I would connect you with the lady in question and you could maybe work together on the problem.
However, she lives in Idaho, and there is just a single railway station (Sandpoint) in the whole state, so you would need some new hobbies.
Hmmm... well, passenger services in the US are a bit thin on the ground outside the main coastal cities. But in 2009 I did do the New Mexico Rail Runner (Albuquerque to Santa Fe), and in 2011 I did the whole RTD light rail network in Denver (though it has expanded considerably since I left).
Meanwhile. Client needs to put UK address on everything it imports from 31st January. About to print reams of stickers for an EU factory. "address format is wrong" i point out, substituting the correct address.
We need to use the wrong address format (no postal town FFS) apparently to be consistent. Yes, consistently wrong. Is an incomplete address accepted as an address by customs assholes?
Post towns are an anachronism. Even Royal Mail barely uses them any more.
Essentially the important bits of your address are the top line and the postcode. Everything else is just error correction in case you get either of those two wrong.
We (posties) are definitely in favour of full addresses
A lot of the sorting is done manually, and local villages and towns have some of the same street names. I deliver to The Green in Marlborough and quite often end up with letters for other local The Greens in my mail. They say The Green, Marlborough but have a different postcode
I look at the postcode last. I catch (I think most of) them because I recognise that the name is wrong
I reckon I could correctly sort and deliver at least 80% of my mail with just the names
When I worked for 100% not the post office many years ago - they were already telling we back-office minions to reduce the address to a minimum. "42 B12 8QT" was entirely enough", they said.
They also built the main parcel distribution centre backwards. And painted over the Crown on their vans then had to repaint them at a cost of ballpark £20million.
Which was all fine. Thankfully they had some random postmasters to sue.
On topic. NoM is beginning to look value at 6.6 on Betfair exchange.
I expect the race to tighten. Surely even Sunak will hit his stride at some point.
If starmer gets "found out" due to increased press coverage as the big day arrives, even if he is just found to be mediocre, Sunak need not hit his stride for the race to tighten.
I expect the dam to break, and a sizeable Labour majority. But 6.6 does seem good value. 3 would seem fair.
If you think "You look OK" is a compliment, prepare to die a virgin / have ugly sex / pay for it
You look alright? You look adequate? You look so-so? You look average? You look middling? You look sufficient?
I was once described by a female acquaintance as "one of those really ugly guys who was really close to being a really beautiful guy". It was the sort of backhanded compliment a Chinese table tennis ace would have been proud of.
Fortunately, I didn't have a thing for her, otherwise it would have stung a lot more. I just condensed it to "Marmite good looks" in my head and had done with it.
If you think "You look OK" is a compliment, prepare to die a virgin / have ugly sex / pay for it
You look alright? You look adequate? You look so-so? You look average? You look middling? You look sufficient?
I was once described by a female acquaintance as "one of those really ugly guys who was really close to being a really beautiful guy". It was the sort of backhanded compliment a Chinese table tennis ace would have been proud of.
Fortunately, I didn't have a thing for her, otherwise it would have stung a lot more. I just condensed it to "Marmite good looks" in my head and had done with it.
She might well become leader, but I’ve seen her live and she was mediocre. Might just have been a bad day, but she didn’t have the presence of some other politicians of various parties.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
If you think "You look OK" is a compliment, prepare to die a virgin / have ugly sex / pay for it
You look alright? You look adequate? You look so-so? You look average? You look middling? You look sufficient?
I was once described by a female acquaintance as "one of those really ugly guys who was really close to being a really beautiful guy". It was the sort of backhanded compliment a Chinese table tennis ace would have been proud of.
Fortunately, I didn't have a thing for her, otherwise it would have stung a lot more. I just condensed it to "Marmite good looks" in my head and had done with it.
There's a lot of evidence that - for guys at least - it is better to be striking and average (or even slightly ugly) looking, than generically handsome.
If you think "You look OK" is a compliment, prepare to die a virgin / have ugly sex / pay for it
You look alright? You look adequate? You look so-so? You look average? You look middling? You look sufficient?
I was once described by a female acquaintance as "one of those really ugly guys who was really close to being a really beautiful guy". It was the sort of backhanded compliment a Chinese table tennis ace would have been proud of.
Fortunately, I didn't have a thing for her, otherwise it would have stung a lot more. I just condensed it to "Marmite good looks" in my head and had done with it.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
As a parent to two teenagers, I can assure you that the best way to make sure your kids aren't trans, is to tell them that they are.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
She excites support with regards to the trans issue, but less so in her ministerial and management roles. Her probability of becoming LOTO would depend on the priorities of the party post-defeat, which would in turn influence their probabilities of success in 2029ish
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
It's a very ungenerous and quite a silly interpretation given 'epidemic' is also used to describe any sharp rise in something among a population. Osborne herself used it in that sense to describe child poverty. It's a bit like when the Corbynites got offended when Jess Philips said she'd "stab Corbyn in the front" not the back or Chuka Umunna (remember him?) said "call off the dogs" and claimed he was calling members "dogs". Everyone knows what the person means, but if you're obtuse enough you can twist the meaning to something worse.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
As a parent to two teenagers, I can assure you that the best way to make sure your kids aren't trans, is to tell them that they are.
The Edina Monsoon approach to raising a conventional child.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
As a parent to two teenagers, I can assure you that the best way to make sure your kids aren't trans, is to tell them that they are.
The Edina Monsoon approach to raising a conventional child.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
As a parent to two teenagers, I can assure you that the best way to make sure your kids aren't trans, is to tell them that they are.
As a parent of a trans kid, I can tell you it's nothing to do with what you have to say about it.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
Yes. She was very wide of the mark - and she was doing exactly what Badenoch claimed. She was lying and hoping to get away with it because it was in the Select Committee. The use of the term epidemic has long ago moved away from solely being used as a specific reference to disease and the MP on the committee was doing she could get something on the record which culdbe used at alater date to attack Badenoch. It was dishonest, it was not a misunderstanding or accidental and she was lying.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
It's a very ungenerous and quite a silly interpretation given 'epidemic' is also used to describe any sharp rise in something among a population. Osborne herself used it in that sense to describe child poverty. It's a bit like when the Corbynites got offended when Jess Philips said she'd "stab Corbyn in the front" not the back or Chuka Umunna (remember him?) said "call off the dogs" and claimed he was calling members "dogs". Everyone knows what the person means, but if you're obtuse enough you can twist the meaning to something worse.
I think ‘epidemic’ is derogatory, it’s not used to describe sharp rises in things that are desirable
Is parliamentary language actually required in committees? What is the possible sanction?
Yep. Appararently the same rules apply in Committee as on the floor of the House. That includes protection from legal action for anything said in Committee.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
As I say, LOTO.
Who knows about the election campaign in say 2028?
Labour will after a brief honeymoon find life in the mid 2020s very very very hard going.
Maybe, or maybe not.
The economic cycle will turn more positive at some point, and very likely to be in the first term of Starmers government.
A lucky General indeed.
I don't know if that's true. We do have an elderly population bulge moving thru the system and the only solution Govt has is to import lots of people, which in turn creates its own problems. I don't know anybody in politics who's really internalised this. Except possibly Boris via instinct, who lacked the discipline to translate insight to action.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
She sounds like a female Alastair Campbell. Hectoring and taking umbrage. She has too much self regard. Nothing less attractive in a leader than a narcissist.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
As I say, LOTO.
Who knows about the election campaign in say 2028?
Labour will after a brief honeymoon find life in the mid 2020s very very very hard going.
Maybe, or maybe not.
The economic cycle will turn more positive at some point, and very likely to be in the first term of Starmers government.
A lucky General indeed.
I don't know if that's true. We do have an elderly population bulge moving thru the system and the only solution Govt has is to import lots of people, which in turn creates its own problems. I don't know anybody in politics who's really internalised this. Except possibly Boris via instinct, who lacked the discipline to translate insight to action.
This thing about the government "importing" people is such a silly framing. What actually happens is that labour market problems tend to solve themselves, because workers will live in places where there are jobs in preference to places where there aren't.
Governments then try to interfere with that mechanism by various methods to satisfy the voters, but what we're seeing in Britain is that the government is turning almost every knob they can find to prevent people from coming in and they're still getting net immigration.
* There are a couple of exceptions like healthcare workers where it's government policy to let people in for a specific policy goal, but they're small in the grand scheme of things.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
She sounds like a female Alastair Campbell. Hectoring and taking umbrage. She has too much self regard. Nothing less attractive in a leader than a narcissist.
I see the case against Trump which had been moving more swiftly, the DC election interference case, is now likely to be pushed back significantly due to appeals on the issue of whether a President is immune from prosecution. The odds of him actually being convicted of anything at all before November may have lengthened quite a bit.
Given a minority of the GOP pretend they care whether he is convicted or not on whether they will support him, could be a pivotal moment.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
As I say, LOTO.
Who knows about the election campaign in say 2028?
Labour will after a brief honeymoon find life in the mid 2020s very very very hard going.
Maybe, or maybe not.
The economic cycle will turn more positive at some point, and very likely to be in the first term of Starmers government.
A lucky General indeed.
I don't know if that's true. We do have an elderly population bulge moving thru the system and the only solution Govt has is to import lots of people, which in turn creates its own problems. I don't know anybody in politics who's really internalised this. Except possibly Boris via instinct, who lacked the discipline to translate insight to action.
This thing about the government "importing" people is such a silly framing. What actually happens is that labour market problems tend to solve themselves, because workers will live in places where there are jobs in preference to places where there aren't.
Governments then try to interfere with that mechanism by various methods to satisfy the voters, but what we're seeing in Britain is that the government is turning almost every knob they can find to prevent people from coming in and they're still getting net immigration.
* There are a couple of exceptions like healthcare workers where it's government policy to let people in for a specific policy goal, but they're small in the grand scheme of things.
A Government that cannot control its borders cannot govern. Ultimately cross-border traffic, whether drugs, people, or fine Belgian chocolate for Swiss Toni, is the *responsibility* of the Government. I know it's difficult in these times of mass transport but this is something the Government really has to get to grips with. So I appreciate the point about framing but the buck does stop with them.
There's a 95% chance that Starmer will enter Downing Street next year (or Jan 2025). The only question is whether it's a majority, minority or coalition.
I would connect you with the lady in question and you could maybe work together on the problem.
However, she lives in Idaho, and there is just a single railway station (Sandpoint) in the whole state, so you would need some new hobbies.
She could move to Essex.
(Provided Sunil earns £38 000)
I thought she would have to earn 38K to move here.
You would need to earn £38,000 to bring in your partner on a family visa. If she were coming here for a job, she would need to earn £38,000 for a work visa. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67623131
Add to that the decisions of managements to finance long term capex with short term borrowings which now need refinancing at higher rates, and the entire exercise has been a disaster.
"The nature of the industry" is meaningless.
Eh? You think you can just ignore the characteristics of the industry and what you inherit when you regulate it?
And the nature of "legal duties" is defined by government.
Obviously true. And governments have been incompetent and timid. Governments throughout the post-war years should have developed a serious programme to renew the country's water infrastructure as it wore out, rather than doing about 10-20% of what was necessary, though governments are awful at delivering long-term infrastructure projects. When money is tight, they are the first things that get cut.
The Thatcher government should never have agreed to the idiotically high drinking water standards from the European Commission in 1980 (it is one of the very few mistakes that Nigel Lawson acknowledges in his memoirs).
Prescott and New Labour should not have prevented water companies from disconnecting non-payers, which has saddled the industry with a huge bad debt problem. Net Zero should be scrapped altogether. Etc. etc.
You're effectively arguing that Ofwat is a passive bystander - in which case any serious regulator who took the public interest seriously would have said publicly that their job was impossible, and resigned.
That simply misunderstands the law and Ofwat's duties. It has to operate within the statutory duties that Parliament sets out, quite rightly, but within those it has discretion to improve things, and, in some ways (introducing competition in various parts of the industry, promoting operating efficiency, enforcing environmental standards with the EA, etc.) has done so.
Government can borrow more cheaply than private companies. If private management is as incompetent as government when it comes to running a business, then what is the point of privatisation ?
Right, because as HS2 has shown us, the public sector is sooooo wonderful at delivering big, expensive, complex investment programmes. It is a paragon of efficiency. Delivering a railway at 5-10x the cost of similar projects overseas is a triumph. Or, as is apparently now the case, mostly not delivering it. Or virtually any government IT project. Or the shambles of defence procurement, etc., etc., etc.
Anyway, the government may be able to borrow slightly more cheaply than private firms at the moment, but if they assume more risky investment projects, that advantage will be eroded significantly. And the taxpayer will be on the hook for every little overspend.
Also you're focusing only on the capital programme and ignoring the big operating efficiency savings the companies made after privatisation, delivered mainly because of the regulatory system.
There's no competition to improve things; these are monopolies.
Simply wrong. There IS competition in much of the industry for one thing, e.g. for new connections, bioresources and business customers. For another, the companies compete with each other at each price review to produce the most efficient business plans for the next five years. Personally I think there should also be competition for household customers as in energy but Ofwat and the government have been too timid to date to allow that, mostly for fear of stranding upstream assets, as the nuclear industry was stranded after electricity privatisation. That is their biggest mistake, though they have intelligent reasons for not doing so (see https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/regulated-companies/markets/future-markets/extending-retail-competition-to-households/residential-retail-lessons-markets/).
Moving back to the topic, its a massive ask for England's voters to deliver a Lab majority - Wales and Scotland will probably give the blues a kicking but when you consider the scale of English seats Labour need to win its really tough, CH4 news talked about 3 Tory MPs in Stoke on Trent which shows the challenge of the Red Wall etc but also the massive seat base in Southern England.. at best a majority in double figures for Lab is my sense. Voters are angry but I dont sense Cons voters truly trust KS - an effect perhaps of the culture wars (immigration, motorists and foreigner bashing) so enthusiastically promoted by the media
Moving back to the topic, its a massive ask for England's voters to deliver a Lab majority - Wales and Scotland will probably give the blues a kicking but when you consider the scale of English seats Labour need to win its really tough, CH4 news talked about 3 Tory MPs in Stoke on Trent which shows the challenge of the Red Wall etc but also the massive seat base in Southern England.. at best a majority in double figures for Lab is my sense. Voters are angry but I dont sense Cons voters truly trust KS - an effect perhaps of the culture wars (immigration, motorists and foreigner bashing) so enthusiastically promoted by the media
My movement Tory MiL was frothing at the mouth about Sunak at the weekend. They’ve lost the farm women’s club. That’s how bad it is.
I think we need to take a closer look at Scotland. In a very crude analysis, the age profile of constituencies in England and Wales explains around 40% of voting patterns in the 2019 General Election, with older voters more likely to vote Conservative.
However in Scotland the relationship is much weaker, which is what you'd expect given the presence of the SNP. What's interesting is that the SCon vote appears to be more depressed than the SLab vote. In some places the SCon vote is what you would expect (Banff and Buchan), but that's rare.
That could be explained by a combination of tactical voting, Tartan Tories in the SNP, a particular Scottish antipathy to Johnson, or simply that Scotland is more left-wing than E&W.
The risk for Labour is that Unionist voters in Scotland doesn't see the SNP as much of a threat anymore and revert back to the SCons, that Sunak is more attractive than Johnson for these types of voters, and that the Tartan Tory segment of the SNP is more likely to abandon them rather than Sturgeonites (with the former having half the value of the latter in SNP/Labour marginals). Our assessment of each of these dynamics in Scotland has a disproportionate weight on the result of the GE.
I see the case against Trump which had been moving more swiftly, the DC election interference case, is now likely to be pushed back significantly due to appeals on the issue of whether a President is immune from prosecution. The odds of him actually being convicted of anything at all before November may have lengthened quite a bit.
On the contrary. With the appeal on grounds of presidential immunity to criminal charges (which IMO is an absurd proposition) Trump and his lawyers were aiming to drag this out for months as it progressed through the federal courts.
By applying directly to the Supreme Court, Jack Smith gambled on short circuiting that, and seems to have won (though there is some uncertainty about the full scope of the issue the court has agreed to rule on).
The court will act pretty quickly.
THAT WAS FAST! The appeals court GRANTS Jack Smith’s motion for expedited appeal on the immunity case. Trump’s brief due 12/23. DoJ’s due 12/30. Trump’s reply due 1/2. Oral arguments TBD. https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1735083419095445662
No saying which way the conservatives on the court will rule (though I confidently predict Alito and Thomas will back Trump's freedom to commit any outrage).
'Yesterday I attended a session called by Palestine at the United Nations in Geneva. Over 120 states attended. While the formal session consisted of statements of national position with few surprises, I was able to discuss with a large number of delegates in the corridors why the Genocide Convention has not been activated, triggering a reference to the International Court of Justice.
'The answer is now clear to me. It is not that people are worried that a claim of genocide will not be successful at the International Court of Justice. It is that everybody is quite sure it will succeed. There is no respectable argument that this is not a genocide...
'The problem is that once the ICJ has determined that this is a genocide, it follows that not only are Netanyahu and hundreds of senior Israeli officials and military personally liable, but it is absolutely plain that “Genocide Joe” Biden, Sunak and members of their administrations are also criminally liable for complicity, having provided military support for the genocide.
'The International Criminal Court cannot ignore a judgment of genocide from the International Court of Justice and will have no choice but to issue arrest warrants.'
Sayeeda Warsi @SayeedaWarsi This is an awful interview from this appalling Israeli ambassador to the UK. She has a long and well documented history of denying the right of Palestine to exist and is a clear example of why this Israeli government is not a partner for peace. Netanyahu and his far right extremists must go and our government need to be brave enough to start saying so publicly.
There's a 95% chance that Starmer will enter Downing Street next year (or Jan 2025). The only question is whether it's a majority, minority or coalition.
Majority.
And the longer the wait to the next election the larger the majority will be - because the Tory party's vote wlll implode as the true state of a lot of things that are currently hidden become obvious.
As I said multiple times now - come June a lot of councils will be issuing Section 114 notices because it allows them to blame the previous (Tory) leadership.
And if you looked at the news yesterday Coventry university has big problems that can't be hidden anymore https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckr827z30p2o , Likewise Sheffield Hallam who have offered voluntary redundancy to all teaching staff (the compulsory bit may come later - but it's a great deal (as the first offer often is) so grab it now if you are impacted). Again that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Then we have the NHS, Schools .... There is little to no good news coming next year so while Rishi will do badly if he goes for an election in May - it's only going to go downhill from there...
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
As a parent to two teenagers, I can assure you that the best way to make sure your kids aren't trans, is to tell them that they are.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
As a parent to two teenagers, I can assure you that the best way to make sure your kids aren't trans, is to tell them that they are.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
She sounds like a female Alastair Campbell. Hectoring and taking umbrage. She has too much self regard. Nothing less attractive in a leader than a narcissist.
The committee member was misrepresenting what she said and then was absolutely caught out and refusing to back down.
I think we need to take a closer look at Scotland. In a very crude analysis, the age profile of constituencies in England and Wales explains around 40% of voting patterns in the 2019 General Election, with older voters more likely to vote Conservative.
However in Scotland the relationship is much weaker, which is what you'd expect given the presence of the SNP. What's interesting is that the SCon vote appears to be more depressed than the SLab vote. In some places the SCon vote is what you would expect (Banff and Buchan), but that's rare.
That could be explained by a combination of tactical voting, Tartan Tories in the SNP, a particular Scottish antipathy to Johnson, or simply that Scotland is more left-wing than E&W.
The risk for Labour is that Unionist voters in Scotland doesn't see the SNP as much of a threat anymore and revert back to the SCons, that Sunak is more attractive than Johnson for these types of voters, and that the Tartan Tory segment of the SNP is more likely to abandon them rather than Sturgeonites (with the former having half the value of the latter in SNP/Labour marginals). Our assessment of each of these dynamics in Scotland has a disproportionate weight on the result of the GE.
I do not see this happening in the forthcoming UK GE. At the moment the SNP continue to dominate Scottish politics with the vast majority of MPs, very close to an absolute majority in Holyrood and most councils. They are the party to beat almost everywhere. Maybe, if Labour get a plurality in Holyrood in 2026 things will change then but not yet.
Oklahoma @GovStitt has signed an executive order abolishing the DEI bureaucracy in all public universities.
No, as it would require repeal of a number of equality laws.
Once you have these laws there needs to be a monitoring bureau to produce figures to demonstrate that an organisation is meeting the law.
Change the name if it offends you, but someone in HR needs to take the responsibility on.
Ours is very good at organising public health campaigns to engage underserved communities, which often have particular health needs.
Eventually, they will be repealed. It will start in America; as ever, we shall lag 5 years behind
Leon launches campaign for bigotry and discrimination.
BRACE
I am a mere if lofty observer
Woke began in America (with a special Trans rights British spin off) and it will end there. You can just discern the beginnings now, but it will take a long time unraveling. Cultural Marxism, the seedbed of Wokeness, dates from the early 20th Century
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
She sounds like a female Alastair Campbell. Hectoring and taking umbrage. She has too much self regard. Nothing less attractive in a leader than a narcissist.
The committee member was misrepresenting what she said and then was absolutely caught out and refusing to back down.
When do we talk about epidemics apart from diseases?
People rightly ask how London Conservatives ended up with someone like Susan Hall as the their Mayoral candidate. There's something of a similar dynamic.
They're both feisty and take no shit. I'd absolutely want them on a debating team.
Unfortunately, they're both largely full of the same substance and neither has shown much administrative competence.
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
She sounds like a female Alastair Campbell. Hectoring and taking umbrage. She has too much self regard. Nothing less attractive in a leader than a narcissist.
The committee member was misrepresenting what she said and then was absolutely caught out and refusing to back down.
It was an excellent performance. Blackenoch seems to have sharpened up again
I’d say the post-Sunak leader will either be her or Braverman. If the Tories go for Cleverly they are accepting two terms in opposition
Sayeeda Warsi @SayeedaWarsi This is an awful interview from this appalling Israeli ambassador to the UK. She has a long and well documented history of denying the right of Palestine to exist and is a clear example of why this Israeli government is not a partner for peace. Netanyahu and his far right extremists must go and our government need to be brave enough to start saying so publicly.
Is there a link to the interview so we can judge for ourselves? I long ago stopped treating Sayerda seriously
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
Yes. She was very wide of the mark - and she was doing exactly what Badenoch claimed. She was lying and hoping to get away with it because it was in the Select Committee. The use of the term epidemic has long ago moved away from solely being used as a specific reference to disease and the MP on the committee was doing she could get something on the record which culdbe used at alater date to attack Badenoch. It was dishonest, it was not a misunderstanding or accidental and she was lying.
Good on Badenoch.
The more revealing exchange was Kate Osbourne seeming to deny the existence of biological sex. And the chair Caroline Noakes unaware of evidence from the Cass Report showing a very significant increase in recent years of girls claiming to be trans. For a Committee Chair looking at trans issues to be unaware of the Cass Report is very poor indeed and Badenoch rightly called her out on it.
Badenoch had said there was an ‘epidemic’ of teenagers being told they were trans, so that woman wasn’t really that far wide of the mark to say she’d compared it to a disease was she?
As a parent to two teenagers, I can assure you that the best way to make sure your kids aren't trans, is to tell them that they are.
My daughter just dyed her hair with a sharpie…
Colour fast ?
I hope not! It actually looks quite good - a sort of auburn russet brown graduation effect
Oklahoma @GovStitt has signed an executive order abolishing the DEI bureaucracy in all public universities.
No, as it would require repeal of a number of equality laws.
Once you have these laws there needs to be a monitoring bureau to produce figures to demonstrate that an organisation is meeting the law.
Change the name if it offends you, but someone in HR needs to take the responsibility on.
Ours is very good at organising public health campaigns to engage underserved communities, which often have particular health needs.
Eventually, they will be repealed. It will start in America; as ever, we shall lag 5 years behind
Leon launches campaign for bigotry and discrimination.
BRACE
I am a mere if lofty observer
Woke began in America (with a special Trans rights British spin off) and it will end there. You can just discern the beginnings now, but it will take a long time unraveling. Cultural Marxism, the seedbed of Wokeness, dates from the early 20th Century
She is very articulate, but her performance in quite a wide variety of ministerial roles has been lacklustre at best.
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
She sounds like a female Alastair Campbell. Hectoring and taking umbrage. She has too much self regard. Nothing less attractive in a leader than a narcissist.
The committee member was misrepresenting what she said and then was absolutely caught out and refusing to back down.
When do we talk about epidemics apart from diseases?
People rightly ask how London Conservatives ended up with someone like Susan Hall as the their Mayoral candidate. There's something of a similar dynamic.
They're both feisty and take no shit. I'd absolutely want them on a debating team.
Unfortunately, they're both largely full of the same substance and neither has shown much administrative competence.
There aren’t that many use cases, but it’s the same as “flood”. If you want to spin it negatively you can.
And she didn’t deny using the term. The Labour (?) committee member went on to accuse her of comparing it to a disease with an absolute stretch.
Rishi Sunak will fly to Rome this weekend to address a political gathering hosted by the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, joining a line-up of speakers who include Elon Musk and Santiago Abascal, the head of Spain’s hard-right Vox party.
Rishi Sunak will fly to Rome this weekend to address a political gathering hosted by the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, joining a line-up of speakers who include Elon Musk and Santiago Abascal, the head of Spain’s hard-right Vox party.
Rishi Sunak will fly to Rome this weekend to address a political gathering hosted by the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, joining a line-up of speakers who include Elon Musk and Santiago Abascal, the head of Spain’s hard-right Vox party.
Oklahoma @GovStitt has signed an executive order abolishing the DEI bureaucracy in all public universities.
No, as it would require repeal of a number of equality laws.
Once you have these laws there needs to be a monitoring bureau to produce figures to demonstrate that an organisation is meeting the law.
Change the name if it offends you, but someone in HR needs to take the responsibility on.
Ours is very good at organising public health campaigns to engage underserved communities, which often have particular health needs.
Eventually, they will be repealed. It will start in America; as ever, we shall lag 5 years behind
Leon launches campaign for bigotry and discrimination.
BRACE
The sad thing is that, like H&S, real equality work is incredibly valuable.
The people who use it as performative dance to build an empire of bullshit, should be blindfolded, and left in a building full of open elevator shafts, exposed wiring and angry leopards.
Rishi Sunak will fly to Rome this weekend to address a political gathering hosted by the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, joining a line-up of speakers who include Elon Musk and Santiago Abascal, the head of Spain’s hard-right Vox party.
One here, too. Only one concern; red sky in the morning; shepherds, warning! The sky over to the south east is a sort of reddish to light purple colour!
Oklahoma @GovStitt has signed an executive order abolishing the DEI bureaucracy in all public universities.
No, as it would require repeal of a number of equality laws.
Once you have these laws there needs to be a monitoring bureau to produce figures to demonstrate that an organisation is meeting the law.
Change the name if it offends you, but someone in HR needs to take the responsibility on.
Ours is very good at organising public health campaigns to engage underserved communities, which often have particular health needs.
Eventually, they will be repealed. It will start in America; as ever, we shall lag 5 years behind
Leon launches campaign for bigotry and discrimination.
BRACE
The sad thing is that, like H&S, real equality work is incredibly valuable.
The people who use it as performative dance to build an empire of bullshit, should be blindfolded, and left in a building full of open elevator shafts, exposed wiring and angry leopards.
Comments
I recently turned 48, is it too late for me?
If you think "You look OK" is a compliment, prepare to die a virgin / have ugly sex / pay for it
However, she lives in Idaho, and there is just a single railway station (Sandpoint) in the whole state, so you would need some new hobbies.
You look adequate?
You look so-so?
You look average?
You look middling?
You look sufficient?
Seriously impressive.
Maybe the new model for Newsnight will work?
(Provided Sunil earns £38 000)
I expect the race to tighten. Surely even Sunak will hit his stride at some point.
They also built the main parcel distribution centre backwards. And painted over the Crown on their vans then had to repaint them at a cost of ballpark £20million.
Which was all fine. Thankfully they had some random postmasters to sue.
There's a saying in Boise:
"Better childless in Idaho, than with child in Essex"
In politics this is imho the most important vid clip in a very long time.
Can't see how she will not be leader of the opposition in 2025.
Forget all this crap about Farage.
And I reckon she is the one that Starmer and Reeves fear will deny them a second term.
I'm on at 9 but she is still available at round 4.
https://twitter.com/mrianleslie/status/1734999229511172581
I expect the dam to break, and a sizeable Labour majority. But 6.6 does seem good value. 3 would seem fair.
Fortunately, I didn't have a thing for her, otherwise it would have stung a lot more. I just condensed it to "Marmite good looks" in my head and had done with it.
House GOP votes to formalize impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/12/13/congress/inquiry-is-official-00131658
She talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.
That may be OK as LOTO up to the point that she has to organise something like an election campaign.
Who knows about the election campaign in say 2028?
Labour will after a brief honeymoon find life in the mid 2020s very very very hard going.
The economic cycle will turn more positive at some point, and very likely to be in the first term of Starmers government.
A lucky General indeed.
Good on Badenoch.
https://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/countdown-to-the-general-election/
Governments then try to interfere with that mechanism by various methods to satisfy the voters, but what we're seeing in Britain is that the government is turning almost every knob they can find to prevent people from coming in and they're still getting net immigration.
* There are a couple of exceptions like healthcare workers where it's government policy to let people in for a specific policy goal, but they're small in the grand scheme of things.
OpenAI to pay German media group Axel Springer to use its material, including stories behind paywalls
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/13/openai-axel-springer-chatgpt-story-writing-business-insider-politico
Pt0 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnsB9fvOiLQ
Pt1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suhYJ2iVbHU
Pt2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LS9jPhm-f0
Given a minority of the GOP pretend they care whether he is convicted or not on whether they will support him, could be a pivotal moment.
https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1735026560015720632
Oklahoma @GovStitt has signed an executive order abolishing the DEI bureaucracy in all public universities.
(ducks)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67623131
The Thatcher government should never have agreed to the idiotically high drinking water standards from the European Commission in 1980 (it is one of the very few mistakes that Nigel Lawson acknowledges in his memoirs).
Prescott and New Labour should not have prevented water companies from disconnecting non-payers, which has saddled the industry with a huge bad debt problem. Net Zero should be scrapped altogether. Etc. etc. That simply misunderstands the law and Ofwat's duties. It has to operate within the statutory duties that Parliament sets out, quite rightly, but within those it has discretion to improve things, and, in some ways (introducing competition in various parts of the industry, promoting operating efficiency, enforcing environmental standards with the EA, etc.) has done so. Right, because as HS2 has shown us, the public sector is sooooo wonderful at delivering big, expensive, complex investment programmes. It is a paragon of efficiency. Delivering a railway at 5-10x the cost of similar projects overseas is a triumph. Or, as is apparently now the case, mostly not delivering it. Or virtually any government IT project. Or the shambles of defence procurement, etc., etc., etc.
Anyway, the government may be able to borrow slightly more cheaply than private firms at the moment, but if they assume more risky investment projects, that advantage will be eroded significantly. And the taxpayer will be on the hook for every little overspend.
Also you're focusing only on the capital programme and ignoring the big operating efficiency savings the companies made after privatisation, delivered mainly because of the regulatory system. Simply wrong. There IS competition in much of the industry for one thing, e.g. for new connections, bioresources and business customers. For another, the companies compete with each other at each price review to produce the most efficient business plans for the next five years. Personally I think there should also be competition for household customers as in energy but Ofwat and the government have been too timid to date to allow that, mostly for fear of stranding upstream assets, as the nuclear industry was stranded after electricity privatisation. That is their biggest mistake, though they have intelligent reasons for not doing so (see https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/regulated-companies/markets/future-markets/extending-retail-competition-to-households/residential-retail-lessons-markets/).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8L2LMEPMGw
However in Scotland the relationship is much weaker, which is what you'd expect given the presence of the SNP. What's interesting is that the SCon vote appears to be more depressed than the SLab vote. In some places the SCon vote is what you would expect (Banff and Buchan), but that's rare.
That could be explained by a combination of tactical voting, Tartan Tories in the SNP, a particular Scottish antipathy to Johnson, or simply that Scotland is more left-wing than E&W.
The risk for Labour is that Unionist voters in Scotland doesn't see the SNP as much of a threat anymore and revert back to the SCons, that Sunak is more attractive than Johnson for these types of voters, and that the Tartan Tory segment of the SNP is more likely to abandon them rather than Sturgeonites (with the former having half the value of the latter in SNP/Labour marginals). Our assessment of each of these dynamics in Scotland has a disproportionate weight on the result of the GE.
With the appeal on grounds of presidential immunity to criminal charges (which IMO is an absurd proposition) Trump and his lawyers were aiming to drag this out for months as it progressed through the federal courts.
By applying directly to the Supreme Court, Jack Smith gambled on short circuiting that, and seems to have won (though there is some uncertainty about the full scope of the issue the court has agreed to rule on).
The court will act pretty quickly.
THAT WAS FAST! The appeals court GRANTS Jack Smith’s motion for expedited appeal on the immunity case. Trump’s brief due 12/23. DoJ’s due 12/30. Trump’s reply due 1/2. Oral arguments TBD.
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1735083419095445662
Kavanaugh has some 'interesting' opinions about US v Nixon (though the grounds on which he objects to it don't apply to this case).
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/22/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-pick-nixon-watergate-tapes
'Yesterday I attended a session called by Palestine at the United Nations in Geneva. Over 120 states attended. While the formal session consisted of statements of national position with few surprises, I was able to discuss with a large number of delegates in the corridors why the Genocide Convention has not been activated, triggering a reference to the International Court of Justice.
'The answer is now clear to me. It is not that people are worried that a claim of genocide will not be successful at the International Court of Justice. It is that everybody is quite sure it will succeed. There is no respectable argument that this is not a genocide...
'The problem is that once the ICJ has determined that this is a genocide, it follows that not only are Netanyahu and hundreds of senior Israeli officials and military personally liable, but it is absolutely plain that “Genocide Joe” Biden, Sunak and members of their administrations are also criminally liable for complicity, having provided military support for the genocide.
'The International Criminal Court cannot ignore a judgment of genocide from the International Court of Justice and will have no choice but to issue arrest warrants.'
Source: https://craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/
Sayeeda Warsi
@SayeedaWarsi
This is an awful interview from this appalling Israeli ambassador to the UK.
She has a long and well documented history of denying the right of Palestine to exist and is a clear example of why this Israeli government is not a partner for peace.
Netanyahu and his far right extremists must go and our government need to be brave enough to start saying so publicly.
Once you have these laws there needs to be a monitoring bureau to produce figures to demonstrate that an organisation is meeting the law.
Change the name if it offends you, but someone in HR needs to take the responsibility on.
Ours is very good at organising public health campaigns to engage underserved communities, which often have particular health needs.
BRACE
And the longer the wait to the next election the larger the majority will be - because the Tory party's vote wlll implode as the true state of a lot of things that are currently hidden become obvious.
As I said multiple times now - come June a lot of councils will be issuing Section 114 notices because it allows them to blame the previous (Tory) leadership.
And if you looked at the news yesterday Coventry university has big problems that can't be hidden anymore https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckr827z30p2o , Likewise Sheffield Hallam who have offered voluntary redundancy to all teaching staff (the compulsory bit may come later - but it's a great deal (as the first offer often is) so grab it now if you are impacted). Again that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Then we have the NHS, Schools .... There is little to no good news coming next year so while Rishi will do badly if he goes for an election in May - it's only going to go downhill from there...
Maybe, if Labour get a plurality in Holyrood in 2026 things will change then but not yet.
Woke began in America (with a special Trans rights British spin off) and it will end there. You can just discern the beginnings now, but it will take a long time unraveling. Cultural Marxism, the seedbed of Wokeness, dates from the early 20th Century
People rightly ask how London Conservatives ended up with someone like Susan Hall as the their Mayoral candidate. There's something of a similar dynamic.
They're both feisty and take no shit. I'd absolutely want them on a debating team.
Unfortunately, they're both largely full of the same substance and neither has shown much administrative competence.
I’d say the post-Sunak leader will either be her or Braverman. If the Tories go for Cleverly they are accepting two terms in opposition
Mordaunt is a fading star, good with swords
And she didn’t deny using the term. The Labour (?) committee member went on to accuse her of comparing it to a disease with an absolute stretch.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-italy-rome-elon-musk-giorgia-meloni-5k37cs3lc
MP: you likened people coming out as trans as a disease
KEMI: LIAR. HOW DARE YOU! LIAR
Its on *GBeebies* https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/national/watch-kemi-badenoch-warns-of-conversion-therapy-epidemic-targeting-gay-children/video_c8815a00-106e-5de8-9b44-9df82d028a0e.html
Shouty Tory outraged at being called a liar whilst lying. Yep, definitely leadership material.
The people who use it as performative dance to build an empire of bullshit, should be blindfolded, and left in a building full of open elevator shafts, exposed wiring and angry leopards.
Without HiViz
The sky over to the south east is a sort of reddish to light purple colour!