It is interesting from the map that the highest number of signatures are from the labour dominated areas of North and South Wales
Thanks for the updates on this but in addition to the punter dissatisfaction regarding this issue to what extent are opposition parties in Wales on the attack?
Labour and Plaid have an agreed compromise, Welsh conservatives oppose, but I do not know the Lib Dem policy as they are virtually anonymous in Wales
I think those in England should follow this controversy as it could be coming to England via Starmer
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Your kidding, right? What fun would it be only to read articles from Railway Modeller. Or does it surprise you that people, not you obvs, read other points of view.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Interesting attack. Isn’t it better to read newspapers we disagree with, in order to be better read/broaden our minds?
If we are going to criticise something, shouldn’t we have read it first? If Topping was criticising The Guardian, then saying he never read it, that would surely be worse?
The last person in charge to think the civil service would be better moving fast and breaking thingswas the very famous and effective reformer Liz Truss, notably sacking the head civil servant in the Treasury during her thousand hour reich.
This 20 limit should be treated as a case of moving fast and breaking things.
If in 6 months you can show how many lives are saved or how much time is lost you can make a decision as to whether to continue with it. It should be set up that way from the start with as little expense in signage as possible.
More experiments, less dogma!
Personally I'm not convinced a blanket 20 is a good thing but I can't really see the problem with it in most residential areas so lets try it and see...
I'm not sure you can change back from 20 to 30, at least not near schools where children have become used to stepping into the road without properly looking.
At least round here all schools have a 20 limit around them already so I don't imagine they would go back to 30 if a blanket 20 was tried and then dropped.
This argument is really about main roads through urban areas not next to schools. I usually find 30 is too fast in a lot of residential streets regardless of the speed limit so I can't see what the objection might be there.
As an example, I had to go to the east coast last week. There are a lot of small villages that the main road passes through and the speed limit varies between 30 in the core urban area and 40 in the outer parts with few junctions. There are occasional stretches of 50 or 60 between villages.
It is a very similar situation crossing parts of Wales.
A blanket 20 limit would add significant time to the journey - getting on for 50% extra. Whilst for me as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal, it risks making rural communities even more cut off than they are already. A lot of the east coast is not doing very well at all and needs better links to population centres, not worse. There is no public transport to speak of.
The idea that this is just an 'indicator' and there is an expectation that most people will still do 30 is nuts. Creating laws that are never intended to be enforced is stupid.
Personally I would be very happy if the road outside my house was made a 20 limit, but should I be allowed to inconvenience everyone else? I knew what the road was like when I bought the house...
The "main road" argument is undermined by the fact that most collisions and injuries occur on those roads, as you'd expect. They have the most traffic.
In the Scottish Borders (under the Tories) there was a conscious decision to apply the 20mph to the A roads running through the villages precisely because of the level of traffic, lorries etc
This is as also an argument for bypassing those villages, which I'm sympathetic to, but it's a lot cheaper to apply a speed limit in the medium term than a big infrastructure project.
You may be surprised but I do not disagree with you
My experience in Scotland is that most villages or small towns have a 30mph lead in and then drop to 20mph in the centre which is uncontroversial. Indeed I recall being in Dunkeld last year and this was a good example
As far as by passes are concerned absolutely, but Drakeford has cancelled all road building in Wales including the much needed third Menai crossing
Interesting article about a reanalysis of Tavistock data that had originally shown no impact on mental health for children on puberty blockers. New analysis says a 34% had deteriorated and 25% had improved.
What strikes me as odd is that "the original study used scores from both parent and child questionnaires, which assessed children's behavioural and emotional problems" ... if it's based on self reported data then all else equal couldn't an improvement be possibly expected even from simply a placebo effect?
It could be a placebo effect because of the design (before/after study) rather than because it's self-reported data.
A pedant writes: it could be a Hawthorne effect (where being studied makes a difference). There were no placebos here. Frankly, it sounds like random variation. More research is needed. Please send grant money to...
"There couldn't be a placebo effect because the study didn't include a placebo."
Oh God.
As a general point, although clinical trials with a placebo are rightly seen as a gold standard, there are a lot of trials that don't have one due to the ethical issues.
Principally there can be circumstances, particularly where alternative courses of treatment exist, where it isn't just a white lie to give a placebo but you're denying them the alternative course of treatment as part of the deception.
I don't know if that's the case here, and haven't looked into the detail, but lack of a placebo doesn't somehow automatically invalidate a trial.
Indeed. Most trials today are done against best current practice rather than against a placebo.
In this case, there was only one group, who were assessed before and after. There was no comparison group.
That’s a UK/European approach. FDA still likes placebo
That's a simplification. But it is true that European regulators are more concerned about comparisons with best available practice. That's because the UK/Europe are interested in making people healthier and the US is interested in drug companies making money. Someone posted this video here the other day that is relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtHMB3vroas
It is interesting from the map that the highest number of signatures are from the labour dominated areas of North and South Wales
Thanks for the updates on this but in addition to the punter dissatisfaction regarding this issue to what extent are opposition parties in Wales on the attack?
Labour and Plaid have an agreed compromise, Welsh conservatives oppose, but I do not know the Lib Dem policy as they are virtually anonymous in Wales
I think those in England should follow this controversy as it could be coming to England via Starmer
The petition is correlated with people in Wales who identified as "English" in the census, so you could well be right.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
It seems foolish for this woman to comment on Brand’s work. If it’s that obvious to her that he would build up a fan base that would defend him, why didn’t she come forward before he’d done that?
I think Brand is a moron, but that shouldn’t come into this. Very simply, tell the police what happened and let them investigate. Leave everything else at the door.
Something of a double standard going on here.
If Brand continues to publicly rubbish those who've made allegations against him, should we expect them to remain silent ?
I'm just thinking what his defence team will say in court. They will ask them about these comments and suggest that it is politically motivated.
From Brand's point of view, I'd recommend he denies and then keeps his gob shut.
And the same goes for everyone else. The bloke on Sky News saying something like "innocent until proven guilty only applies to the state, the court of public opinion doesn't have to follow those rules" is very foolish.
Brand has produced plenty of material where he judges people as “guilty” for barely any reason at all.
The idea that “innocent until proven guilty means shut up until after someone brings a court case and there’s a verdict” is just a stupid attempt at shutting down debate. Usually used by guilty people.
Benjamin Mendy and Alex Salmond have entered the conversation.
I don't think saying "Brand behaves badly, therefore, people should be allowed to behave in the same way towards him" is a very good argument to be honest.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
Well, for a start
1) She should be meek and tearful. Confidence in women is a sign they are getting above themselves. 2) Dress modestly - perhaps a nice headscarf. A veil? 3) Accuse the right people 4) Not accuse people in public. Perhaps in a Catholic Church confessional, given the excellent track record of that institution for handling sexual scandals. 5) Not get uppity by demanding punishment.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
It doesn't reflect well on Boris, but it also doesn't reflect well on the Civil Service either. Many of those interviewed came across as quite arrogant, particularly Lord MacDonald, with a "this is how we've always done things attitude"
I'd be interested to know if they think the system is working better now. Clearly, Rishi is probably more to the Civil Service's liking but the Government is failing to deliver on his pledges.
I'm of the view that actually the system did actually need a really good shake up but the tragedy is that Boris and Truss weren't able to manage it due to personal failings (lack of seriousness and organisation from Boris, lack of communication skills from Truss).
And so now we will go back to insiders who will fail, but fail in an acceptable manner.
Much of Cummings critique of the civil service was and remains valid. The lack of understanding of statistics, maths and analytical skills, the pompous and pointless emphasis on precedent, hallowed procedures and the lack of technical skills for anything complicated. Unfortunately, and as per usual, his solutions did not work through to meaningful improvements. It was an opportunity to improve governance in this country but neither Cummings nor Boris had the stamina for it.
A favourite was being told by a high flyer in the Cabinet Office that IT projects had to be done with waterfall methodology. Anything else was anathema. He even used the word “incompetent”.
The high flyer in question had no training in (or understanding of) IT project management.
It could have been worse, he could have insisted that all projects were "Agile". "Minimum viable product" is a contender with "replacement bus service" as the most disappointing 3-word phrase in the English language.
Silly question, perhaps, but you do know that "agile" is a methodological framework for how you run projects, right? Your post seems to imply it's just a meaningless buzz word but I'm not sure. Agile is a pretty good framework. It has its weaknesses to be sure, but one thing is clear: you do need SOME kind of framework when running a project. Otherwise it's chaos and nothing gets delivered. If not Agile, something else.
It is interesting from the map that the highest number of signatures are from the labour dominated areas of North and South Wales
Thanks for the updates on this but in addition to the punter dissatisfaction regarding this issue to what extent are opposition parties in Wales on the attack?
Labour and Plaid have an agreed compromise, Welsh conservatives oppose, but I do not know the Lib Dem policy as they are virtually anonymous in Wales
I think those in England should follow this controversy as it could be coming to England via Starmer
Welsh Conservatives are objecting the loudest - as they object to everything - without offering any meaningful alternative
Plaid are coming through this as the voice of reason but dont know how much they will capitalise on this due to their low profile.
Lib Dems are nowhere to be heard - same as the shouty right .
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Interesting article about a reanalysis of Tavistock data that had originally shown no impact on mental health for children on puberty blockers. New analysis says a 34% had deteriorated and 25% had improved.
What strikes me as odd is that "the original study used scores from both parent and child questionnaires, which assessed children's behavioural and emotional problems" ... if it's based on self reported data then all else equal couldn't an improvement be possibly expected even from simply a placebo effect?
It could be a placebo effect because of the design (before/after study) rather than because it's self-reported data.
A pedant writes: it could be a Hawthorne effect (where being studied makes a difference). There were no placebos here. Frankly, it sounds like random variation. More research is needed. Please send grant money to...
As others have pointed out. A placebo effect can occur in any non-effective treatment. The point of having a control (maybe a placebo) in a trial is to measure if any observed effect is due to the treatment or not. If the trialled treatment has no effect, but some advantage is observed this may or may not might be placebo, may or may not be Hawthorne or might be just random variation.
My main point is that a Hawthorne effect is part placebo effect. What's the dfference? The Hawthorne effect is the placebo effect when it is the patient reacting to being given placebo. One reason for a positive effect that is non-placebo but is Hawthorne effect is due to all round better medical care. Patients on a randomised trials are followed-up much more closely than non-trial patients and so other complications might be picked up quickly.
A "famous" statistician/clinical trial specialist once told me: if you get the chance to be on a clinical phase III trial, you should definitely agree to it. Even if you are on the control group your alround level of treatment and care will be much better than when not on the trial.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Your kidding, right? What fun would it be only to read articles from Railway Modeller. Or does it surprise you that people, not you obvs, read other points of view.
I read other points of view. I don't subject myself to frequent unpleasant experiences.
On the speed limits, there's two A-roads that cris-cross my village. I think these should be 30. The remaining roads, including the one none cul-de-sac that potentially skips the lights with the intersection should be 20.
Hopefully common sense applies when these speed limit changes are made and that some 30s become 20s (urban, through villages, etc), but others where there is a lot less risk stay at 30. I can think of roads where I am surprised it is 30 and not 40 often with no sign, but designated by the frequency of street lights. Some of these dropping to 20 would be silly if the road is safe and there is little or no pedestrian activity.
The Westway - raised dual carriageway with no pedestrian access - is 20mph (down from 40) thanks to Mayor Khan.
It’s ludicrous.
Are you sure that's true? I can't find any evidence of that happening but I don't use the A40. Introducing 20mph limits in London has reduced collisions and fatal collisions by 25% and reduced collisions involving pedestrians by more than half on the roads affected. Seems like a great policy.
It is interesting from the map that the highest number of signatures are from the labour dominated areas of North and South Wales
Thanks for the updates on this but in addition to the punter dissatisfaction regarding this issue to what extent are opposition parties in Wales on the attack?
Labour and Plaid have an agreed compromise, Welsh conservatives oppose, but I do not know the Lib Dem policy as they are virtually anonymous in Wales
I think those in England should follow this controversy as it could be coming to England via Starmer
The petition is correlated with people in Wales who identified as "English" in the census, so you could well be right.
I doubt people in Wrexham and the borders or South Wales, which are the largest signatures, identify as being English
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Interesting attack. Isn’t it better to read newspapers we disagree with, in order to be better read/broaden our minds?
If we are going to criticise something, shouldn’t we have read it first? If Topping was criticising The Guardian, then saying he never read it, that would surely be worse?
There is healthy space between TOPPING never reading The Guardian and his reading, in his own words, "so many articles in today's edition". I was surprised by the masochism of "so many".
The last person in charge to think the civil service would be better moving fast and breaking thingswas the very famous and effective reformer Liz Truss, notably sacking the head civil servant in the Treasury during her thousand hour reich.
This 20 limit should be treated as a case of moving fast and breaking things.
If in 6 months you can show how many lives are saved or how much time is lost you can make a decision as to whether to continue with it. It should be set up that way from the start with as little expense in signage as possible.
More experiments, less dogma!
Personally I'm not convinced a blanket 20 is a good thing but I can't really see the problem with it in most residential areas so lets try it and see...
I'm not sure you can change back from 20 to 30, at least not near schools where children have become used to stepping into the road without properly looking.
At least round here all schools have a 20 limit around them already so I don't imagine they would go back to 30 if a blanket 20 was tried and then dropped.
This argument is really about main roads through urban areas not next to schools. I usually find 30 is too fast in a lot of residential streets regardless of the speed limit so I can't see what the objection might be there.
As an example, I had to go to the east coast last week. There are a lot of small villages that the main road passes through and the speed limit varies between 30 in the core urban area and 40 in the outer parts with few junctions. There are occasional stretches of 50 or 60 between villages.
It is a very similar situation crossing parts of Wales.
A blanket 20 limit would add significant time to the journey - getting on for 50% extra. Whilst for me as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal, it risks making rural communities even more cut off than they are already. A lot of the east coast is not doing very well at all and needs better links to population centres, not worse. There is no public transport to speak of.
The idea that this is just an 'indicator' and there is an expectation that most people will still do 30 is nuts. Creating laws that are never intended to be enforced is stupid.
Personally I would be very happy if the road outside my house was made a 20 limit, but should I be allowed to inconvenience everyone else? I knew what the road was like when I bought the house...
The "main road" argument is undermined by the fact that most collisions and injuries occur on those roads, as you'd expect. They have the most traffic.
In the Scottish Borders (under the Tories) there was a conscious decision to apply the 20mph to the A roads running through the villages precisely because of the level of traffic, lorries etc
This is as also an argument for bypassing those villages, which I'm sympathetic to, but it's a lot cheaper to apply a speed limit in the medium term than a big infrastructure project.
You may be surprised but I do not disagree with you
My experience in Scotland is that most villages or small towns have a 30mph lead in and then drop to 20mph in the centre which is uncontroversial. Indeed I recall being in Dunkeld last year and this was a good example
As far as by passes are concerned absolutely, but Drakeford has cancelled all road building in Wales including the much needed third Menai crossing
So why are you getting so upset? You're suggesting that main and residential roads in built up areas should be 20mph.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Your kidding, right? What fun would it be only to read articles from Railway Modeller. Or does it surprise you that people, not you obvs, read other points of view.
I read other points of view. I don't subject myself to frequent unpleasant experiences.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Your kidding, right? What fun would it be only to read articles from Railway Modeller. Or does it surprise you that people, not you obvs, read other points of view.
I read other points of view. I don't subject myself to frequent unpleasant experiences.
I think we all read plenty of views that we oppose here. It's one of the reasons I like PB.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Interesting attack. Isn’t it better to read newspapers we disagree with, in order to be better read/broaden our minds?
If we are going to criticise something, shouldn’t we have read it first? If Topping was criticising The Guardian, then saying he never read it, that would surely be worse?
There is healthy space between TOPPING never reading The Guardian and his reading, in his own words, "so many articles in today's edition". I was surprised by the masochism of "so many".
Ah. Hyperbole. I read the articles that have been linked to and googled "Brand Guardian columnist" to confirm he was actually a Guardian columnist and read the article it threw up. He was a Guardian columnist.
The last person in charge to think the civil service would be better moving fast and breaking thingswas the very famous and effective reformer Liz Truss, notably sacking the head civil servant in the Treasury during her thousand hour reich.
This 20 limit should be treated as a case of moving fast and breaking things.
If in 6 months you can show how many lives are saved or how much time is lost you can make a decision as to whether to continue with it. It should be set up that way from the start with as little expense in signage as possible.
More experiments, less dogma!
Personally I'm not convinced a blanket 20 is a good thing but I can't really see the problem with it in most residential areas so lets try it and see...
I'm not sure you can change back from 20 to 30, at least not near schools where children have become used to stepping into the road without properly looking.
At least round here all schools have a 20 limit around them already so I don't imagine they would go back to 30 if a blanket 20 was tried and then dropped.
This argument is really about main roads through urban areas not next to schools. I usually find 30 is too fast in a lot of residential streets regardless of the speed limit so I can't see what the objection might be there.
As an example, I had to go to the east coast last week. There are a lot of small villages that the main road passes through and the speed limit varies between 30 in the core urban area and 40 in the outer parts with few junctions. There are occasional stretches of 50 or 60 between villages.
It is a very similar situation crossing parts of Wales.
A blanket 20 limit would add significant time to the journey - getting on for 50% extra. Whilst for me as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal, it risks making rural communities even more cut off than they are already. A lot of the east coast is not doing very well at all and needs better links to population centres, not worse. There is no public transport to speak of.
The idea that this is just an 'indicator' and there is an expectation that most people will still do 30 is nuts. Creating laws that are never intended to be enforced is stupid.
Personally I would be very happy if the road outside my house was made a 20 limit, but should I be allowed to inconvenience everyone else? I knew what the road was like when I bought the house...
The "main road" argument is undermined by the fact that most collisions and injuries occur on those roads, as you'd expect. They have the most traffic.
In the Scottish Borders (under the Tories) there was a conscious decision to apply the 20mph to the A roads running through the villages precisely because of the level of traffic, lorries etc
This is as also an argument for bypassing those villages, which I'm sympathetic to, but it's a lot cheaper to apply a speed limit in the medium term than a big infrastructure project.
You may be surprised but I do not disagree with you
My experience in Scotland is that most villages or small towns have a 30mph lead in and then drop to 20mph in the centre which is uncontroversial. Indeed I recall being in Dunkeld last year and this was a good example
As far as by passes are concerned absolutely, but Drakeford has cancelled all road building in Wales including the much needed third Menai crossing
So why are you getting so upset? You're suggesting that main and residential roads in built up areas should be 20mph.
The last person in charge to think the civil service would be better moving fast and breaking thingswas the very famous and effective reformer Liz Truss, notably sacking the head civil servant in the Treasury during her thousand hour reich.
This 20 limit should be treated as a case of moving fast and breaking things.
If in 6 months you can show how many lives are saved or how much time is lost you can make a decision as to whether to continue with it. It should be set up that way from the start with as little expense in signage as possible.
More experiments, less dogma!
Personally I'm not convinced a blanket 20 is a good thing but I can't really see the problem with it in most residential areas so lets try it and see...
I'm not sure you can change back from 20 to 30, at least not near schools where children have become used to stepping into the road without properly looking.
At least round here all schools have a 20 limit around them already so I don't imagine they would go back to 30 if a blanket 20 was tried and then dropped.
This argument is really about main roads through urban areas not next to schools. I usually find 30 is too fast in a lot of residential streets regardless of the speed limit so I can't see what the objection might be there.
As an example, I had to go to the east coast last week. There are a lot of small villages that the main road passes through and the speed limit varies between 30 in the core urban area and 40 in the outer parts with few junctions. There are occasional stretches of 50 or 60 between villages.
It is a very similar situation crossing parts of Wales.
A blanket 20 limit would add significant time to the journey - getting on for 50% extra. Whilst for me as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal, it risks making rural communities even more cut off than they are already. A lot of the east coast is not doing very well at all and needs better links to population centres, not worse. There is no public transport to speak of.
The idea that this is just an 'indicator' and there is an expectation that most people will still do 30 is nuts. Creating laws that are never intended to be enforced is stupid.
Personally I would be very happy if the road outside my house was made a 20 limit, but should I be allowed to inconvenience everyone else? I knew what the road was like when I bought the house...
The "main road" argument is undermined by the fact that most collisions and injuries occur on those roads, as you'd expect. They have the most traffic.
In the Scottish Borders (under the Tories) there was a conscious decision to apply the 20mph to the A roads running through the villages precisely because of the level of traffic, lorries etc
This is as also an argument for bypassing those villages, which I'm sympathetic to, but it's a lot cheaper to apply a speed limit in the medium term than a big infrastructure project.
I'm all for trying it out, as I say. I hate traffic speeding past as much as the next man and use a bicycle locally.
Are there any good statistics on the accident rate in the Borders after the limit was brought in?
There is definitely a down side in areas with no alternatives to road transport, though. It would be nice to have some formal measurements including journey times.
On the speed limits, there's two A-roads that cris-cross my village. I think these should be 30. The remaining roads, including the one none cul-de-sac that potentially skips the lights with the intersection should be 20.
Hopefully common sense applies when these speed limit changes are made and that some 30s become 20s (urban, through villages, etc), but others where there is a lot less risk stay at 30. I can think of roads where I am surprised it is 30 and not 40 often with no sign, but designated by the frequency of street lights. Some of these dropping to 20 would be silly if the road is safe and there is little or no pedestrian activity.
The Westway - raised dual carriageway with no pedestrian access - is 20mph (down from 40) thanks to Mayor Khan.
It’s ludicrous.
Are you sure that's true? I can't find any evidence of that happening but I don't use the A40. Introducing 20mph limits in London has reduced collisions and fatal collisions by 25% and reduced collisions involving pedestrians by more than half on the roads affected. Seems like a great policy.
Interesting article about a reanalysis of Tavistock data that had originally shown no impact on mental health for children on puberty blockers. New analysis says a 34% had deteriorated and 25% had improved.
What strikes me as odd is that "the original study used scores from both parent and child questionnaires, which assessed children's behavioural and emotional problems" ... if it's based on self reported data then all else equal couldn't an improvement be possibly expected even from simply a placebo effect?
It could be a placebo effect because of the design (before/after study) rather than because it's self-reported data.
A pedant writes: it could be a Hawthorne effect (where being studied makes a difference). There were no placebos here. Frankly, it sounds like random variation. More research is needed. Please send grant money to...
"There couldn't be a placebo effect because the study didn't include a placebo."
Oh God.
As a general point, although clinical trials with a placebo are rightly seen as a gold standard, there are a lot of trials that don't have one due to the ethical issues.
Principally there can be circumstances, particularly where alternative courses of treatment exist, where it isn't just a white lie to give a placebo but you're denying them the alternative course of treatment as part of the deception.
I don't know if that's the case here, and haven't looked into the detail, but lack of a placebo doesn't somehow automatically invalidate a trial.
Indeed. Most trials today are done against best current practice rather than against a placebo.
In this case, there was only one group, who were assessed before and after. There was no comparison group.
That’s a UK/European approach. FDA still likes placebo
I don't know the details, but I presume then that the FDA wants a "3 arm" trial with placebo/current/test arms.
Doing a test/placebo trial for an illness where there is a known effective treatment is not only unethical, it says nothing about whether the new treatment should be used.
On the speed limits, there's two A-roads that cris-cross my village. I think these should be 30. The remaining roads, including the one none cul-de-sac that potentially skips the lights with the intersection should be 20.
Hopefully common sense applies when these speed limit changes are made and that some 30s become 20s (urban, through villages, etc), but others where there is a lot less risk stay at 30. I can think of roads where I am surprised it is 30 and not 40 often with no sign, but designated by the frequency of street lights. Some of these dropping to 20 would be silly if the road is safe and there is little or no pedestrian activity.
The Westway - raised dual carriageway with no pedestrian access - is 20mph (down from 40) thanks to Mayor Khan.
It’s ludicrous.
Are you sure that's true? I can't find any evidence of that happening but I don't use the A40. Introducing 20mph limits in London has reduced collisions and fatal collisions by 25% and reduced collisions involving pedestrians by more than half on the roads affected. Seems like a great policy.
One of the joys of driving in Central London used to be bowling along at 70mph on the Westway. That came down to 50 (and a speed camera was introduced) and then 40mph which is ridiculous-seeming but perhaps avoids the congestion (eastwards) as it joins the Marylebone Road, which could stretch back quite some distance.
20mph? Not sure that is correct. Or at least wasn't the last time I was on it. Perhaps once it hits the Marylebone Road but don't recall as you would be lucky to reach 20mph there in any case.
Interesting article about a reanalysis of Tavistock data that had originally shown no impact on mental health for children on puberty blockers. New analysis says a 34% had deteriorated and 25% had improved.
What strikes me as odd is that "the original study used scores from both parent and child questionnaires, which assessed children's behavioural and emotional problems" ... if it's based on self reported data then all else equal couldn't an improvement be possibly expected even from simply a placebo effect?
I'll try to look at this later (no promises) to give a more considered opinion. But a cold-read[1] response is
Questionnaires. Questionnaires to judge quality-of-life or mood are quite standard. Google HRQoL for an example.
Placebo effect. Whether a change is caused by a placebo or not is conceptually difficult to answer without knowing the causation chain.
Self-reported data. Without Mr Spock to do a mind-meld, self-reported data is a way of assessing a person's internal/mental state. Are you happy or sad today?
Sample size. If I see one more fuckwit (not you, @BartholomewRoberts) bang on about "low sample size" I'll throw a fridge at the wall. Sample sizes are not necessarily important if you don't have a statistical test (each test has its own minimum sample size[2] to give power) and the effect size is larger than the accuracy. You don't need a large sample size to see if a flea is as heavy as an elephant.
Notes [1] A cold-read are statements that are always true regardless of the study. A fortune teller cold-read is "you went thru a bit of a difficult patch in your teens". [2] The Fisher's exact test can cope with really tiny samples. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher's_exact_test
Japan population: One in 10 people now aged 80 or older.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66850943 For the first time ever, more than one in 10 people in Japan are now aged 80 or older. National data also shows 29.1% of the 125 million population is aged 65 or older- a record. Japan has one of the lowest birth-rates in the world and has long struggled with how to provide for its ageing population. It has the world's oldest population, measured by the proportion of people aged 65 or up, the United Nations says. That proportion stands at 24.5% in Italy and 23.6% in Finland, which rank second and third respectively...
Their population is dropping by about half a million every year. Already down about 3.5 million on the peak of 128 million.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
My first post was noting the enjoyment at the Guardian's hypocrisy being exposed as being a champion of liberal values employing evident and self-confessed sexually rampant Russell Brand so it is a bit of a man bites dog situation. We expect this from many newspapers (including the Guardian) but when it's the Guardian there is nevertheless added piquancy.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
My first post was noting the enjoyment at the Guardian's hypocrisy being exposed as being a champion of liberal values employing evident and self-confessed sexually rampant Russell Brand so it is a bit of a man bites dog situation. We expect this from many newspapers (including the Guardian) but when it's the Guardian there is nevertheless added piquancy.
There is no elevated piquancy. The Guardian isn't a special case. It's not different to other outlets. This is entirely eye-of-the-beholder stuff.
Today is the start of the 3-day hearing of the Scottish government's petition against the UK government's S.35 Order preventing the GRR Bill from getting Royal Assent.
All the relevant submissions can be read online. I am looking forward to it for a number of reasons:-
1. The legal arguments are interesting and I don't think it is necessarily obvious which way the court will rule.
2. There will be acres of misinformed commentary to enjoy and, on occasion, rebut.
3. A ruling is unlikely to happen quickly - and will therefore happen in the months leading up to a General Election. Whatever the decision it will likely be appealed and so we will have a legal cat among the electoral pigeons. This may well have consequences for the SNP/Labour battle in Scotland and, possibly, more widely.
Additionally in October there is the hearing of the appeal by For Women Scotland against the decision by Lady Haldane on the meaning of "sex" in the Equality Act. (Lady Haldane is also hearing the S.35 petition.) While that appeal related to Scottish legislation on the representation of women on public boards, it does potentially have wider implications. If "sex" does not include "legal sex" following a GRC but only biological sex, then who cares if every Tom, Dick (sorry!) or Harry can get a GRC because it will give them no rights to access single sex spaces, services or association. In short, a win for FWS may undermine the reasons for the S.35 Order.
Of course the Scottish government is arguing the opposite - that it does extend the definition and that this does not undermine the Equality Act. So you can see the fun lawyers will have.
Honestly, I can sense your excitement from here!
Good old Scotland - providing us with such treats!
Thanks - this one will be fascinating. I have some objections to the GRR legislation. But I also have objections to Westminster simply choosing to overrule stuff it has decided to disagree with for tactical partisan reasons.
But no criticism of the Scottish government repeatedly pushing things they know are outside their remit for political gain?
Shouldn't we wait for the court's verdict on whether they were acting outside their remit? That's the point of it after all.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
My first post was noting the enjoyment at the Guardian's hypocrisy being exposed as being a champion of liberal values employing evident and self-confessed sexually rampant Russell Brand so it is a bit of a man bites dog situation. We expect this from many newspapers (including the Guardian) but when it's the Guardian there is nevertheless added piquancy.
There is no elevated piquancy. The Guardian isn't a special case. It's not different to other outlets. This is entirely eye-of-the-beholder stuff.
Not true. The Guardian believes it is morally superior to the Mail and the Sun. As do you, I would guess.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
My first post was noting the enjoyment at the Guardian's hypocrisy being exposed as being a champion of liberal values employing evident and self-confessed sexually rampant Russell Brand so it is a bit of a man bites dog situation. We expect this from many newspapers (including the Guardian) but when it's the Guardian there is nevertheless added piquancy.
Guardian hypocrisy or a changed zeitgeist? Liberal values once included free sex. Now in at least some quarters is the presumption that since women cannot possibly want sex, they must have been tricked or manipulated. Of course, we must also bear in mind that even rapists can have consensual sex, so each allegation must be investigated.
The last person in charge to think the civil service would be better moving fast and breaking thingswas the very famous and effective reformer Liz Truss, notably sacking the head civil servant in the Treasury during her thousand hour reich.
This 20 limit should be treated as a case of moving fast and breaking things.
If in 6 months you can show how many lives are saved or how much time is lost you can make a decision as to whether to continue with it. It should be set up that way from the start with as little expense in signage as possible.
More experiments, less dogma!
Personally I'm not convinced a blanket 20 is a good thing but I can't really see the problem with it in most residential areas so lets try it and see...
I'm not sure you can change back from 20 to 30, at least not near schools where children have become used to stepping into the road without properly looking.
At least round here all schools have a 20 limit around them already so I don't imagine they would go back to 30 if a blanket 20 was tried and then dropped.
This argument is really about main roads through urban areas not next to schools. I usually find 30 is too fast in a lot of residential streets regardless of the speed limit so I can't see what the objection might be there.
As an example, I had to go to the east coast last week. There are a lot of small villages that the main road passes through and the speed limit varies between 30 in the core urban area and 40 in the outer parts with few junctions. There are occasional stretches of 50 or 60 between villages.
It is a very similar situation crossing parts of Wales.
A blanket 20 limit would add significant time to the journey - getting on for 50% extra. Whilst for me as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal, it risks making rural communities even more cut off than they are already. A lot of the east coast is not doing very well at all and needs better links to population centres, not worse. There is no public transport to speak of.
The idea that this is just an 'indicator' and there is an expectation that most people will still do 30 is nuts. Creating laws that are never intended to be enforced is stupid.
Personally I would be very happy if the road outside my house was made a 20 limit, but should I be allowed to inconvenience everyone else? I knew what the road was like when I bought the house...
The "main road" argument is undermined by the fact that most collisions and injuries occur on those roads, as you'd expect. They have the most traffic.
In the Scottish Borders (under the Tories) there was a conscious decision to apply the 20mph to the A roads running through the villages precisely because of the level of traffic, lorries etc
This is as also an argument for bypassing those villages, which I'm sympathetic to, but it's a lot cheaper to apply a speed limit in the medium term than a big infrastructure project.
I'm all for trying it out, as I say. I hate traffic speeding past as much as the next man and use a bicycle locally.
Are there any good statistics on the accident rate in the Borders after the limit was brought in?
There is definitely a down side in areas with no alternatives to road transport, though. It would be nice to have some formal measurements including journey times.
Not sure, I'll have a dig around.
I'd guess journey time change would be tiny because the average journey in the borders will be much longer than average.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
My first post was noting the enjoyment at the Guardian's hypocrisy being exposed as being a champion of liberal values employing evident and self-confessed sexually rampant Russell Brand so it is a bit of a man bites dog situation. We expect this from many newspapers (including the Guardian) but when it's the Guardian there is nevertheless added piquancy.
There is no elevated piquancy. The Guardian isn't a special case. It's not different to other outlets. This is entirely eye-of-the-beholder stuff.
Not true. The Guardian believes it is morally superior to the Mail and the Sun. As do you, I would guess.
Wrong. I do not think the Guardian is morally superior.
I also think the Sun* sees itself as more righteous as the Guardian and the Mail. I think the Mail* believes its crusade for truth and justice is holier than the Sun's or the Guardian's. They all think they are right, otherwise they would act differently. The Guardian is in line with all the other papers in that respect.
*I feel a bit weird ascribing these emotional states to companies/publications.
The last person in charge to think the civil service would be better moving fast and breaking thingswas the very famous and effective reformer Liz Truss, notably sacking the head civil servant in the Treasury during her thousand hour reich.
This 20 limit should be treated as a case of moving fast and breaking things.
If in 6 months you can show how many lives are saved or how much time is lost you can make a decision as to whether to continue with it. It should be set up that way from the start with as little expense in signage as possible.
More experiments, less dogma!
Personally I'm not convinced a blanket 20 is a good thing but I can't really see the problem with it in most residential areas so lets try it and see...
I'm not sure you can change back from 20 to 30, at least not near schools where children have become used to stepping into the road without properly looking.
At least round here all schools have a 20 limit around them already so I don't imagine they would go back to 30 if a blanket 20 was tried and then dropped.
This argument is really about main roads through urban areas not next to schools. I usually find 30 is too fast in a lot of residential streets regardless of the speed limit so I can't see what the objection might be there.
As an example, I had to go to the east coast last week. There are a lot of small villages that the main road passes through and the speed limit varies between 30 in the core urban area and 40 in the outer parts with few junctions. There are occasional stretches of 50 or 60 between villages.
It is a very similar situation crossing parts of Wales.
A blanket 20 limit would add significant time to the journey - getting on for 50% extra. Whilst for me as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal, it risks making rural communities even more cut off than they are already. A lot of the east coast is not doing very well at all and needs better links to population centres, not worse. There is no public transport to speak of.
The idea that this is just an 'indicator' and there is an expectation that most people will still do 30 is nuts. Creating laws that are never intended to be enforced is stupid.
Personally I would be very happy if the road outside my house was made a 20 limit, but should I be allowed to inconvenience everyone else? I knew what the road was like when I bought the house...
The "main road" argument is undermined by the fact that most collisions and injuries occur on those roads, as you'd expect. They have the most traffic.
In the Scottish Borders (under the Tories) there was a conscious decision to apply the 20mph to the A roads running through the villages precisely because of the level of traffic, lorries etc
This is as also an argument for bypassing those villages, which I'm sympathetic to, but it's a lot cheaper to apply a speed limit in the medium term than a big infrastructure project.
I'm all for trying it out, as I say. I hate traffic speeding past as much as the next man and use a bicycle locally.
Are there any good statistics on the accident rate in the Borders after the limit was brought in?
There is definitely a down side in areas with no alternatives to road transport, though. It would be nice to have some formal measurements including journey times.
Not sure, I'll have a dig around.
I'd guess journey time change would be tiny because the average journey in the borders will be much longer than average.
There you go. Published 6 days ago, but just average speeds from what I can tell.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
It seems foolish for this woman to comment on Brand’s work. If it’s that obvious to her that he would build up a fan base that would defend him, why didn’t she come forward before he’d done that?
I think Brand is a moron, but that shouldn’t come into this. Very simply, tell the police what happened and let them investigate. Leave everything else at the door.
Something of a double standard going on here.
If Brand continues to publicly rubbish those who've made allegations against him, should we expect them to remain silent ?
I'm just thinking what his defence team will say in court. They will ask them about these comments and suggest that it is politically motivated.
From Brand's point of view, I'd recommend he denies and then keeps his gob shut.
And the same goes for everyone else. The bloke on Sky News saying something like "innocent until proven guilty only applies to the state, the court of public opinion doesn't have to follow those rules" is very foolish.
Brand has produced plenty of material where he judges people as “guilty” for barely any reason at all.
The idea that “innocent until proven guilty means shut up until after someone brings a court case and there’s a verdict” is just a stupid attempt at shutting down debate. Usually used by guilty people.
Benjamin Mendy and Alex Salmond have entered the conversation.
I don't think saying "Brand behaves badly, therefore, people should be allowed to behave in the same way towards him" is a very good argument to be honest.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Your kidding, right? What fun would it be only to read articles from Railway Modeller. Or does it surprise you that people, not you obvs, read other points of view.
Railway Modeller went woke - claiming that O guage and other large scales were elitest.
I liked Marina Hyde’s article, but some of the horror of how awful the 00s media/tv (Little Britain/Bo Selecta etc) was needs to be balanced against the Love Island/Instagram filter culture the twenty somethings have now. Is that any better? I’d say there will be as many horror stories, if not more, in a decade or so about the same behaviour
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I have almost no interest in Brand. The media circus is IMHO significantly driven by the fact that he was succeeding outside of their realm - a threat. So of course there will be a pile on.
Marina Hyde is unusually and admirably self-critical about it:
It's also a thoughtful piece about the treatment of Georgina Baillie
Agreed, it is very disturbing reading about what happened to her. Not a crime but something that clearly caused a lot of trauma and hurt for many years.
Misogyny is powerful and widespread. It's rife here and 'here' is a beacon on gender equality compared to many parts of the world.
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
On the speed limits, there's two A-roads that cris-cross my village. I think these should be 30. The remaining roads, including the one none cul-de-sac that potentially skips the lights with the intersection should be 20.
Hopefully common sense applies when these speed limit changes are made and that some 30s become 20s (urban, through villages, etc), but others where there is a lot less risk stay at 30. I can think of roads where I am surprised it is 30 and not 40 often with no sign, but designated by the frequency of street lights. Some of these dropping to 20 would be silly if the road is safe and there is little or no pedestrian activity.
The Westway - raised dual carriageway with no pedestrian access - is 20mph (down from 40) thanks to Mayor Khan.
It’s ludicrous.
Are you sure that's true? I can't find any evidence of that happening but I don't use the A40. Introducing 20mph limits in London has reduced collisions and fatal collisions by 25% and reduced collisions involving pedestrians by more than half on the roads affected. Seems like a great policy.
Yes I assume it is similar concerns that mean the Marylebone Flyover is 30 while the rest of the A4 is 40. Presumably the worry is a truck hitting the parapet at 40 could bring the whole thing down.
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
I think the evidence put in the public domain about the two individuals is very, very different.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and dispute the very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
You are treating the sexual assault against women as if it is just a thing individual men do rather than the entire cultural norm for this country and most of the Western world until, like, a decade or two ago? The reason that women have to address this publicly, have to make this a wider issue, have to comment on how common this is and how people hide it and so on is precisely because it is not just the criminal acts of bad individuals but extremely significant to how society has functioned. 1 in 3 women have been sexually assaulted by a man. The rate of prosecution is miniscule, and conviction lower. It's epidemic - and yes Brand needs to be held accountable for it, but society needs to fundamentally change. Hell, marital rape has only been illegal since 2003!
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
My first post was noting the enjoyment at the Guardian's hypocrisy being exposed as being a champion of liberal values employing evident and self-confessed sexually rampant Russell Brand so it is a bit of a man bites dog situation. We expect this from many newspapers (including the Guardian) but when it's the Guardian there is nevertheless added piquancy.
There is no elevated piquancy. The Guardian isn't a special case. It's not different to other outlets. This is entirely eye-of-the-beholder stuff.
Not true. The Guardian believes it is morally superior to the Mail and the Sun. As do you, I would guess.
Wrong. I do not think the Guardian is morally superior.
I also think the Sun* sees itself as more righteous as the Guardian and the Mail. I think the Mail* believes its crusade for truth and justice is holier than the Sun's or the Guardian's. They all think they are right, otherwise they would act differently. The Guardian is in line with all the other papers in that respect.
*I feel a bit weird ascribing these emotional states to companies/publications.
You might not think the Guardian is morally superior (although again I would bet that its values accord more with your own than the Sun) but the Guardian thinks it is morally superior - as you agree - and hence it amuses me when they are found to have feet of clay.
Why am I focusing only on the Guardian? Because it's very funny. Article upon article about the wrongs of society today and then they are the ones committing the egregious act of employing Brand. And mining customers' data for marketing purposes, similarly to firms that they criticise for doing the same thing, but that's another matter.
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
I think the evidence put in the public domain about the two individuals is very, very different.
I'll be honest, I haven't read the Times piece or watched the programme, but is it Mason Greenwood style evidence?
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
I think the evidence put in the public domain about the two individuals is very, very different.
I'll be honest, I haven't read the Times piece or watched the programme, but is it Mason Greenwood style evidence?
I know nothing about football. Don't ask me football-related questions.
If you're interested, there are plenty of summaries available online about Brand.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
It's not hard to find jurors who haven't read anything an alleged victim has had to say about Brand. I'm one of them. There will be millions upon millions who skip past this kind of stuff.
It doesn't reflect well on Boris, but it also doesn't reflect well on the Civil Service either. Many of those interviewed came across as quite arrogant, particularly Lord MacDonald, with a "this is how we've always done things attitude"
I'd be interested to know if they think the system is working better now. Clearly, Rishi is probably more to the Civil Service's liking but the Government is failing to deliver on his pledges.
I'm of the view that actually the system did actually need a really good shake up but the tragedy is that Boris and Truss weren't able to manage it due to personal failings (lack of seriousness and organisation from Boris, lack of communication skills from Truss).
And so now we will go back to insiders who will fail, but fail in an acceptable manner.
Much of Cummings critique of the civil service was and remains valid. The lack of understanding of statistics, maths and analytical skills, the pompous and pointless emphasis on precedent, hallowed procedures and the lack of technical skills for anything complicated. Unfortunately, and as per usual, his solutions did not work through to meaningful improvements. It was an opportunity to improve governance in this country but neither Cummings nor Boris had the stamina for it.
A favourite was being told by a high flyer in the Cabinet Office that IT projects had to be done with waterfall methodology. Anything else was anathema. He even used the word “incompetent”.
The high flyer in question had no training in (or understanding of) IT project management.
It could have been worse, he could have insisted that all projects were "Agile". "Minimum viable product" is a contender with "replacement bus service" as the most disappointing 3-word phrase in the English language.
Silly question, perhaps, but you do know that "agile" is a methodological framework for how you run projects, right? Your post seems to imply it's just a meaningless buzz word but I'm not sure. Agile is a pretty good framework. It has its weaknesses to be sure, but one thing is clear: you do need SOME kind of framework when running a project. Otherwise it's chaos and nothing gets delivered. If not Agile, something else.
Like every other methodology, it’s been turned into a cult and a stupid buzzword striped of all the original meanings by betaminus minds in management.
It still actually works as a way of building software.
I was present for a speech by one of the originators of the PRINCE2 methodology. He spent quite some time apologising for how it had become a religion, rather than guidelines…
I am getting all of my RWC predictions in early for this third weekend, starting with:
Weds ITA v URU. This could be an entertaining game as teams are effectively playing off for 3rd place in group. Italy by 15.
Thurs FRA v NAM. If France decide to turn up this could be a record breaking score. But as against Uruguay I suspect that France wont try too hard and will win ‘only’ by 40.
Fri ARG v SAM. This will be one of the weekends big games. Argentina were surprisingly poor in their opening game against England, while Samoa were not really tested against Chile. But this game is effectively a knockout match to decide which of the two qualify for the quarter finals, and both sides will raise their game. Both sides are very physical especially Samoa, and I would not be surprised to see a red card – or two!! Samoa to win by 10
ENG v CHI. Chile will run anything they get back at England, but England will be too strong and should win by 20-30
GEO v POR. This will be well matched – with Georgia’s physicality against Portugal’s fluid game. Georgia to eventually win by 10, but it will be close for much of the game. Portugal could even win (potential betting opportunity)
RSA v IRE. This game will be immense. Ireland are very controlled but will meet their match in South Africa, especially when they meet the ‘Bomb Squad’ in the pack. I think RSA will just be too strong for Ireland – South Africa by 6
The Telegraph continues its campaign on inheritance tax with the rather bizarre claim raising the threshold to £1Million will win the Tories the next election
SCO v TON. This game has consolation prize written all over it. Scotland could still qualify but it will be incredibly difficult. Expect a high scoring game but with Scotland pulling away by 20 at the end.
WAL v AUS. Another massive game. Wales will have the advantage of having rested almost all of their first team for two weeks – while Australia have to turnaround only 1 week from their battering by Fiji, and will be nursing mental as well as physical scars. This is a must win game for Australia or they are going home, while Wales could potentially lose and still qualify, or even win the group – it is that close. Expect Gatland to work out an effective game plan while Eddie Jones will come up with something…anything. I think Wales will win this match but by 6 points or less.
ENG v CHI. Chile will run anything they get back at England, but England will be too strong and should win by 20-30
GEO v POR. This will be well matched – with Georgia’s physicality against Portugal’s fluid game. Georgia to eventually win by 10, but it will be close for much of the game. Portugal could even win (potential betting opportunity)
RSA v IRE. This game will be immense. Ireland are very controlled but will meet their match in South Africa, especially when they meet the ‘Bomb Squad’ in the pack. I think RSA will just be too strong for Ireland – South Africa by 6
O/T with Starmer visiting Macron today and other recent meetings with other foreign politicians is this normal and accepted protocol? Would for example, the French be ok if a year or so out from their election the British PM entertained a sitting President’s rival for the job? Or if the British PM met with Biden’s potential opponent (obviously would be mad to meet Trump).
I always thought it was something that’s not done but clearly incorrect.
I believe Blair met GW Bush when he was still LG down in Texas
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
It's not hard to find jurors who haven't read anything an alleged victim has had to say about Brand. I'm one of them. There will be millions upon millions who skip past this kind of stuff.
Me too. That's until any capable defence team questions her evidence in the light of the fact that she took to the airwaves when the story broke with a screed about Brand's evil empire. Whereupon presumably she expands on her general critique, and completely undermines herself as a prosecution witness.
The Telegraph continues its campaign on inheritance tax with the rather bizarre claim raising the threshold to £1Million will win the Tories the next election
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
It's not hard to find jurors who haven't read anything an alleged victim has had to say about Brand. I'm one of them. There will be millions upon millions who skip past this kind of stuff.
Me too. That's until any capable defence team questions her evidence in the light of the fact that she took to the airwaves when the story broke with a screed about Brand's evil empire. Whereupon presumably she expands on her general critique, and completely undermines herself as a prosecution witness.
As a juror, I wouldn't be moved by the mere fact that someone had gone on the TV to talk about their alleged victimhood. There are several sensible reasons why a real victim might want to do that. Fine if the defence want to question their motives during the case. I imagine that they would be questioning the motivation and veracity of the allegations in any case.
What we shouldn't do is assume that a real victim wouldn't act in this or that way. Some victims will shut up and retreat into themselves. Some will be fired up to take the bad guy down. Some might reluctantly go on record to protect others. Some might even want to turn it into a pay day. The important thing is that "victim" isn't a category that supposed or requires uniform, homogeneous responses. What matters is the facts of the case, not the subsequent behaviour of the alleged victim.
The first four recommendations of the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry suggest that the Scottish Government should hold an inquiry into why the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry took so long and cost so much.
The Telegraph continues its campaign on inheritance tax with the rather bizarre claim raising the threshold to £1Million will win the Tories the next election
The Telegraph continues its campaign on inheritance tax with the rather bizarre claim raising the threshold to £1Million will win the Tories the next election
I don't think it would make much difference to the vast majority in the country who are never expecting to trouble the current IHT threshold, either when receiving or passing on. And tbh It will only persuade a few wavering voters who are likely to benefit.
At the last count only 3.73% of estates paid any IHT. Even allowing for the fact that several people are likely to benefit from each estate, I doubt if more than 15% of the population have any prospect of benefiting and most of those probably vote Tory every time anyway (or like Mrs P. and I would never vote Tory on principle and would certainly not be swung by such a regressive tax bribe.)
Labour should steal a march on the Tories and adopt Barty's suggestion: abolish IHT and treat any gifts or inheritances over a small threshold as income for ICT purposes.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
It's not hard to find jurors who haven't read anything an alleged victim has had to say about Brand. I'm one of them. There will be millions upon millions who skip past this kind of stuff.
People aren't disqualified from being on a jury simply because they have read or heard things in the past about a case, including things alleged victims have said. Indeed, some cases are so notorious that it's practically impossible for that to be avoided and, particularly in the case of retrials and trials on additional alleged offences, people will have a fair bit of background information (correct or not) on the accused which is not presented in evidence.
What does happen is they are given very clear instruction to disregard anything other than what is presented in evidence, and a stern warning not to do any background research during the trial itself (which jurors occasionally get into a lot of trouble about). An important part of the judge's role, particularly in notorious cases, is to drill those instructions into jurors who might very well come into the court believing they know stuff.
Juries aren't chosen from amongst those who live under a rock, basically.
Today is the start of the 3-day hearing of the Scottish government's petition against the UK government's S.35 Order preventing the GRR Bill from getting Royal Assent.
All the relevant submissions can be read online. I am looking forward to it for a number of reasons:-
1. The legal arguments are interesting and I don't think it is necessarily obvious which way the court will rule.
2. There will be acres of misinformed commentary to enjoy and, on occasion, rebut.
3. A ruling is unlikely to happen quickly - and will therefore happen in the months leading up to a General Election. Whatever the decision it will likely be appealed and so we will have a legal cat among the electoral pigeons. This may well have consequences for the SNP/Labour battle in Scotland and, possibly, more widely.
Additionally in October there is the hearing of the appeal by For Women Scotland against the decision by Lady Haldane on the meaning of "sex" in the Equality Act. (Lady Haldane is also hearing the S.35 petition.) While that appeal related to Scottish legislation on the representation of women on public boards, it does potentially have wider implications. If "sex" does not include "legal sex" following a GRC but only biological sex, then who cares if every Tom, Dick (sorry!) or Harry can get a GRC because it will give them no rights to access single sex spaces, services or association. In short, a win for FWS may undermine the reasons for the S.35 Order.
Of course the Scottish government is arguing the opposite - that it does extend the definition and that this does not undermine the Equality Act. So you can see the fun lawyers will have.
Honestly, I can sense your excitement from here!
Good old Scotland - providing us with such treats!
Thanks - this one will be fascinating. I have some objections to the GRR legislation. But I also have objections to Westminster simply choosing to overrule stuff it has decided to disagree with for tactical partisan reasons.
But no criticism of the Scottish government repeatedly pushing things they know are outside their remit for political gain?
Shouldn't we wait for the court's verdict on whether they were acting outside their remit? That's the point of it after all.
I was picking up @RochdalePioneers criticising one side while trying to give the appearance of being fair & balanced
Interesting article about a reanalysis of Tavistock data that had originally shown no impact on mental health for children on puberty blockers. New analysis says a 34% had deteriorated and 25% had improved.
What strikes me as odd is that "the original study used scores from both parent and child questionnaires, which assessed children's behavioural and emotional problems" ... if it's based on self reported data then all else equal couldn't an improvement be possibly expected even from simply a placebo effect?
It could be a placebo effect because of the design (before/after study) rather than because it's self-reported data.
A pedant writes: it could be a Hawthorne effect (where being studied makes a difference). There were no placebos here. Frankly, it sounds like random variation. More research is needed. Please send grant money to...
"There couldn't be a placebo effect because the study didn't include a placebo."
Oh God.
As a general point, although clinical trials with a placebo are rightly seen as a gold standard, there are a lot of trials that don't have one due to the ethical issues.
Principally there can be circumstances, particularly where alternative courses of treatment exist, where it isn't just a white lie to give a placebo but you're denying them the alternative course of treatment as part of the deception.
I don't know if that's the case here, and haven't looked into the detail, but lack of a placebo doesn't somehow automatically invalidate a trial.
Indeed. Most trials today are done against best current practice rather than against a placebo.
In this case, there was only one group, who were assessed before and after. There was no comparison group.
That’s a UK/European approach. FDA still likes placebo
That's a simplification. But it is true that European regulators are more concerned about comparisons with best available practice. That's because the UK/Europe are interested in making people healthier and the US is interested in drug companies making money. Someone posted this video here the other day that is relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtHMB3vroas
That’s both a simplification and extremely offensive to people who work in the industry
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
Yes, it's baffling.
It's not baffling at all, it sells papers / increases web traffic / increases viewers.
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
I think the evidence put in the public domain about the two individuals is very, very different.
I'll be honest, I haven't read the Times piece or watched the programme, but is it Mason Greenwood style evidence?
I know nothing about football. Don't ask me football-related questions.
If you're interested, there are plenty of summaries available online about Brand.
Greenwood's girlfriend posted a picture of her face bloodied and a recording of him threatening to hurt her if she didn't have sex with him.
Basically, not just her word against his. I don't have a Sunday Times sub - is it more than their word against his?
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Every paper with an ideological stance sets itself up as the arbiter of values and "right" thinking. And they all fall into stupidity and hypocrisy some of the time. The Guardian is no different to the Mail or the Sun or the Indy or the Telegraph or the Mirror in that respect.
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
And the sun rises in the East. Did I say I love all newspapers apart from the Guardian. I believe by 16yrs, coincidentally enough, one ought to be able to read newspapers critically. Perhaps a bit older for you, who knows.
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
I don't spend any time looking at CiF, so no, I don't recall this. You should save the effort of convincing me that Guardian is hypocritical and narrower in its view than it believes, I already agree. I just think your apparent obsession with it is egregiously weird. Your obvious hatred for it combined with your apparent avid consumption of it and your self reported hysteria at its contents make you sound probably more unhinged than you intended.
My first post was noting the enjoyment at the Guardian's hypocrisy being exposed as being a champion of liberal values employing evident and self-confessed sexually rampant Russell Brand so it is a bit of a man bites dog situation. We expect this from many newspapers (including the Guardian) but when it's the Guardian there is nevertheless added piquancy.
There is no elevated piquancy. The Guardian isn't a special case. It's not different to other outlets. This is entirely eye-of-the-beholder stuff.
Not true. The Guardian believes it is morally superior to the Mail and the Sun. As do you, I would guess.
Wrong. I do not think the Guardian is morally superior.
I also think the Sun* sees itself as more righteous as the Guardian and the Mail. I think the Mail* believes its crusade for truth and justice is holier than the Sun's or the Guardian's. They all think they are right, otherwise they would act differently. The Guardian is in line with all the other papers in that respect.
*I feel a bit weird ascribing these emotional states to companies/publications.
You might not think the Guardian is morally superior (although again I would bet that its values accord more with your own than the Sun) but the Guardian thinks it is morally superior - as you agree - and hence it amuses me when they are found to have feet of clay.
Why am I focusing only on the Guardian? Because it's very funny. Article upon article about the wrongs of society today and then they are the ones committing the egregious act of employing Brand. And mining customers' data for marketing purposes, similarly to firms that they criticise for doing the same thing, but that's another matter.
We all know you are focusing only on the Guardian because it's left of centre and you are right-wing. And that's fair enough, but you should be honest about your motives.
The last person in charge to think the civil service would be better moving fast and breaking thingswas the very famous and effective reformer Liz Truss, notably sacking the head civil servant in the Treasury during her thousand hour reich.
This 20 limit should be treated as a case of moving fast and breaking things.
If in 6 months you can show how many lives are saved or how much time is lost you can make a decision as to whether to continue with it. It should be set up that way from the start with as little expense in signage as possible.
More experiments, less dogma!
Personally I'm not convinced a blanket 20 is a good thing but I can't really see the problem with it in most residential areas so lets try it and see...
I'm not sure you can change back from 20 to 30, at least not near schools where children have become used to stepping into the road without properly looking.
At least round here all schools have a 20 limit around them already so I don't imagine they would go back to 30 if a blanket 20 was tried and then dropped.
This argument is really about main roads through urban areas not next to schools. I usually find 30 is too fast in a lot of residential streets regardless of the speed limit so I can't see what the objection might be there.
As an example, I had to go to the east coast last week. There are a lot of small villages that the main road passes through and the speed limit varies between 30 in the core urban area and 40 in the outer parts with few junctions. There are occasional stretches of 50 or 60 between villages.
It is a very similar situation crossing parts of Wales.
A blanket 20 limit would add significant time to the journey - getting on for 50% extra. Whilst for me as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal, it risks making rural communities even more cut off than they are already. A lot of the east coast is not doing very well at all and needs better links to population centres, not worse. There is no public transport to speak of.
The idea that this is just an 'indicator' and there is an expectation that most people will still do 30 is nuts. Creating laws that are never intended to be enforced is stupid.
Personally I would be very happy if the road outside my house was made a 20 limit, but should I be allowed to inconvenience everyone else? I knew what the road was like when I bought the house...
The "main road" argument is undermined by the fact that most collisions and injuries occur on those roads, as you'd expect. They have the most traffic.
In the Scottish Borders (under the Tories) there was a conscious decision to apply the 20mph to the A roads running through the villages precisely because of the level of traffic, lorries etc
This is as also an argument for bypassing those villages, which I'm sympathetic to, but it's a lot cheaper to apply a speed limit in the medium term than a big infrastructure project.
I'm all for trying it out, as I say. I hate traffic speeding past as much as the next man and use a bicycle locally.
Are there any good statistics on the accident rate in the Borders after the limit was brought in?
There is definitely a down side in areas with no alternatives to road transport, though. It would be nice to have some formal measurements including journey times.
Not sure, I'll have a dig around.
I'd guess journey time change would be tiny because the average journey in the borders will be much longer than average.
There you go. Published 6 days ago, but just average speeds from what I can tell.
Thanks, yes. It is journey times we need really. I imagine Google knows...
It does suggest that the reduction in mean speed is quite small so it might not actually have much effect on either drivers or accidents. It quotes a statistic of a 4% reduction in accidents for each 1mph reduction in speed but that can't possibly be a linear relationship.
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
It's not hard to find jurors who haven't read anything an alleged victim has had to say about Brand. I'm one of them. There will be millions upon millions who skip past this kind of stuff.
Me too. That's until any capable defence team questions her evidence in the light of the fact that she took to the airwaves when the story broke with a screed about Brand's evil empire. Whereupon presumably she expands on her general critique, and completely undermines herself as a prosecution witness.
Any capable prosecutor will point out (both to the jury and to the judge if the defence is seeking to labour the point) that it is hardly surprising if a victim grows to hate a perpetrator for more than just his crimes, and therefore it's completely irrelevant to the matter at hand.
The present witness at the Post Office Inquiry isn't able to remember many of the things she did during the time in question, which is roughly between around 10 and 20 years ago, which is proving rather frustrating for the barrister asking the questions.
It doesn't reflect well on Boris, but it also doesn't reflect well on the Civil Service either. Many of those interviewed came across as quite arrogant, particularly Lord MacDonald, with a "this is how we've always done things attitude"
I'd be interested to know if they think the system is working better now. Clearly, Rishi is probably more to the Civil Service's liking but the Government is failing to deliver on his pledges.
I'm of the view that actually the system did actually need a really good shake up but the tragedy is that Boris and Truss weren't able to manage it due to personal failings (lack of seriousness and organisation from Boris, lack of communication skills from Truss).
And so now we will go back to insiders who will fail, but fail in an acceptable manner.
Much of Cummings critique of the civil service was and remains valid. The lack of understanding of statistics, maths and analytical skills, the pompous and pointless emphasis on precedent, hallowed procedures and the lack of technical skills for anything complicated. Unfortunately, and as per usual, his solutions did not work through to meaningful improvements. It was an opportunity to improve governance in this country but neither Cummings nor Boris had the stamina for it.
A favourite was being told by a high flyer in the Cabinet Office that IT projects had to be done with waterfall methodology. Anything else was anathema. He even used the word “incompetent”.
The high flyer in question had no training in (or understanding of) IT project management.
It could have been worse, he could have insisted that all projects were "Agile". "Minimum viable product" is a contender with "replacement bus service" as the most disappointing 3-word phrase in the English language.
Silly question, perhaps, but you do know that "agile" is a methodological framework for how you run projects, right? Your post seems to imply it's just a meaningless buzz word but I'm not sure. Agile is a pretty good framework. It has its weaknesses to be sure, but one thing is clear: you do need SOME kind of framework when running a project. Otherwise it's chaos and nothing gets delivered. If not Agile, something else.
Like every other methodology, it’s been turned into a cult and a stupid buzzword striped of all the original meanings by betaminus minds in management.
It still actually works as a way of building software.
I was present for a speech by one of the originators of the PRINCE2 methodology. He spent quite some time apologising for how it had become a religion, rather than guidelines…
All methodologies melt in the heat of project delivery in my experience.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
It's not hard to find jurors who haven't read anything an alleged victim has had to say about Brand. I'm one of them. There will be millions upon millions who skip past this kind of stuff.
Me too. That's until any capable defence team questions her evidence in the light of the fact that she took to the airwaves when the story broke with a screed about Brand's evil empire. Whereupon presumably she expands on her general critique, and completely undermines herself as a prosecution witness.
As a juror, I wouldn't be moved by the mere fact that someone had gone on the TV to talk about their alleged victimhood. There are several sensible reasons why a real victim might want to do that. Fine if the defence want to question their motives during the case. I imagine that they would be questioning the motivation and veracity of the allegations in any case.
What we shouldn't do is assume that a real victim wouldn't act in this or that way. Some victims will shut up and retreat into themselves. Some will be fired up to take the bad guy down. Some might reluctantly go on record to protect others. Some might even want to turn it into a pay day. The important thing is that "victim" isn't a category that supposed or requires uniform, homogeneous responses. What matters is the facts of the case, not the subsequent behaviour of the alleged victim.
A variety of different allegations have been made by several different women. Those concern various alleged acts, which range from sleazy but not illegal to very serious acts of criminality. Some acts were in the US, some in the UK. The most serious complaints of rape and sexual assault were made by other women, not the pseudonymous Alice under discussion here. Alice has talked more about her experiences; others have said nothing beyond what was in the initial report.
Whatever the rights and wrongs we appear to have yet another instance of a person virtually being found guilty by the media before any investigation has even started, you would have thought after Cliff Richard they would have learnt their lesson, but No. By highlighting it here,is this web site falling into the same trap?
I think the evidence put in the public domain about the two individuals is very, very different.
I'll be honest, I haven't read the Times piece or watched the programme, but is it Mason Greenwood style evidence?
I know nothing about football. Don't ask me football-related questions.
If you're interested, there are plenty of summaries available online about Brand.
Greenwood's girlfriend posted a picture of her face bloodied and a recording of him threatening to hurt her if she didn't have sex with him.
Basically, not just her word against his. I don't have a Sunday Times sub - is it more than their word against his?
She alleges the recording is of him. I don't think you should say it is him unless he's acknowledged that it was. I've no idea either way.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
So Brand gets to sound off to all and sundry about his accusers, which is fine by you, but should any if his accusers say anything in public, any trial is prejudiced ?
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
It seems foolish for this woman to comment on Brand’s work. If it’s that obvious to her that he would build up a fan base that would defend him, why didn’t she come forward before he’d done that?
I think Brand is a moron, but that shouldn’t come into this. Very simply, tell the police what happened and let them investigate. Leave everything else at the door.
Something of a double standard going on here.
If Brand continues to publicly rubbish those who've made allegations against him, should we expect them to remain silent ?
I'm just thinking what his defence team will say in court. They will ask them about these comments and suggest that it is politically motivated.
From Brand's point of view, I'd recommend he denies and then keeps his gob shut.
And the same goes for everyone else. The bloke on Sky News saying something like "innocent until proven guilty only applies to the state, the court of public opinion doesn't have to follow those rules" is very foolish.
Brand has produced plenty of material where he judges people as “guilty” for barely any reason at all.
The idea that “innocent until proven guilty means shut up until after someone brings a court case and there’s a verdict” is just a stupid attempt at shutting down debate. Usually used by guilty people.
Benjamin Mendy and Alex Salmond have entered the conversation.
I don't think saying "Brand behaves badly, therefore, people should be allowed to behave in the same way towards him" is a very good argument to be honest.
There appear to be a lot of people who dislike Brand and dislike the fact that plenty of people like him.
What I do think it's funny is the Guardian. Employs him no doubt after a largely white, Oxbridge-educated editorial board, none of whom I'd wager really knew who he was or what he said, thinking it make the paper "relevant", or at least give people a break from George Monbiot, and now it's come back to kick them in the arse.
They are precisely a part of the problem. And it's very funny seeing them tie themselves in knots about it now.
I think it’s more concerning that, say, Elon Musk is backing Brand now, after these (credible) allegations came out, than that the Guardian did many years ago, before these allegations came out.
I think those are weasel words. The Graun employed him because he was edgy. Allegations followed but no one didn't know the type of person Brand was and that is precisely why they employed him.
Edit: and who cares who Musk backs. He doesn't get to determine right or wrong any more than the chairman of Three mobile network does.
A large number of companies have employed Brand over the years, some for longer and paying more money than The Guardian. I hope all of them are reflecting on what happened.
Why are you picking out The Guardian in particular? Were they particularly likely to know more about allegations? Do you know they failed to act on a complaint they received? Or is it you just don't like The Guardian?
I just don't like the Guardian.
And there's the truth. When things like this story blow up, a remarkable number of otherwise intelligent* people try to use it to crowbar their own ideology into it. Sometimes it's pushing at an open door. Sometimes it requires the kind of contortions you only see when the lead character in a Christmas movie is crawling through ducts.
If you're looking to a celebrity rape scandal to prove your politics is better than your opponents', you are onto a hiding to nothing. And it's really fucking boring.
*In general. I do not mean to imply that @TOPPING is otherwise intelligent
You're overthinking it, such as you are able to. The Guardian sets itself up as arbiter of values and "right" thinking. Then it proves that it has clay feet as do all of us (me excepted). Same with criticising Cambridge Analytica when if you read their "cookie" policy it does all that they criticised CA for doing or helping to do.
That is why I dislike it - on account of the sheer hypocrisy and, reading so many articles in today's edition, many of their columnists agree with me.
Why are you reading so many articles in a newspaper you dislike?
Your kidding, right? What fun would it be only to read articles from Railway Modeller. Or does it surprise you that people, not you obvs, read other points of view.
Railway Modeller went woke - claiming that O guage and other large scales were elitest.
And also heavily promoting TT as the next big thing and sure to overtake N gauge in the market... The horror.
Russell Brand accuser calls his response to allegations ‘insulting’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/18/russell-brand-accuser-calls-his-response-to-allegations-insulting ...“It’s insulting,” Alice told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Monday. “And it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream – he did a Universal Pictures movie last year, he did Minions, a children’s movie.
“He is very much part of the mainstream media, he just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up. And, it may sound cynical, but I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time.
“And then, as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened. That’s not a surprise to me. These men always deny any of the allegations brought to them – I knew he would. What he didn’t deny was that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old.”..
Not quite sounding like an innocent victim there.
Perhaps you could explain to us how purported victims should sound for you to consider them 'innocent' ?
And what you mean by 'innocent' in this case ?
It is precisely the sort of response @Luckyguy1983 has given which explains why so many women avoid reporting sexual assaults. Because they fear having their characters attacked and being blamed for what a man has done to them.
I think if someone is making a serious allegation, especially after a long time has elapsed, they are well advised to keep their media commentary on the alleged perpetrator to a minimum, to avoid being seen to be grinding an ideological axe. I'm not a legal eagle, but I am surprised this lady wasn't given advice along these lines by her solicitor, as it seems basic to me.
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
Part of the reason these crimes (the kind Brand is accused of) are serious is that they are tied up in cultures of shame, silence, power, and coercion. Your job as a non-participant, non-witness, non-victim, is relatively simple: avoid contributing to the culture that says victims must act in this or that way or they oughtn't be believed.
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I am afraid what you appear to be doing is using dubious appeals to sentiment to try and complicate a very simple concept, not just in cases of sexual abuse, but in all legal cases, that witnesses and alleged victims need to focus on giving the the jury enough evidence of the crime to convict. Taking to the airwaves to denounce the alleged perpetrator on everything except the colour of his socks does not convince this layperson (perhaps lawyers will correct me) of the seriousness of the accusation, and could imo be used by the defence. If Brand is a rapist, he should be put on trial, convicted, and given an appropriate sentence. This intervention would seem to make that less likely.
No appeal to sentiment from me. The facts of crimes like rape and sexual assault are that victims find if difficult to come forward because of various reasons, not least the weird insistence within the culture that victims ought comport themselves in a particular way. We should avoid doing that.
It has nothing to do with comportment, it is about there being a fair, unprejudiced trial.
It's not hard to find jurors who haven't read anything an alleged victim has had to say about Brand. I'm one of them. There will be millions upon millions who skip past this kind of stuff.
People aren't disqualified from being on a jury simply because they have read or heard things in the past about a case, including things alleged victims have said. Indeed, some cases are so notorious that it's practically impossible for that to be avoided and, particularly in the case of retrials and trials on additional alleged offences, people will have a fair bit of background information (correct or not) on the accused which is not presented in evidence.
What does happen is they are given very clear instruction to disregard anything other than what is presented in evidence, and a stern warning not to do any background research during the trial itself (which jurors occasionally get into a lot of trouble about). An important part of the judge's role, particularly in notorious cases, is to drill those instructions into jurors who might very well come into the court believing they know stuff.
Juries aren't chosen from amongst those who live under a rock, basically.
The present witness at the Post Office Inquiry isn't able to remember many of the things she did during the time in question, which is roughly between around 10 and 20 years ago, which is proving rather frustrating for the barrister asking the questions.
Without watching it, I'm not surprised tbh. These days, if I want to remember what I was doing 10-20 years ago Apple Photos is my first port of call. It's not much use for work related memories though as I didn't take many photos at work.
Interesting article about a reanalysis of Tavistock data that had originally shown no impact on mental health for children on puberty blockers. New analysis says a 34% had deteriorated and 25% had improved.
What strikes me as odd is that "the original study used scores from both parent and child questionnaires, which assessed children's behavioural and emotional problems" ... if it's based on self reported data then all else equal couldn't an improvement be possibly expected even from simply a placebo effect?
It could be a placebo effect because of the design (before/after study) rather than because it's self-reported data.
A pedant writes: it could be a Hawthorne effect (where being studied makes a difference). There were no placebos here. Frankly, it sounds like random variation. More research is needed. Please send grant money to...
"There couldn't be a placebo effect because the study didn't include a placebo."
Oh God.
As a general point, although clinical trials with a placebo are rightly seen as a gold standard, there are a lot of trials that don't have one due to the ethical issues.
Principally there can be circumstances, particularly where alternative courses of treatment exist, where it isn't just a white lie to give a placebo but you're denying them the alternative course of treatment as part of the deception.
I don't know if that's the case here, and haven't looked into the detail, but lack of a placebo doesn't somehow automatically invalidate a trial.
Indeed. Most trials today are done against best current practice rather than against a placebo.
In this case, there was only one group, who were assessed before and after. There was no comparison group.
That’s a UK/European approach. FDA still likes placebo
That's a simplification. But it is true that European regulators are more concerned about comparisons with best available practice. That's because the UK/Europe are interested in making people healthier and the US is interested in drug companies making money. Someone posted this video here the other day that is relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtHMB3vroas
That’s both a simplification and extremely offensive to people who work in the industry
The offence is directed at the US political landscape that has produced their regulatory framework, not at those who work in the industry (unless their work in the industry is as lobbyists).
Comments
I think those in England should follow this controversy as it could be coming to England via Starmer
Different ideologies lead to different hypocrisies. You single out the Guardian because of your ideology.
If we are going to criticise something, shouldn’t we have read it first? If Topping was criticising The Guardian, then saying he never read it, that would surely be worse?
My experience in Scotland is that most villages or small towns have a 30mph lead in and then drop to 20mph in the centre which is uncontroversial. Indeed I recall being in Dunkeld last year and this was a good example
As far as by passes are concerned absolutely, but Drakeford has cancelled all road building in Wales including the much needed third Menai crossing
1) She should be meek and tearful. Confidence in women is a sign they are getting above themselves.
2) Dress modestly - perhaps a nice headscarf. A veil?
3) Accuse the right people
4) Not accuse people in public. Perhaps in a Catholic Church confessional, given the excellent track record of that institution for handling sexual scandals.
5) Not get uppity by demanding punishment.
Have I missed anything?
I focus on the Guardian because it amuses me so. There was, in CiF some time ago, a recurrent post which was put up, perhaps you recall it, where the schools and universities of all the editorial staff and columnists was shown. It was hysterically funny (to me). All public school, the vast majority Oxbridge educated. The post would soon be taken down by the moderators. Is this intrinsically funny when they (as with others) set themselves up as arbiters of correct values and a "come all ye", diverse kind of place? Yes. Yes it is.
Agile is a pretty good framework. It has its weaknesses to be sure, but one thing is clear: you do need SOME kind of framework when running a project. Otherwise it's chaos and nothing gets delivered. If not Agile, something else.
Plaid are coming through this as the voice of reason but dont know how much they will capitalise on this due to their low profile.
Lib Dems are nowhere to be heard - same as the shouty right .
I'm not a fan of 'disclaimers' of the 'I don't like Putin' type, as I find them rather infantile, but I'll do so here. I am not a fan of Brand; I never was. I have always found him fairly gross, and I have never seen any episodes of his Youtube, or found anything he has to say very insightful. I knew he was a pig with women, which is an extremely offputting facet of his personality. I did see an interview with him on US telly where I thought he was very funny, it was Letterman, who usually tries to be wittier than his guests, which he couldn't do with Brand in this instance.
That all said, I am suspicious of the more serious historic allegations, and the above accuser's interview on Women's Hour doesn't serve to reassure me. These are serious crimes, and should be treated as such, not as a jumping off point for a broad career critique.
My main point is that a Hawthorne effect is part placebo effect. What's the dfference? The Hawthorne effect is the placebo effect when it is the patient reacting to being given placebo. One reason for a positive effect that is non-placebo but is Hawthorne effect is due to all round better medical care. Patients on a randomised trials are followed-up much more closely than non-trial patients and so other complications might be picked up quickly.
A "famous" statistician/clinical trial specialist once told me: if you get the chance to be on a clinical phase III trial, you should definitely agree to it. Even if you are on the control group your alround level of treatment and care will be much better than when not on the trial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px_6ta4bMw8
Published at 11am. 9 years and £11 million later.
Introducing 20mph limits in London has reduced collisions and fatal collisions by 25% and reduced collisions involving pedestrians by more than half on the roads affected. Seems like a great policy.
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2023/february/new-data-shows-significant-improvements-in-road-safety-in-london-since-introduction-of-20mph-speed-limits
That's precisely the Drake's policy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWhTkYE4NhA
Are there any good statistics on the accident rate in the Borders after the limit was brought in?
There is definitely a down side in areas with no alternatives to road transport, though. It would be nice to have some formal measurements including journey times.
Doing a test/placebo trial for an illness where there is a known effective treatment is not only unethical, it says nothing about whether the new treatment should be used.
20mph? Not sure that is correct. Or at least wasn't the last time I was on it. Perhaps once it hits the Marylebone Road but don't recall as you would be lucky to reach 20mph there in any case.
- Questionnaires. Questionnaires to judge quality-of-life or mood are quite standard. Google HRQoL for an example.
- Placebo effect. Whether a change is caused by a placebo or not is conceptually difficult to answer without knowing the causation chain.
- Self-reported data. Without Mr Spock to do a mind-meld, self-reported data is a way of assessing a person's internal/mental state. Are you happy or sad today?
- Sample size. If I see one more fuckwit (not you, @BartholomewRoberts) bang on about "low sample size" I'll throw a fridge at the wall. Sample sizes are not necessarily important if you don't have a statistical test (each test has its own minimum sample size[2] to give power) and the effect size is larger than the accuracy. You don't need a large sample size to see if a flea is as heavy as an elephant.
Notes[1] A cold-read are statements that are always true regardless of the study. A fortune teller cold-read is "you went thru a bit of a difficult patch in your teens".
[2] The Fisher's exact test can cope with really tiny samples. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher's_exact_test
You are doing the exact opposite of that.
I'd guess journey time change would be tiny because the average journey in the borders will be much longer than average.
I also think the Sun* sees itself as more righteous as the Guardian and the Mail. I think the Mail* believes its crusade for truth and justice is holier than the Sun's or the Guardian's. They all think they are right, otherwise they would act differently. The Guardian is in line with all the other papers in that respect.
*I feel a bit weird ascribing these emotional states to companies/publications.
https://www.mdpi.com/2313-576X/9/3/66
Carriages are air conditioned - as in Seoul - but stations aren't.
Travel card works in both cities (and elsewhere.
Why am I focusing only on the Guardian? Because it's very funny. Article upon article about the wrongs of society today and then they are the ones committing the egregious act of employing Brand. And mining customers' data for marketing purposes, similarly to firms that they criticise for doing the same thing, but that's another matter.
If you're interested, there are plenty of summaries available online about Brand.
https://www.gov.wales/electoral-roll-2022
It still actually works as a way of building software.
I was present for a speech by one of the originators of the PRINCE2 methodology. He spent quite some time apologising for how it had become a religion, rather than guidelines…
Weds ITA v URU. This could be an entertaining game as teams are effectively playing off for 3rd place in group. Italy by 15.
Thurs FRA v NAM. If France decide to turn up this could be a record breaking score. But as against Uruguay I suspect that France wont try too hard and will win ‘only’ by 40.
Fri ARG v SAM. This will be one of the weekends big games. Argentina were surprisingly poor in their opening game against England, while Samoa were not really tested against Chile. But this game is effectively a knockout match to decide which of the two qualify for the quarter finals, and both sides will raise their game. Both sides are very physical especially Samoa, and I would not be surprised to see a red card – or two!! Samoa to win by 10
ENG v CHI. Chile will run anything they get back at England, but England will be too strong and should win by 20-30
GEO v POR. This will be well matched – with Georgia’s physicality against Portugal’s fluid game. Georgia to eventually win by 10, but it will be close for much of the game. Portugal could even win (potential betting opportunity)
RSA v IRE. This game will be immense. Ireland are very controlled but will meet their match in South Africa, especially when they meet the ‘Bomb Squad’ in the pack. I think RSA will just be too strong for Ireland – South Africa by 6
Can't see that going down well in the red wall
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/1m-inheritance-tax-threshold-could-win-us-the-election-say-tory-mps/ar-AA1gSXRY?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=f6d88a7e1c89400698c33f95bb1a456c&ei=11
SCO v TON. This game has consolation prize written all over it. Scotland could still qualify but it will be incredibly difficult. Expect a high scoring game but with Scotland pulling away by 20 at the end.
WAL v AUS. Another massive game. Wales will have the advantage of having rested almost all of their first team for two weeks – while Australia have to turnaround only 1 week from their battering by Fiji, and will be nursing mental as well as physical scars. This is a must win game for Australia or they are going home, while Wales could potentially lose and still qualify, or even win the group – it is that close. Expect Gatland to work out an effective game plan while Eddie Jones will come up with something…anything. I think Wales will win this match but by 6 points or less.
A non punitive rate (10% max)
Many fewer exemptions - like none.
Making it impossible to avoid by planning and timing.
Currently for the rich and organised the tax is mostly voluntary. For lots of lawyers and accountants it is their full time job.
For most DT readers the exemptions amount to £1m at the moment. (Husband+wife+home).
What we shouldn't do is assume that a real victim wouldn't act in this or that way. Some victims will shut up and retreat into themselves. Some will be fired up to take the bad guy down. Some might reluctantly go on record to protect others. Some might even want to turn it into a pay day. The important thing is that "victim" isn't a category that supposed or requires uniform, homogeneous responses. What matters is the facts of the case, not the subsequent behaviour of the alleged victim.
At the last count only 3.73% of estates paid any IHT. Even allowing for the fact that several people are likely to benefit from each estate, I doubt if more than 15% of the population have any prospect of benefiting and most of those probably vote Tory every time anyway (or like Mrs P. and I would never vote Tory on principle and would certainly not be swung by such a regressive tax bribe.)
Labour should steal a march on the Tories and adopt Barty's suggestion: abolish IHT and treat any gifts or inheritances over a small threshold as income for ICT purposes.
What does happen is they are given very clear instruction to disregard anything other than what is presented in evidence, and a stern warning not to do any background research during the trial itself (which jurors occasionally get into a lot of trouble about). An important part of the judge's role, particularly in notorious cases, is to drill those instructions into jurors who might very well come into the court believing they know stuff.
Juries aren't chosen from amongst those who live under a rock, basically.
Basically, not just her word against his. I don't have a Sunday Times sub - is it more than their word against his?
@EuropeElects
Germany, GMS poll:
CDU/CSU-EPP: 27%
AfD-ID: 23% (+2)
SPD-S&D: 16% (-1)
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 15% (+1)
FDP-RE: 6% (-1)
LINKE-LEFT: 4%
+/- vs. 2-9 August 2023
Fieldwork: 13-18 September 2023
Sample size: 1,002"
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1704080088629727412
It does suggest that the reduction in mean speed is quite small so it might not actually have much effect on either drivers or accidents. It quotes a statistic of a 4% reduction in accidents for each 1mph reduction in speed but that can't possibly be a linear relationship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWhTkYE4NhA
You are a berk.
https://x.com/neilphauer/status/1704074437975331119