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Just 38% of GE2019 CON voters are certain to do the same next time – politicalbetting.com

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  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,127

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    Bit like the Lozza Fox says a moronic thing on GB News, it must be shut down....the target of the joke has said the same thing repeatedly on twitter, no, no issue....other media outlets have contributors say far worse, no issue.
    There are examples of presenters on other tv news channels saying things on air far worse than Fox's "well I wouldn't shag her, what man in his right mind would?" and there being no issue? Really? You're going to have to convince me.
  • rcs1000 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    When you say "closed", I think you mean "rebranded as the Sun on Sunday".
    + more tits
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906
    edited December 2023

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    It is surely time for those execs to do some self reflection.
    The only paper who even considered wider phone "hacking" and what i would call proper hacking was the Independent. Lots of stories that these practices were used for much more serious things than snooping on who was shagging who.
    I don't think we ever got an explanation for Tessa Jowell's claim that her SMS messages were intercepted, which is a shame as that would have involved real hacking, or the carriers, plod, or security services assistance.
    Not necessarily done by big players.

    SMS is so insecure that many experts argue that it shouldn’t be used for 2FA - the one where they send you a text with a code to verify a login.

    Unless someone was following Jowell around with the kit for intercepting texts (whilst this is a possbility it would be extremely labourious) it would still involve hacking the SMS server (even if that hack is relatively simple where carriers have been lax with security), a bent person working for a carrier, or abusing the lawful intercept capabilities. Whatever method was used, if it even took place, is a big step up from abusing a default PIN and the voicemail service.
  • kinabalu said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    Bit like the Lozza Fox says a moronic thing on GB News, it must be shut down....the target of the joke has said the same thing repeatedly on twitter, no, no issue....other media outlets have contributors say far worse, no issue.
    There are examples of presenters on other tv news channels saying things on air far worse than Fox's "well I wouldn't shag her, what man in his right mind would?" and there being no issue? Really? You're going to have to convince me.
    Jimmy Carr is obviously "worse" but as a comedian. The thing that makes the Fox/GBNews crew different is the complete blurring between newsreader/entertainment/fiction/comedy.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067

    rcs1000 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    When you say "closed", I think you mean "rebranded as the Sun on Sunday".
    + more tits
    They hired more journalists ?
  • glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
  • If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
  • glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    I don’t think there will be much sentimental bleating about saving the Mirror as there was on here for the NOTW. Some naifs were even suggesting that the evil lefties were to blame for its winding up rather than a business decision by its owners who had overseen and encouraged a corrupt and illegal business model.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
  • If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,070

    SKS Fans please explain

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    LAB: 41% (-5)
    CON: 24% (-1)
    LDM: 13% (+1)
    GRN: 9% (+3)
    RFM: 7% (+3)
    SNP: 3% (-2)

    Via @IpsosUK, 1-7 Dec.
    Changes w/ 1-8 Nov

    Ipsos is the only polling company still undertaking telephone polling I believe.
    I did not know that, thank you!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months
  • rcs1000 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    When you say "closed", I think you mean "rebranded as the Sun on Sunday".
    + more tits
    To be fair it wasn't their fault that Boris and Corbyn started to become popular around the same time. Those tits had to be covered.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,987
    edited December 2023

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    No the allegation from the Guardian was that they interfered with the investigation, destroyed crucial evidence and hampered the police operation.

    What appeared to happen was that at the time the plod and the media were very close (involving corrupt payments), it seems like the plod from time to time would ask the media can you do use some of your dark art contacts to see if you can find out this info for us. Which is what is likely to have happened in the Dowler case.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631

    Foxy said:

    Whereas 41% of 2019 Lib Dem voters are likely to stick with their team ...

    However, they'll do a lot better than the Tories because of anti-Con tactical voting. Still, it's a castle built on sand.

    No, I just think that LD voters are realistic enough to know that in many seats they will not win. Its not flakey LDs is the baleful effects of FPTP.

    When we have proportional voting the LD (and Green) Votes are more solid.
    Not really. The Lib Dems frequently polled 20%+ from 1981-2010, and again in 2019. It's not FPTP that's stopping people returning to the party they actually voted for at the last general election.

    Actually, it's not true about PR delivering from the Lib Dems. It certainly benefits the Greens and the likes of UKIP / Reform, but in elections for the Welsh / Scottish devolved parliaments, the Lib Dems don't do any better than their Westminster shares.
    Yes but both LD and Green (as well as BXP) did well in the Euros.

    I suppose we need Westminster PR to be sure.
  • tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
    The messages were deleted after the NotW had listened to them. The only question is whether the NotW deleted the voicemails or whether the system deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to. Either way, that gave the family false hope (and misled the police).
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,805
    Scott_xP said:

    First like Rishi...

    Absolutely. All you need is to pass an Act of Parliament declaring that you were first. Sorted.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,127

    I’m doing some work on use of the COVID-19 app versus those who deleted it (with the “pingdemic”) and there’s some polling data available from Savanta. There are differences between Con and Lab voters, Remain and Leave voters, but those differences are tiny compared to the differences between people who voted and people who didn’t vote. Voting vs not voting is a big indicator of other social behaviours, which may indicate that most non-voters are persistent non-voters. I don’t think there’s that much churn there…?

    I've always thought that likelihood to vote is best indicated by did you vote at the last election.
    Farage and "Boris" got a bunch of people out for Brexit in 2016 and 2019 who usually didn't trouble the ballot box. How this group splits at the GE (Con, RUK or back to not voting) is key to the outcome.
  • If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
    We're kind of marooned in pre-election doldrums. Outside of Sites like this, few are thinking of a GE so polls should be evaluated lightly.

    I'd be more inclined to think about the general mood of the electorate. That is currently not great for the Government and could get worse, So whilst I'm not predicting a Tory meltdown on the day of the GE, I'm not ruling it out either.

    For what little it is worth, I have had a small bet on Tory lossed exceeding 200 - that's 2.6 on Betfair. I think there's a smidgeon of value in that.
  • sladeslade Posts: 2,040
    LD hold in Swale and gain in Rugby. Con hold in Warwickshire. So Lib Dems win 5 out of 6 seats up for grabs.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,987
    edited December 2023

    tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
    The messages were deleted after the NotW had listened to them. The only question is whether the NotW deleted the voicemails or whether the system deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to. Either way, that gave the family false hope (and misled the police).
    Even the Guardian eventually said the NOTW didn't delete nor caused their deletion by listening to them.

    ‘The [News of the World] is unlikely to have been responsible for the deletion of a set of voicemails from the phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive.’

    This was further explored during the court cases. It was the mobile phone carrier that did it.

    In this specific case, NOTW didn't do what the Guardian claimed, nor hindered the police investigation etc, in fact it is believed most likely they were doing to assist the police. The whole story was about as true as Carole Codswallop pieces on Aaron Banks.

    But it was the story that took NOTW phone hacking from oh they listen in on who was shagging who to they messed with a police murder investigation.

    What we know now is they all did, the Mirror were European champions at it, NOTW Premier League champions and the rest league cup winners through to second division champions.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,127

    kinabalu said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    Bit like the Lozza Fox says a moronic thing on GB News, it must be shut down....the target of the joke has said the same thing repeatedly on twitter, no, no issue....other media outlets have contributors say far worse, no issue.
    There are examples of presenters on other tv news channels saying things on air far worse than Fox's "well I wouldn't shag her, what man in his right mind would?" and there being no issue? Really? You're going to have to convince me.
    Jimmy Carr is obviously "worse" but as a comedian. The thing that makes the Fox/GBNews crew different is the complete blurring between newsreader/entertainment/fiction/comedy.
    Yes exactly. That's the problem.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,137

    If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
    The Conservative coalition is in a little bit of trouble: the internationalist Cameroon wing is flirting with the LibDems (not least because Starmer is not seen as the threat Corbyn was), while the nationalist/Brexit wing is attracted to Reform.
  • slade said:

    LD hold in Swale and gain in Rugby. Con hold in Warwickshire. So Lib Dems win 5 out of 6 seats up for grabs.

    The Warwickshire result was arguably the best of the night for them because they went from nowhere to a decent second on a huge swing.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    edited December 2023
    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:

    First like Rishi...

    Absolutely. All you need is to pass an Act of Parliament declaring that you were first. Sorted.
    Quite so. Lots of people, though not DavidL I think, including on PB argue that an Act of Parliament which did exactly that, in like manner as the Rwanda Bill declares a particular and variable claim to be a fact regardless of whether it is or not, would not be reviewable by the courts. I am sure, thankfully, they are wrong.
  • https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1735649403564687582

    Remember that tweet? We asked voters what they thought of it. By a 68%-10% margin the public thought that it was inappropriate rather than appropriate. While you can't capture all second order effects in a poll, some follow up questions shed further light on how people view it.

    The Tories have completely lost any ability to gauge the public mood. SKS is taking them to the cleaners.
  • If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
    We're kind of marooned in pre-election doldrums. Outside of Sites like this, few are thinking of a GE so polls should be evaluated lightly.

    I'd be more inclined to think about the general mood of the electorate. That is currently not great for the Government and could get worse, So whilst I'm not predicting a Tory meltdown on the day of the GE, I'm not ruling it out either.

    For what little it is worth, I have had a small bet on Tory lossed exceeding 200 - that's 2.6 on Betfair. I think there's a smidgeon of value in that.
    Thanks Peter, your predictions have always been good in the past.

    I had a small stake on SKS to be next PM as soon as Sunak became PM.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,805
    algarkirk said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:

    First like Rishi...

    Absolutely. All you need is to pass an Act of Parliament declaring that you were first. Sorted.
    Lots of people, including on PB argue of course that an Act of Parliament which did exactly that, in like manner as the Rwanda Bill declares a particular and variable claim to be a fact regardless of whether it is or not, would not be reviewable by the courts. I am sure, thankfully, they are wrong.
    That may well be exactly what I was thinking of. An Act of Parliament declaring a country safe. My guess is that the court will say of course that declaration of Parliament meant it was safe at that point but it would be ridiculous to construe the legislation so that that was the case for all time. If we had a repeat of the 1994 Rwanda massacre, for example, clearly the courts would have to take that into account.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    rcs1000 said:

    If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
    The Conservative coalition is in a little bit of trouble: the internationalist Cameroon wing is flirting with the LibDems (not least because Starmer is not seen as the threat Corbyn was), while the nationalist/Brexit wing is attracted to Reform.
    I suggest it will be more tactical. Trad centrist Tories will vote variably for the party, LD/Lab in every case I should think, that can beat the Tories. There are not a lot of seats where this is not fairly obvious, and I am sure the LD bar graphs will assist in cases of doubt.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited December 2023

    TimS said:

    isam said:

    What do the polling companies do with didnt vote at 2019? Do they check whether they have voted previously to get their weightings?

    Given last time around the choice was essentially Boris v Corbyn I suspect a chunk of regular voters sat that one out, but will be back for this one.

    Boris did get the most Tory votes since 1992, and more than Thatcher ever got, so not really

    I’d have thought turnout will be down myself.

    Quite surprising, very surprising in fact, that the PM who won most votes in a GE was Major with 14m, followed by Boris with 13.9. I would have though Thatcher and Blair would be first and second
    I think it’s a feature of elections where third parties get squeezed. Thatcher won elections with strong 3rd parties, as did Blair. Major vs Kinnock in 1992 was much more of a third party squeeze. Hence also 2017 and the Corbynites’ much repeated stats on his vote numbers.

    Boris actually more surprising than Major, but population had grown significantly since 1992.
    Also, the big polling leads enjoyed by Thatcher and Blair meant lower turnouts, I am guessing. A close race means higher turnout and squeezes voters into treating it as a 2 party contest. My guess is Labour wins the next election with a clear polling lead and low turnout and with the Lib Dems recovering in the Blue Wall, hence a relatively low absolute number of votes (which PB Tories will be consoling themselves with in the aftermath).
    No the turnout was higher for Thatcher’s victories than it was in 2019. It was higher in 97 as well

    But I agree about turnout next time, with such a large chunk of the largest party last time out’s voters saying Don’t Know, surely a lot of them won’t bother
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,261
    Just kill them all
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,805
    Leon said:

    Just kill them all

    Not entirely sure you have this democracy thing. The Tories need to woo these people back to vote Tory again. Dead, they are no use to anyone.
  • DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Just kill them all

    Not entirely sure you have this democracy thing. The Tories need to woo these people back to vote Tory again. Dead, they are no use to anyone.
    Leon would happily vote for a dictator and never have democracy again. He'd be bigging up Kim Jong-un if he could.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618
    The Crown has a dream sequence with Tony Blair becoming King.

    https://twitter.com/JackTindale/status/1735640540492767480
  • tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
    The messages were deleted after the NotW had listened to them. The only question is whether the NotW deleted the voicemails or whether the system deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to. Either way, that gave the family false hope (and misled the police).
    Even the Guardian eventually said the NOTW didn't delete nor caused their deletion by listening to them.

    ‘The [News of the World] is unlikely to have been responsible for the deletion of a set of voicemails from the phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive.’

    This was further explored during the court cases. It was the mobile phone carrier that did it.

    In this specific case, NOTW didn't do what the Guardian claimed, nor hindered the police investigation etc, in fact it is believed most likely they were doing to assist the police. The whole story was about as true as Carole Codswallop pieces on Aaron Banks.

    But it was the story that took NOTW phone hacking from oh they listen in on who was shagging who to they messed with a police murder investigation.

    What we know now is they all did, the Mirror were European champions at it, NOTW Premier League champions and the rest league cup winners through to second division champions.
    Aiui the phone company automatically deleted voicemails after they'd been listened to. It was the News of the World who listened to them, after which they were deleted. So whoever deleted the voicemails, they were deleted because the NotW had listened to them.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    DavidL said:

    algarkirk said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:

    First like Rishi...

    Absolutely. All you need is to pass an Act of Parliament declaring that you were first. Sorted.
    Lots of people, including on PB argue of course that an Act of Parliament which did exactly that, in like manner as the Rwanda Bill declares a particular and variable claim to be a fact regardless of whether it is or not, would not be reviewable by the courts. I am sure, thankfully, they are wrong.
    That may well be exactly what I was thinking of. An Act of Parliament declaring a country safe. My guess is that the court will say of course that declaration of Parliament meant it was safe at that point but it would be ridiculous to construe the legislation so that that was the case for all time. If we had a repeat of the 1994 Rwanda massacre, for example, clearly the courts would have to take that into account.
    Yes. One of the many questions for the SC if this miserable bill became law (which it won't) is simply: 'What is the meaning in law of legislation declaring something outwith the powers of government or parliament to be a future fact'.

    It is a delicious fantasy to think that this bill would get around the jurisdiction of the courts. The questions it invites for courts are multitudinous, delightful and of deep significance. In that sense it would be more fun if it did become law.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,987
    edited December 2023

    tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
    The messages were deleted after the NotW had listened to them. The only question is whether the NotW deleted the voicemails or whether the system deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to. Either way, that gave the family false hope (and misled the police).
    Even the Guardian eventually said the NOTW didn't delete nor caused their deletion by listening to them.

    ‘The [News of the World] is unlikely to have been responsible for the deletion of a set of voicemails from the phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive.’

    This was further explored during the court cases. It was the mobile phone carrier that did it.

    In this specific case, NOTW didn't do what the Guardian claimed, nor hindered the police investigation etc, in fact it is believed most likely they were doing to assist the police. The whole story was about as true as Carole Codswallop pieces on Aaron Banks.

    But it was the story that took NOTW phone hacking from oh they listen in on who was shagging who to they messed with a police murder investigation.

    What we know now is they all did, the Mirror were European champions at it, NOTW Premier League champions and the rest league cup winners through to second division champions.
    Aiui the phone company automatically deleted voicemails after they'd been listened to. It was the News of the World who listened to them, after which they were deleted. So whoever deleted the voicemails, they were deleted because the NotW had listened to them.
    No, during a court case this was stated not to be true. As even the Guardian states in the quote above, not responsible for their deletion. If it was they listened to them and that caused them to be automatically deleted, they would still be responsible.

    Also, as stated, it seems highly likely the NOTW were doing this for the plod anyway.
  • Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496

    If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
    We're kind of marooned in pre-election doldrums. Outside of Sites like this, few are thinking of a GE so polls should be evaluated lightly.

    I'd be more inclined to think about the general mood of the electorate. That is currently not great for the Government and could get worse, So whilst I'm not predicting a Tory meltdown on the day of the GE, I'm not ruling it out either.

    For what little it is worth, I have had a small bet on Tory lossed exceeding 200 - that's 2.6 on Betfair. I think there's a smidgeon of value in that.
    Value is perhaps at both ends. Despite the evidence I think there is value in NOM. As Mr Smithson mentioned recently, 124 seats is a lot. There is plenty that can go wrong.

    An election where it is rational to bet on the Tories getting about 150 seats, and fewer, and rational to bet on them getting up to 324 seats can fairly be called open.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,247
    glw said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    It is surely time for those execs to do some self reflection.
    The only paper who even considered wider phone "hacking" and what i would call proper hacking was the Independent. Lots of stories that these practices were used for much more serious things than snooping on who was shagging who.
    I don't think we ever got an explanation for Tessa Jowell's claim that her SMS messages were intercepted, which is a shame as that would have involved real hacking, or the carriers, plod, or security services assistance.
    Not necessarily done by big players.

    SMS is so insecure that many experts argue that it shouldn’t be used for 2FA - the one where they send you a text with a code to verify a login.

    Unless someone was following Jowell around with the kit for intercepting texts (whilst this is a possbility it would be extremely labourious) it would still involve hacking the SMS server (even if that hack is relatively simple where carriers have been lax with security), a bent person working for a carrier, or abusing the lawful intercept capabilities. Whatever method was used, if it even took place, is a big step up from abusing a default PIN and the voicemail service.
    Sure. It would be actual hacking. My point is that it is a common enough issue that SMS is considered by many experts to be little more secure than email.
  • tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
    The messages were deleted after the NotW had listened to them. The only question is whether the NotW deleted the voicemails or whether the system deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to. Either way, that gave the family false hope (and misled the police).
    Even the Guardian eventually said the NOTW didn't delete nor caused their deletion by listening to them.

    ‘The [News of the World] is unlikely to have been responsible for the deletion of a set of voicemails from the phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive.’

    This was further explored during the court cases. It was the mobile phone carrier that did it.

    In this specific case, NOTW didn't do what the Guardian claimed, nor hindered the police investigation etc, in fact it is believed most likely they were doing to assist the police. The whole story was about as true as Carole Codswallop pieces on Aaron Banks.

    But it was the story that took NOTW phone hacking from oh they listen in on who was shagging who to they messed with a police murder investigation.

    What we know now is they all did, the Mirror were European champions at it, NOTW Premier League champions and the rest league cup winners through to second division champions.
    Aiui the phone company automatically deleted voicemails after they'd been listened to. It was the News of the World who listened to them, after which they were deleted. So whoever deleted the voicemails, they were deleted because the NotW had listened to them.
    No, during a court case this was stated not to be true. As even the Guardian states in the quote above, not responsible for their deletion. If it was they listened to them and that caused them to be automatically deleted, they would still be responsible.

    Also, as stated, it seems highly likely the NOTW were doing this for the plod anyway.
    NotW were not hacking for plod because one of the complaints was NotW delayed telling the police. Again, even if NotW did not delete the voicemails, and the phone company deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to, then NotW did trigger this deletion by listening to them, even if they had not pressed the delete code themselves.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,247
    Leon said:

    Just kill them all

    Abbott Arnaud Amalric walt.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,987
    edited December 2023

    tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
    The messages were deleted after the NotW had listened to them. The only question is whether the NotW deleted the voicemails or whether the system deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to. Either way, that gave the family false hope (and misled the police).
    Even the Guardian eventually said the NOTW didn't delete nor caused their deletion by listening to them.

    ‘The [News of the World] is unlikely to have been responsible for the deletion of a set of voicemails from the phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive.’

    This was further explored during the court cases. It was the mobile phone carrier that did it.

    In this specific case, NOTW didn't do what the Guardian claimed, nor hindered the police investigation etc, in fact it is believed most likely they were doing to assist the police. The whole story was about as true as Carole Codswallop pieces on Aaron Banks.

    But it was the story that took NOTW phone hacking from oh they listen in on who was shagging who to they messed with a police murder investigation.

    What we know now is they all did, the Mirror were European champions at it, NOTW Premier League champions and the rest league cup winners through to second division champions.
    Aiui the phone company automatically deleted voicemails after they'd been listened to. It was the News of the World who listened to them, after which they were deleted. So whoever deleted the voicemails, they were deleted because the NotW had listened to them.
    No, during a court case this was stated not to be true. As even the Guardian states in the quote above, not responsible for their deletion. If it was they listened to them and that caused them to be automatically deleted, they would still be responsible.

    Also, as stated, it seems highly likely the NOTW were doing this for the plod anyway.
    NotW were not hacking for plod because one of the complaints was NotW delayed telling the police. Again, even if NotW did not delete the voicemails, and the phone company deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to, then NotW did trigger this deletion by listening to them, even if they had not pressed the delete code themselves.
    Again, if they triggered their deletion by virtue of listening to them, they would as you say still be responsible. Both the Guardian now admit they weren't responsible, and they wouldn't have needed to run the apology, and it came up in the court cases stating the same.

    The Guardian could have said, we were wrong that the NOTW didn't deliberately delete them, but their actions of listening to them still caused their deletion, which means the rest of the story we wrote still stands....that isn't what they said. In the end they had to admit the original story was the claims leading from NOTW listening to the messages were false.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,404
    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
  • algarkirk said:

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
    Hopefully Israel can achieve it aims without much more pain and suffering - it needs a settlement
  • algarkirk said:

    DavidL said:

    algarkirk said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:

    First like Rishi...

    Absolutely. All you need is to pass an Act of Parliament declaring that you were first. Sorted.
    Lots of people, including on PB argue of course that an Act of Parliament which did exactly that, in like manner as the Rwanda Bill declares a particular and variable claim to be a fact regardless of whether it is or not, would not be reviewable by the courts. I am sure, thankfully, they are wrong.
    That may well be exactly what I was thinking of. An Act of Parliament declaring a country safe. My guess is that the court will say of course that declaration of Parliament meant it was safe at that point but it would be ridiculous to construe the legislation so that that was the case for all time. If we had a repeat of the 1994 Rwanda massacre, for example, clearly the courts would have to take that into account.
    Yes. One of the many questions for the SC if this miserable bill became law (which it won't) is simply: 'What is the meaning in law of legislation declaring something outwith the powers of government or parliament to be a future fact'.

    It is a delicious fantasy to think that this bill would get around the jurisdiction of the courts. The questions it invites for courts are multitudinous, delightful and of deep significance. In that sense it would be more fun if it did become law.
    IMHO the chief distinction between countries that have enduring domestic peace and prosperity and those that don't is respect for the rule of law. Since around 2016 we've seen the government repeatedly undermine this. They are playing an incredibly dangerous game.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,881
    edited December 2023

    tlg86 said:

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    Not really true, if you mean the question of whether NotW (or its agents) listened to and deleted messages from Milly Dowler's voicemails, as opposed to just listening to them and the system automatically deleting voicemails that had been listened to. Most would call that a distinction without a difference.
    Rubbish. It was the messages being deleted that gave the Dowler family hope. Now, if a journalist had deleted them to free up space to listen in on more messages, then that would have been a particularly cruel thing to do.
    The messages were deleted after the NotW had listened to them. The only question is whether the NotW deleted the voicemails or whether the system deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to. Either way, that gave the family false hope (and misled the police).
    Even the Guardian eventually said the NOTW didn't delete nor caused their deletion by listening to them.

    ‘The [News of the World] is unlikely to have been responsible for the deletion of a set of voicemails from the phone that caused her parents to have false hopes that she was alive.’

    This was further explored during the court cases. It was the mobile phone carrier that did it.

    In this specific case, NOTW didn't do what the Guardian claimed, nor hindered the police investigation etc, in fact it is believed most likely they were doing to assist the police. The whole story was about as true as Carole Codswallop pieces on Aaron Banks.

    But it was the story that took NOTW phone hacking from oh they listen in on who was shagging who to they messed with a police murder investigation.

    What we know now is they all did, the Mirror were European champions at it, NOTW Premier League champions and the rest league cup winners through to second division champions.
    Aiui the phone company automatically deleted voicemails after they'd been listened to. It was the News of the World who listened to them, after which they were deleted. So whoever deleted the voicemails, they were deleted because the NotW had listened to them.
    No, during a court case this was stated not to be true. As even the Guardian states in the quote above, not responsible for their deletion. If it was they listened to them and that caused them to be automatically deleted, they would still be responsible.

    Also, as stated, it seems highly likely the NOTW were doing this for the plod anyway.
    NotW were not hacking for plod because one of the complaints was NotW delayed telling the police. Again, even if NotW did not delete the voicemails, and the phone company deleted them automatically after they'd been listened to, then NotW did trigger this deletion by listening to them, even if they had not pressed the delete code themselves.
    Again, if they triggered their deletion by virtue of listening to them, they would as you say still be responsible. Both the Guardian now admit they weren't responsible, and they wouldn't have needed to run the apology, and it came up in the court cases stating the same.

    The Guardian could have said, we were wrong that the NOTW didn't deliberately delete them, but their actions of listening to them still caused their deletion, which means the rest of the story we wrote still stands....that isn't what they said. In the end they had to admit the original story was the claims leading from NOTW listening to the messages were false.
    Detectives working on Operation Weeting told the Dowler family in April this year that journalists at the Sunday tabloid had deleted messages on Milly's phone. They have since uncovered evidence that showed the girl's phone would automatically delete voicemails 72 hours after being listened to.

    Some of those messages were deleted prior to anyone working for the NotW gaining access to Milly's voicemails, Scotland Yard reportedly said.

    https://www.theregister.com/2011/12/12/notw_dowler_voicemail/

    Someone (not Milly, who was dead) listened to the voicemails. This marked them for automatic deletion. It was their deletion which gave false hope to the families and misled the police. If NotW had not listened, the voicemails would not have been deleted. (Admittedly, the last sentence suggests some other paper might also have listened to some VMs.)
  • algarkirk said:

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
    Hopefully Israel can achieve it aims without much more pain and suffering - it needs a settlement
    Just not on the West Bank
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,311
    algarkirk said:

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
    Some size of a family if 125 have been killed
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    The Tories decided to sell each utility,
    Which has proved an action of utter futility.
  • More in Common have released their poll today. It would appear that they are polling more regularly with some connection with the Politico Playbook newsletter.

    🌹Labour 42% (+1)
    🌳Conservatives 28% (-1)
    🔶Liberal Democrats 11% (-1)
    💚Greens 6% (+1)
    🟣Reform UK 8% (+1)

    Fieldwork: 12/12-14/12
  • algarkirk said:

    If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
    We're kind of marooned in pre-election doldrums. Outside of Sites like this, few are thinking of a GE so polls should be evaluated lightly.

    I'd be more inclined to think about the general mood of the electorate. That is currently not great for the Government and could get worse, So whilst I'm not predicting a Tory meltdown on the day of the GE, I'm not ruling it out either.

    For what little it is worth, I have had a small bet on Tory lossed exceeding 200 - that's 2.6 on Betfair. I think there's a smidgeon of value in that.
    Value is perhaps at both ends. Despite the evidence I think there is value in NOM. As Mr Smithson mentioned recently, 124 seats is a lot. There is plenty that can go wrong.

    An election where it is rational to bet on the Tories getting about 150 seats, and fewer, and rational to bet on them getting up to 324 seats can fairly be called open.
    It is indeed open, in the way you suggest. At this stage of the cycle you wouldn't expect otherwise. And yes I can certainly see why you might find value at both ends of the spectrum.

    On the whole I prefer value winners to value losers, but I wouldn't think it foolish to bet at the NOM end.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,311

    algarkirk said:

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
    Hopefully Israel can achieve it aims without much more pain and suffering - it needs a settlement
    I still wonder why the Arab nations sit on their hands and do nothing , why have they not given safe refuge to the Palestinians, coudl hav ebeen done right at the beginning.
  • Omnisis/We Think poll is due out in about 2hrs time.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,070

    The Crown has a dream sequence with Tony Blair becoming King.

    https://twitter.com/JackTindale/status/1735640540492767480

    Wait a minute, Jack Tindale? The Jack Tindale? Of alternatehistory.com and sealionpress? Good taste (doffs cap)
  • algarkirk said:

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
    Hopefully Israel can achieve it aims without much more pain and suffering - it needs a settlement
    Just not on the West Bank
    On our visit to Israel at the time of Arafats peace accord we witnessed the settlements, the close proximity of Lebanon, the Golan heights with concealed Israelis tanks, and of course visited Jericho, Bethlehem and Jerusalem and we were very aware of the unease throughout the whole region

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    maxh said:

    algarkirk said:

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
    My italics.

    I just don’t believe such absolutism is appropriate or morally defensible, especially given that the horrific attack of 7th October was not in a historical or moral vacuum.

    One could equally argue from the opposite perspective, that nothing can justify 125 innocent civilians in one family being killed for no reason other than the accidental geography of their birth.

    It seems crystal clear to me that giving one side full freedom to pursue even a just objective such as the elimination of Hamas perpetuates rather than reduces the misery in that part of the world. Not least because the moral equivalence is the elimination of the settler movement imo.

    The much more difficult message, but one that the rest of the world has to give imo, is that the contested nature of the land both Israelis and Palestinians call home means that both sides must tolerate a degree of violence without escalating things in the way that Hamas did on 7th October and Israel are currently doing now.
    Thanks. I am not of course defending absolutism or Israel's tactics particularly. I support neither side, but support good people on all sides and oppose bad people on all sides. Like most others I am unable to turn this trite truism into a policy, except that I support a two state solution, which neither Israel nor the Palestinians support (SFAICS) so I am not holding my breath. I support it because there is no other possible solution.

    Several things are true at the same time including: Israel has a casus belli from 7th October, Hamas has neither laid down arms nor released hostages, Israel has in many and various ways acted terribly towards Palestinians and others and continues to do so, the competing claims of both/all sides have legitimacy.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,904
    maxh said:

    algarkirk said:

    Good afternoon

    As some of you know I am having health issues following my recent DVT and I had an appointment at the hospital this morning for further investigations

    However, on leaving and going to my daughter's car, who had come to collect my wife and I, a gentleman was standing outside his suv in a disabled bay and we smiled and expressed pleasantries

    He came over and said how terrible things were ìn Gaza and he had lost 125 members of his family. He then showed us video and photographs of his house blasted by bombs and his family, including a doctor who died hours later of injuries, and his 3 year old nephew as a rag doll in his torchered father's arms

    When confronted with such stark reality literally words fail you.

    I asked where he was from and he said Manchester. I then queried if he was a patient at the hospital and he said he wasn't

    He said he was the visiting Iman and was to take Friday prayers in the hospital

    He pleaded for the US and UK to agree a ceasefire and if only my wife , daughter and I could arrange it we would

    I have not commented on this war much, but it is clear Israel has gone too far and we must plead for cessation of the fighting, but it will not bring back the Iman's family and all the other Israelis and Palestinians lost in this senseless conflict

    I have commented before on how my wife, myself and our youngest son was on the first tourist bus to enter Jericho after Arafat's peace accord and how our Jewish, ex Auschwitz, tour guide and the Palestinian Policeman on the steps leading up to the wall embraced and the whole coach of International tourists instantly broke out in applause

    There can be no opposite feelings for me than then, and today's encounter with the lovely Iman

    I share you sentiments and only add the qualification that whatever Israel has done in pursuing a war, which is in principle just and right following 7th October, it has not yet been sufficient to achieve its proper and just objective. Hamas has not yet laid down their arms and has not released the hostages. So if criticism of Israel is right (and all such must offer what they should have done instead to get Hamas to lay down their arms and release the hostages) Hamas are doubly guilty.

    Sunt lacrimae rerum.
    My italics.

    I just don’t believe such absolutism is appropriate or morally defensible, especially given that the horrific attack of 7th October was not in a historical or moral vacuum.

    One could equally argue from the opposite perspective, that nothing can justify 125 innocent civilians in one family being killed for no reason other than the accidental geography of their birth.

    It seems crystal clear to me that giving one side full freedom to pursue even a just objective such as the elimination of Hamas perpetuates rather than reduces the misery in that part of the world. Not least because the moral equivalence is the elimination of the settler movement imo.

    The much more difficult message, but one that the rest of the world has to give imo, is that the contested nature of the land both Israelis and Palestinians call home means that both sides must tolerate a degree of violence without escalating things in the way that Hamas did on 7th October and Israel are currently doing now.
    I would recommend strongly that anyone who takes Aljarkirk's very narrow view that they read the excellent and readable 'A day in the life of Abed Salama'. Written by a Jewish American living in Jerusalem it shows in an extremely readable way what it's like to live under Israels often brutal Apartheid.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,137
    edited December 2023


    But also- how many disillousioned Conservative wets will just sit this one out? And how many Labour wets who couldn't bring themselves to vote for Angry Jez will be happy enough to turn out for Boring Old Starmer?

    What's a "Labour Wet"?

    It could mean anything, including a Corbynista with their head in the clouds, or a Blairotype with their feet on the ground.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,653

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    That's you me and all the other taxpayers doing the bailing.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,137

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Surely Thames Water will go into administration, the equity holders will lose all their money, and the debt holders will take a haircut, and there will be a new owner.
  • Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Socialise the losses, privatise the profits. Luvvly jubbly.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,580
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Surely Thames Water will go into administration, the equity holders will lose all their money, and the debt holders will take a haircut, and there will be a new owner.
    Hope so
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Surely Thames Water will go into administration, the equity holders will lose all their money, and the debt holders will take a haircut, and there will be a new owner.
    Where did all this requirement for them to take on debt come from? It doesn't seem to have been investment in infrastructure.

    How much have the equity holders already taken out of the business?
  • The Israeli spokesperson literally said there is no two state solution. How can anyone continue to support that they are engaging in good faith?
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,660

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    The Tories decided to sell each utility,
    Which has proved an action of utter futility.
    Although of course you're right to bitch,
    It made some people very rich.
    Those people have of course, now gone.
    To Melbourne, Dubai and Hong Kong
  • rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Surely Thames Water will go into administration, the equity holders will lose all their money, and the debt holders will take a haircut, and there will be a new owner.
    Where did all this requirement for them to take on debt come from? It doesn't seem to have been investment in infrastructure.

    How much have the equity holders already taken out of the business?
    Government debt = bad
    Private debt = good
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Surely Thames Water will go into administration, the equity holders will lose all their money, and the debt holders will take a haircut, and there will be a new owner.
    Perhaps, but they're trying to get Ofwat to bail them out with some kind of infrastructure surcharge on bills...
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    edited December 2023
    Are we going to get a thread on the Bung Labour took which resulted in the hunting ban. Frankly I think its outrageous even if nothing can be done now.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Socialise the losses, privatise the profits. Luvvly jubbly.
    We also exported most of the profits, so the money doesn't even recirculate through the economy.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723

    glw said:

    So Piers Morgan knew his journalists were phone hacking....blow me down with a feather.

    Its like the Mirror made NOTW look like amateurs at this stuff, but strangely none of the media were interested when the phone hacking scandal exploded.

    Yes I'm very much looking forward to the left-wing led campaign to close the Mirror, just like they did to the NotW, which will surely begin immediately.
    The News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch immediately after the Milly Dowler revelations (immediately as in the same week).
    And the key aspects of that story was a lie by the Guardian.
    The Guardian untruthful. Surely not!
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,904

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    That's you me and all the other taxpayers doing the bailing.
    Would it not be better for the government to nationalise the with no compensation to anybody? And just cancel the debt.? And then start again with a clean sheet?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Surely Thames Water will go into administration, the equity holders will lose all their money, and the debt holders will take a haircut, and there will be a new owner.
    Where did all this requirement for them to take on debt come from? It doesn't seem to have been investment in infrastructure.

    How much have the equity holders already taken out of the business?
    Most of the cash was hosed out by Macquarie, who gave the shell a polish, and flogged it on to the next sucker.
    These days, it's the bondholders who make the money. The current equity holders have possibly run out of luck.
  • Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Socialise the losses, privatise the profits. Luvvly jubbly.
    We also exported most of the profits, so the money doesn't even recirculate through the economy.
    Sure, but the right chaps would have got some juicy bonuses off the commission when we sold them off. Everyones a winner!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Surely Thames Water will go into administration, the equity holders will lose all their money, and the debt holders will take a haircut, and there will be a new owner.
    Perhaps, but they're trying to get Ofwat to bail them out with some kind of infrastructure surcharge on bills...
    You mean, they are trying to charge customers extra to enable them to pay the debts that they incurred when they borrowed lots of money to make dividend payments to their private equity owners?
    That's possibly a more accurate way of putting it, but it's not quite so convincing.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,137
    edited December 2023

    The Israeli spokesperson literally said there is no two state solution. How can anyone continue to support that they are engaging in good faith?

    It's fine to have a one state solution, so long as all the people that live - errr - between the river and the sea have the same rights.
  • rcs1000 said:

    The Israeli spokesperson literally said there is no two state solution. How can anyone continue to support that they are engaging in good faith?

    It's fine to have a one state solution, so long as all the people that live - errr - between the river and the sea have the same rights.
    I must strenuously object on behalf of those who want to live on river boats.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,137
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Thames Water owner hit by second credit rating downgrade in six months
    Moody’s move comes as it warns of ‘materially’ increased risks that regulators will block dividend flow
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/15/thames-water-owner-hit-by-second-credit-rating-downgrade-in-six-months

    Let them go bust. The government is going to have to bail them out in one form or another.
    Socialise the losses, privatise the profits. Luvvly jubbly.
    We also exported most of the profits, so the money doesn't even recirculate through the economy.
    Rubbish.

    Those Maquarrie people shop at Harrods on their London trips you know.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    On 15 December, a Keretsky village council member in Zakarpattia Oblast, detonated two grenades in a local government building, Ukraine's National Police reported. The blasts resulted in one fatality and at least 26 injuries, six of which are serious.
    https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1735675504257049001
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,261
    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS
  • The Israeli spokesperson literally said there is no two state solution. How can anyone continue to support that they are engaging in good faith?

    Get Gillette to sponsor the peace talks and we will have a 5 state solution before you know it. Although it might still be a bit sexist if they base it solely on the best a man can get.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    Ukraine war: How TikTok fakes pushed Russian lies to millions
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67687449

    A Russian propaganda campaign involving thousands of fake accounts on TikTok spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine has been uncovered by the BBC.

    Its videos routinely attract millions of views and have the apparent aim of undermining Western support.

    Users in several European countries have been subjected to false claims that senior Ukrainian officials and their relatives bought luxury cars or villas abroad after Russia's invasion in February 2022.

    The fake TikTok videos played a part in the dismissal last September of Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, according to his daughter Anastasiya Shteinhauz.

    The BBC has uncovered nearly 800 fake accounts since July. TikTok says it was already investigating the issue and says it has taken down more than 12,000 fake accounts originating in Russia.

    Ms Shteinhauz told the BBC she found out about the Russian disinformation campaign when she received a surprising call from her husband while on holiday.

    "OK, so now you've got a villa in Madrid," he told her, before sending a link to a TikTok video narrated by an AI-generated voice that claimed she had bought a home in the Spanish capital.

    Ms Shteinhauz initially dismissed the video as a one-off, but the following morning she was sent a similar TikTok clip alleging she had bought a villa on the French Riviera. The videos had been circulating among her friends before finally reaching her husband...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,247
    Nigelb said:

    Ukraine war: How TikTok fakes pushed Russian lies to millions
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67687449

    A Russian propaganda campaign involving thousands of fake accounts on TikTok spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine has been uncovered by the BBC.

    Its videos routinely attract millions of views and have the apparent aim of undermining Western support.

    Users in several European countries have been subjected to false claims that senior Ukrainian officials and their relatives bought luxury cars or villas abroad after Russia's invasion in February 2022.

    The fake TikTok videos played a part in the dismissal last September of Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, according to his daughter Anastasiya Shteinhauz.

    The BBC has uncovered nearly 800 fake accounts since July. TikTok says it was already investigating the issue and says it has taken down more than 12,000 fake accounts originating in Russia.

    Ms Shteinhauz told the BBC she found out about the Russian disinformation campaign when she received a surprising call from her husband while on holiday.

    "OK, so now you've got a villa in Madrid," he told her, before sending a link to a TikTok video narrated by an AI-generated voice that claimed she had bought a home in the Spanish capital.

    Ms Shteinhauz initially dismissed the video as a one-off, but the following morning she was sent a similar TikTok clip alleging she had bought a villa on the French Riviera. The videos had been circulating among her friends before finally reaching her husband...

    I recall the fake claiming that Zelensky had a Big House.

    The house shown was OK, but the kind of thing that a junior US Congress person would say was a bit small for their chief of staff.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,247
    Leon said:

    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS

    Labrador Puppy : “I just found the most awesomest thing in the universe. A T-A-I-L”
  • Leon said:

    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS

    Luckily in my case it wasn't unrequited.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Leon said:

    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS

    No. Just you. Doubtless this is the precursor to an anecdote. About you.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067
    edited December 2023
    Leon said:

    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS

    Is that the opening para of ChatGPT's go at À la recherche du temps perdu ?

    In the voice of Molly Bloom.
  • On topic - the Cons are losing huge numbers of voters to the centre and to the right. The right defectors are now lining up behind Ref UK - in large part fuelled by Rish & Co's failed record on immigration. A failure the Cons and No 10 seen hell-bent on making a hotbed issue! The centre defectors still identify as 'ex-Con Don't knows'. They might come back to the Cons but if More In Common are right on their largely being Blue Wall 'liberal' types then chasing those Ref UK voters could decide these folks to stay home or choose between Lab and the Lib Dems.

    To get out of this they need a leader with strong personal ratings and acute political skills. I still say that no-one should underestimate just how much ground the Cons could lose in a GE campaign merely by having Mr Sunak front and center. Let alone if he tries to debate with Starmer - that would be a massacre.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859
    This solicitor from the legal firm that the Post Office engaged is flaky without any chocolate covering to hold him together. One assumes he is aware that his professional reputation is on the line.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,261
    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS

    No. Just you. Doubtless this is the precursor to an anecdote. About you.
    No, I just had a big hit of weed from my new Crater 420, and put some Patrick Moraz on Sonos and then suddenly got a sharp memory of being in love aged about 17 or 19 and listening to that music, and OMG I recalled the intensity of it, even seen many decades distant, it is like the radiation from a bloody supernova, still a crimson glow in the dark
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,404
    Nigelb said:
    The problem is that it's not just Thames, several of the other water companies are in equally stressed positions. Huge fail on behalf of Ofwat.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859

    If the ultimate election occurs, where the Tories get squeezed on both sides, it may be genuinely cataclysmic for them. The Lib Dems are second in a lot of seats in the South, has nobody considered the Tories might really about to be getting fucked?

    Electoral Calculus gives a high and low possible seats figure for each Party. Currently the LD high is 56, the Tory low is 42. This would make the LDs the official opposition.

    Nobody is suggesting such an outcome is likely, but it is certainly not impossible.
    Is it more or less unlikely in recent months? I don't think Sunak has really stopped the deserting to the Lib Dems from the Cameroon wing
    It all hangs with the former Tory now ‘don’t knows’. History suggests, and pollsters assume, that many of them will go back (cf. the Big_G saga from the last GE). But a lot rests upon whether or not this is true.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,618
    Leon said:

    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS

    And could an AI ever replicate it?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    Does anyone else remember what it was like to be in love aged about 18 or 20? the pure overwhelming desire, the painful yearning, the sense that nothing else matters except THIS, THIS emotion, THIS love, THIS need, THIS unrequited lust and the desperate hunger to touch, THIS THIS THIS

    No. Just you. Doubtless this is the precursor to an anecdote. About you.
    No, I just had a big hit of weed from my new Crater 420, and put some Patrick Moraz on Sonos and then suddenly got a sharp memory of being in love aged about 17 or 19 and listening to that music, and OMG I recalled the intensity of it, even seen many decades distant, it is like the radiation from a bloody supernova, still a crimson glow in the dark
    I would nevertheless argue that that is a short anecdote about you.
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