunn's 2018 book observes, there were only 20 MPs who were genuinely keen, and some of the others only signed because they felt Jeremy was such a nice man that they were up for giving him a hand (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Candidate-Jeremy-Corbyns-Improbable-Power/dp/1682191044). I don't think McDonnell attracted personal affection in quite the same way, as he was seen as personally combative rather than merely dedicated.
Apologies to readers who rightly feel this is all water under the bridge. I only post on it because I know a bit about the people involved, so it maybe contributes to a nuanced view of recent history.
Collisions are pretty likely: head to https://opennav.com/search & search for PINTO. You’ll get three responses.
Eliminating them requires two (or three) different ATC systems in countries that don’t necessarily get along to agree to the change. Repeat until you’ve eliminated all the duplicates in the system.
We Asked the 2024 Candidates to Pick the Songs That Stir Their Souls
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/06/top-20-songs-chris-christie-nikki-haley-will-hurd-cornel-west-00113795
There’s a gliding club up there by the way, give them a call if you want to take a look from the air!
https://www.midlandgliding.club/
Who would make the better CotE
Jeremy Hunt: 17% (+1)
Rachel Reeves: 14% (-3)
---
Don't know: 69% (+3)
Via
@YouGov
, 21 Aug (+/- vs 24 Jul
Let me start with the attack on the grain in Reni. It is unclear whether any missiles or drones landed on Nato territory, the Ukrainians claim they did and there seems to be little attempt to geolocate etc to get to the bottom of it. No surprise as we saw something similar with Poland last year. Why does Putin feel emboldened to take such a risk anyway right on a Nato border? We are talking about grain being sent to feed some of the world's poorest people. What is to stop Romanian air defence from shooting down missiles near their border with Ukraine. I'm sure the Ukrainians would not object. But even this is too much of an escalation for Nato. All they would be doing is neutralising Russian missiles but no, this would bring Nato into direct conflict with Russia and that cannot be allowed. It beats me as to why there isn't more anger towards Russia from the global south about this but there you go. The Saudis cut oil production which should help Russia pay the bills for that much longer.
Meanwhile the Ukrainian economy suffers because of the difficulty exporting through the Black Sea as they're being held hostage by the Russian Navy. Never mind that the Russian navy is nothing special and has fewer ships in the region than Turkey alone. That once you get to the Romanian border you are in entirely Nato waters. The narrative is all about whether Putin will extend the grain deal. He is the agent in all this. It's a matter of his beneficence. Why? Because Nato has no backbone. As the old saying goes it's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog. Putin might have misjudged many things but he saw the cowardice of Nato all too clearly.
Anthony Blinken is back in Kyiv meeting a dog. Still no sign of ATACMS. Still no attempt to get control of Black Sea shipping. F16s will arrive sometime before Godot. Taurus missiles? More tanks? Perhaps it is time for major western leaders to fess up. What is it they are afraid of?
Terry and Sheila in the Detectorists are also a charming and often very moving take on the issue. Slightly more reciprocal in that case - both are becoming the child they lost, and both happy to support the other in that.
Taking it to the political level, I can never forgive Andrea Leadsom for raising the matter in the 2016 Tory leadership election. I have no idea of the circumstances for the Mays, and don't want to, but it was an absolutely vile thing to do.
Which bit of that is so hard for you to fathom.
On Twitter, it seems to have fairly firmly geolocated to Romanian territory. If you can believe Twitter that is.
"Why does Putin feel emboldened to take such a risk anyway right on a Nato border?"
Putin doesn't particularly care. In the same way we know his red lines are very flexible (as we've already seen), he well knows that the odd missile going into the territory of a NATO member country is not going to cause Article 5 to be invoked. That's if he actually knows, or gets to hear, about such details.
More interesting is why the grain stores and transfer mechanisms are seen as being good targets by Russia. In a war they are not winning, if not actually losing, it seems a rather odd "screw you!" to the poor in the world. I do wonder if he believes the stories about shelves in UK supermarkets being empty, or people eating squirrels.
"Because Nato has no backbone."
It's a difficult one for NATO. I'd suggest the vast amount of help that NATO member states have given Ukraine show exactly the opposite. The only significant thing NATO could do itself is to invoke Article 5 for some reason.
There are equally good scenes in After Life.
What a great schooling ground The Office was.
Also, apparently these names are supposed to be pronounceable on the radio, which does limit the available keyspace.
We’ve taken a legacy system that worked when it was devised & tried to force it to fit the needs of modern worldwide aviation. It’s not entirely surprising that there are some failure modes as a result of this.
2. Nukes. The US intelligence community have showed criminal negligence by ignoring the repeated assurances on this web site that the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces doesn't work
3. Tipping the RF into a messy disintegration to the great strategic benefit of China and the EU
4. Fracturing the shaky US/EU unanimity on this issue. (They know the UK will do whatever they are told.)
5. Not being able to get anything too expensive/effective through Congress.
I believe Sheila was played by Emma Thompson's sister, and she and Toby Jones are absolutely top notch at the old prancing about pretending to be someone else game.
Hey, software has bugs, and sh!t happens occasionally. The important thing being that the systems failed safe as designed, rather than passing incorrect information to controllers. It’s also highlighted a wider, global, problem, for which ICAO needs to fix ASAP.
As far as customers are concerned, the fact that the airlines run their pilots to within a few minutes of their allowable duty schedule on a good day, is something that tells you not to fly with Ryanair.
I am sure it is the forerunner of "End of Part One", one of theirs too, which was an excellent, if anarchic, show.
Why not use the most recent poll from YouGov?
Labour's Rachel Reeves has opened up a clear lead over the Conservatives' Jeremy Hunt when voters are asked who should be the next chancellor of the exchequer, according to an exclusive poll for Sky News.
The Labour shadow chancellor is the choice of 21% of voters, according to YouGov, while Jeremy Hunt is judged to make the better chancellor by 14%.
Ms Reeves and Mr Hunt have been broadly neck-and-neck in the polls since Mr Hunt was appointed chancellor last October, so this poll represents the first moment where the opposition have taken a meaningful lead.
https://news.sky.com/story/voters-prefer-rachel-reeves-to-jeremy-hunt-for-chancellor-poll-shows-12955614?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
‘I confirm that pieces were found that could be a drone,’ says Romanian defense minister."
https://www.politico.eu/article/romania-confirms-russia-drone-debris-fell-on-its-territory-ukraine-war/
Penny Mordaunt was Leadsom's proposer in 2016, which I've always found a bit weird. Mind you, that's probably why Mordaunt will never get the top job - loads of things going for her, pretty sensible overall, but prone every so often to think carefully about an important decision before making a mindblowingly bad political judgment.
As I’ve said many times before, the Western nations need to persuade OPEC to start pumping and shut out Russia from the market.
Russian oil goes out at a massive discount to China & India, who then try and recycle it back into global markets. A lower price makes them give it away for almost nothing, in a situation where the O&G infrastructure in Russia is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. Which is why they’re pumping it out ASAP.
Meanwhile, the official Brent Crude price is nudging $90 today, up 20% in the last three months.
Clungunford and Clun,
Are the quietest places
Under the sun.
AFAICS Sunak sounds like Rodney Trotter so far.
So yeah, aside from all of that, it's a *great* comparison...
As to numbers, sub-Saharan Africa says hi.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/air-traffic-control-french-airline-blame-travel-chaos-2023-fsgrwqmg5
Doing a double-header with Sound of Freedom, rather than Barbie.
I also just met the only person ever to casually use the word “apotropaic”. One of my favourite words. Might be slightly in love
Sounds like a payroll software I was aware of 20 years ago that couldn’t cope with having someone having the same name as somebody else on the pay run.
It assumed you had made a duplicate error.
The problem is that the air traffic system as a whole, and specifically slots to land at Heathrow and Gatwick, is right at capacity on a good day, so any minor problem screws hundreds of flights.
Edge and corner cases in software are real ****tards, and particularly when you have user inputs. When a edge/corner case throws up a conflict or situation that the software if not designed for, you have two choices: to try to muddle through, or to fail safe.
In the case of the payroll software, the consequences of either muddling through or failing safely are just business ones. In the case of flight plans, it could have much more severe consequences.
I haven't read the report yet though, so I might be talking out of my backside. Again...
Labour always fucks the economy because they splurge money at the public sector that fails to improve it, whilst simultaneously stymying growth in the productive sector through increased taxation and unnecessary regulation. It was forever thus. A lot of the population know this. If there is such a thing as the wisdom of the crowds, Labour will get no overall control and hold office for about 4 years while the Tories regroup and cleanse themselves of the Boris Johnson scurvy.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-left-pouring-blood-after-27661650
Mum left 'pouring with blood' after sacrificing her arms to protect daughter from 'aggressive' bully XL dog
I think it boils down to whether you think Ukraine is a nascent European/EU/Western country or not. I think it is, and I also think it is in our interest to support and protect those countries that wish to emulate our way of doing things.
This particular flight plan crashed the system, because the inputs were totally unexpected by the system designers.
Leadsom was (presumably is) a competent, unapologetic Brexit supporting politician. That's a combination that certain people can't bear, so they were only too delighted when she put her foot in her mouth. The result was the May premiership.
https://twitter.com/emilkastehelmi/status/1698796521637007491
The report isn't clear, but it sounds like it might be a case where the code was written on the assumption of "this case cannot happen" rather than "this case could happen and means a badly formatted flight plan". If you knew it might happen (even in error) you would write the code to reject it; but the things you assume to be true that turn out not to be true tend to result in the program falling over, hopefully fairly gracefully.
All software has bugs; it's the nature of the beast.
Maybe it could handle error handling better, but the fact that it recognised there was an error and took action accordingly doesn't seem to have been a failure.
This will almost certainly have been yet another swiss-cheese failure: many processes, perhaps run by different organisations, allowed the data to get through to being input into the traffic control system. Those processes need fixing - and as people say, having unique location IDs would be a great start. But even then you'd want the bottom level of the software to detect fallacious or corrupt data from being sent to the controllers.
The question is what should happen when that system gets such a corrupt case? It cannot allow it to go through, and the system is very time-critical; you may not be able to wait a few hours for someone outside the organisation to fix the error.
That can be a devil of a problem.