I agree with the thrust of this article. If Hungary were applying fur EU membership today, it would be firmly rejected.
The EU’s capitulation to the Hungarian PM’s blackmail is a grave mistake. He seeks to reshape the bloc in his image https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/17/viktor-orban-hungary-eu-ukraine-vladimir-putin ...This sets a perilous precedent: extortionists always come back to demand more. What is the EU’s gameplan? Are leaders willing to hand out huge sums of money and send Orbán out of the room whenever a unanimous decision looms?
The fact that just hours after absenting himself from the negotiations on accession, Orbán used his veto anyway to block €50bn in funding for Ukraine shows the wiles he is capable of. The accession process for any new member state is long and complex, and requires unanimity every step of the way. EU leaders are shockingly naive if they believe they have secured lasting support in exchange for their money. Orbán is likely to repeat this tactic, again and again, as he leverages Ukraine to unblock more money for his regime...
..The timing of the EU’s concession to Orbán is particularly disastrous, coinciding with Hungary’s “sovereignty protection bill” – a shockingly oppressive piece of legislation threatening journalists and civil society organisations with jail if they participate in international funding programmes. Its sole aim is to suppress dissent, muzzle independent media and quash opposition parties. The commission’s decision practically rubber-stamps this law and fails to muster a grain of solidarity with remaining independent voices in Hungary.
Hungary is indeed going to be a running sore for the EU but much of the money they are extorting (let's not kid ourselves) is money that the EU should have paid but withheld because they were being naughty. The EU need to get tougher and use Article 7 to suspend the voting rights of Hungary. This might be easier given that Hungary can no longer assume that Poland will back them.
The EU will regret not having the capacity in the Treaties to expel a member who no longer meets the democratic requirements. Of course if they try to introduce that in the next Treaty Hungary will not agree.
The homes/migrants one is just confusing given the full throated nimbyism strategy based around promising to stop more housing.
Yes, my initial reading was 'Labour will build new homes, but it won't help because they'll let in so many migrants'. To which I thought 'at least they're getting it half-right'. I've only just realised that wasn't the intended implication. Possibly because I don't recognise the person/ character SKS is being portrayed as. But I can't be the only one who doesn't.
What is it based on? I sort of assumed it was some sort of meme but didn't really get it either.
The problem with these, in my view, isn't that they are negative as such. It's that they are a bit sh1t.
The homes/migrants one is just confusing given the full throated nimbyism strategy based around promising to stop more housing.
Yes, my initial reading was 'Labour will build new homes, but it won't help because they'll let in so many migrants'. To which I thought 'at least they're getting it half-right'. I've only just realised that wasn't the intended implication. Possibly because I don't recognise the person/ character SKS is being portrayed as. But I can't be the only one who doesn't.
The meme uses two images of pop star Drake, from the video of his 2016 song 'Hotline Bling'. But memes are a bit like football chant melodies, I suspect a lot of people use them without realising their origin.
Do these people really want Oxford and Cambridge super teams competing in the competition? I've always assumed it was done to give the others a chance.
Or do they want Oxford and Cambridge to enter just one college each?
Prof Coffield does have a point. Durham and at least nominally some other universities also have a collegiate system so it's clearly unreasonable to let Oxbridge have multiple bites but not those. Something has to give.
The homes/migrants one is just confusing given the full throated nimbyism strategy based around promising to stop more housing.
Yes, my initial reading was 'Labour will build new homes, but it won't help because they'll let in so many migrants'. To which I thought 'at least they're getting it half-right'. I've only just realised that wasn't the intended implication. Possibly because I don't recognise the person/ character SKS is being portrayed as. But I can't be the only one who doesn't.
What is it based on? I sort of assumed it was some sort of meme but didn't really get it either.
The problem with these, in my view, isn't that they are negative as such. It's that they are a bit sh1t.
At first glance I thought it meant: "Under the Conservatives Britain has built 100,000 new homes and let in 100,000 illegal immigrants" which made no sense. I suppose it's supposed to mean Starmer is against building new homes and in favour of letting in illegal immigrants. So there are 2 problems. First - the message is very unclear. Second - if people recognise that there aren't enough new homes being built and too many illegal immigrants arriving they are going to blame the government mainly.
At best the Conservative message seems to be "we are shit but Labour probably won't be better so don't give them a chance"
Do these people really want Oxford and Cambridge super teams competing in the competition? I've always assumed it was done to give the others a chance.
Or do they want Oxford and Cambridge to enter just one college each?
I suspect the issue is more the problem of getting the team selected in the first place. That is such a random and tricky process that it gives plenty of scope for the actual teams to fight it out. The current system gives Oxford a few dozen chances to get a winning team ...
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
The Russians will struggle to know how best to influence the next election. There is no obvious pro-Kremlin party, unlike in the US or much of Europe. Something we can be proud and relieved about. I assume they will look to magnify Reform UK messaging as well as anything encouraging overall disillusionment.
Their best bet at the moment is probably stirring the pot on Israel & Gaza and encouraging those new Islamist parties.
While that’s true, there is a potential problem for Russia, given their Moslem minority. I suspect they’ll they’ll troll in favour of the Right of the Conservatives and Reform.
Kadyrov is a bigger power in Russia than before the war. Keeping him happy means keeping his people happy.
Do these people really want Oxford and Cambridge super teams competing in the competition? I've always assumed it was done to give the others a chance.
Or do they want Oxford and Cambridge to enter just one college each?
Loads of unis could no doubt enter multiple teams with similar potential for success. It's always been weird and it's long past time that it changed.
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
The Russians will struggle to know how best to influence the next election. There is no obvious pro-Kremlin party, unlike in the US or much of Europe. Something we can be proud and relieved about. I assume they will look to magnify Reform UK messaging as well as anything encouraging overall disillusionment.
Their best bet at the moment is probably stirring the pot on Israel & Gaza and encouraging those new Islamist parties.
Their main aim is polarisation and discord, so they’ll be happily arguing the most extreme points of debate on almost any subject, trying to redefine language and the range of acceptable opinions.
even with Russia's oil and gas sales, I can see them promoting extreme environmental groups because of the discord and disruption they cause. IMV Putin's a very short-term thinker.
Yes, there’s almost certainly outside influence on the more disruptive environmental campaigns, and the more extreme Palestine supporters. On the other side, they’ll be arguing that Net Zero is unaffordable to average people, and pushing the extremes of the anti-immigration arguments.
Expect to see many of the more extreme Amercian tactics of negative compaigning cross the Pond next year, while the actual American election is going to be a total sh!t-show of misinformation.
Do these people really want Oxford and Cambridge super teams competing in the competition? I've always assumed it was done to give the others a chance.
Or do they want Oxford and Cambridge to enter just one college each?
I suspect the issue is more the problem of getting the team selected in the first place. That is such a random and tricky process that it gives plenty of scope for the actual teams to fight it out. The current system gives Oxford a few dozen chances to get a winning team ...
I sort of hope these people get their way just to find out what happens.
Funny thing is, there are certain Oxford colleges I hope lose (cough Merton cough) and it's a bit like cheering on Man Utd's opponents in Europe.
One silly old fool with a bee in his bonnet, who thinks Amol Rajan runs the programme, who thinks the BBC makes the programme (which started on ITV) and has records of every entrant for 61 years, and would be allowed to disclose them even if it did have.
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
The Russians will struggle to know how best to influence the next election. There is no obvious pro-Kremlin party, unlike in the US or much of Europe. Something we can be proud and relieved about. I assume they will look to magnify Reform UK messaging as well as anything encouraging overall disillusionment.
Their best bet at the moment is probably stirring the pot on Israel & Gaza and encouraging those new Islamist parties.
Their main aim is polarisation and discord, so they’ll be happily arguing the most extreme points of debate on almost any subject, trying to redefine language and the range of acceptable opinions.
even with Russia's oil and gas sales, I can see them promoting extreme environmental groups because of the discord and disruption they cause. IMV Putin's a very short-term thinker.
I think this is the point - the agenda is neither here nor there; the purpose is to sow discord in democratic societies with freedom of expression.
All PR messaging requires credibility in the message and the messenger. I don't think CCHQ understand the extent to which they're lacking on both points.
They've also reached the point where they can't just play negative. They've been in power for 13 years. Government failures are their failures. Pointing out a vacuum of policy in the opposition - even where legitimate - isn't an adequate response when their own policies on those same policy areas are so obviously failing.
There's an Alan Botney spesh with Russell T Davies tonight for the Whovians on here.
Which reminds me, while Yentob is essentially beyond parody, he was the subject of my favourite of the Guardian's Long Reads pieces.
"If you have enjoyed any of the following in the last 48 years: Cracked Actor, Yentob’s 1974 documentary about David Bowie; Omnibus; Arena; films such as Chelsea Hotel and The Orson Welles Story; The Late Show; Have I Got News for You?; Absolutely Fabulous; Noel’s House Party; Holby City; Wallace and Gromit; Pride and Prejudice; Ballykissangel; the cancellation of Eldorado; the expansion of EastEnders to three nights a week; the films of Adam Curtis; CBeebies; Life on Mars; The Office; The Thick of It; QI; Sherlock; Strictly Come Dancing; on and on and on and on – then you, along with the loyal readers of Britain’s rightwing press, have been enjoying the work and creative decisions of Alan Yentob."
All PR messaging requires credibility in the message and the messenger. I don't think CCHQ understand the extent to which they're lacking on both points.
They've also reached the point where they can't just play negative. They've been in power for 13 years. Government failures are their failures. Pointing out a vacuum of policy in the opposition - even where legitimate - isn't an adequate response when their own policies on those same policy areas are so obviously failing.
The public understand this too. I expect to hear '14 years' being used a lot in Labour's campaign messaging.
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
The Russians will struggle to know how best to influence the next election. There is no obvious pro-Kremlin party, unlike in the US or much of Europe. Something we can be proud and relieved about. I assume they will look to magnify Reform UK messaging as well as anything encouraging overall disillusionment.
Their best bet at the moment is probably stirring the pot on Israel & Gaza and encouraging those new Islamist parties.
Their main aim is polarisation and discord, so they’ll be happily arguing the most extreme points of debate on almost any subject, trying to redefine language and the range of acceptable opinions.
even with Russia's oil and gas sales, I can see them promoting extreme environmental groups because of the discord and disruption they cause. IMV Putin's a very short-term thinker.
Extreme groups tend to provoke a reaction against what they're agitating for, and discredit more moderate groups by association, so there's not necessarily a conflict in the Kremlin's interest there anyway.
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
The Russians will struggle to know how best to influence the next election. There is no obvious pro-Kremlin party, unlike in the US or much of Europe. Something we can be proud and relieved about. I assume they will look to magnify Reform UK messaging as well as anything encouraging overall disillusionment.
Their best bet at the moment is probably stirring the pot on Israel & Gaza and encouraging those new Islamist parties.
Their main aim is polarisation and discord, so they’ll be happily arguing the most extreme points of debate on almost any subject, trying to redefine language and the range of acceptable opinions.
even with Russia's oil and gas sales, I can see them promoting extreme environmental groups because of the discord and disruption they cause. IMV Putin's a very short-term thinker.
Extreme groups tend to provoke a reaction against what they're agitating for, and discredit more moderate groups by association, so there's not necessarily a conflict in the Kremlin's interest there anyway.
Plus Putin remembers (and reveres) the High Old Times when the USSR used to fund every oppositional group they could, in the West
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
The Russians will struggle to know how best to influence the next election. There is no obvious pro-Kremlin party, unlike in the US or much of Europe. Something we can be proud and relieved about. I assume they will look to magnify Reform UK messaging as well as anything encouraging overall disillusionment.
Their best bet at the moment is probably stirring the pot on Israel & Gaza and encouraging those new Islamist parties.
If I were the Kremlin, I'd boost the narrative that the Kremlin is manipulating things. It's the best way to stir the pot and damage people's confidence in the political process.
All PR messaging requires credibility in the message and the messenger. I don't think CCHQ understand the extent to which they're lacking on both points.
They've also reached the point where they can't just play negative. They've been in power for 13 years. Government failures are their failures. Pointing out a vacuum of policy in the opposition - even where legitimate - isn't an adequate response when their own policies on those same policy areas are so obviously failing.
And whilst there aren't any explicit punishments for political lies, the loss of credibility is an implicit medium term one.
Part of what happened in 2016 and 2019 was a group of political outsiders hacking the system to get the outcome they wanted. Their hack was to lie much more outrageously than normal politicians.
As outsiders, they didn't recognise that the cost of doing that was always going to come back and bite the perpetrators on the bum. Perhaps the only surprise was that it happened so soon.
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
You say all that, but Boris was very firmly against Russia wrt Ukraine; and the Conservatives under May were very strong over Salisbury. Compared to the Labour leader at the time, who seemed to want to blame anyone but Russia.
Jeremy Corbyn called for tighter sanctions than were enacted by Conservatives. Whether he did so as an alternative to war or as a cynical exercise to cut off Conservative funding is left as an exercise for the reader, but he did.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021 and fully expected Ukraine to fall within days (remember the stories of officers taking dress uniforms). Two reasons Ukraine would not have been a factor in 2019.
Oh come off it! Remember Corbyn wanted us to send a sample of the agent to Russia? What did he think they'd say? "It's us, guv!" or "That's an American/British/whatever agent" ? He sowed doubt about origin when we needed consensus.
Russia had everything it needed to become a great power after the calamities of the 1990s - aside from one thing. Leadership. Instead of trying to use its resources to raise Russia up, Putin and his cronies decided to steal, and to reduce everyone else down to their level. That's what he's truly interested in: not raising Russia up, but reducing everyone else.
And Ukraine, or Georgia, or a/n/other, would have been a factor. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and he'd know he might want to attack somewhere soon. It's not as if he had not already done so, is it?
My first reaction to “send a sample of the agent to Russia” was whether they would want a finger or an ear…
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
OT. The Israeli's under Netanyahu are committing hara-kiri in plain sight. Their reputation world wide has been trashed. Perhaps one of the best reasons to think twice before supporting a proportional voting system when you have such a factional population.
The problem with Israel's system is that it's 100% party list based. The whole country is one big constituency. Which means that to get into the knesset, you need to either have your own political (or celebrity) cachet already, or be a party hack. So incentives are for the knesset to be divided, even more than in other countries, between ego-driven maniacs and bootlickers. There is not much fertile middle ground for conscientious public servants.
An absolute corker of the misleading poll genre coming thru doors in St Clements this w/e. Would make a Lib Dem blush! For the record Labour won easily in May. Independent 2nd and Green Party a distant 3rd.
OT. The Israeli's under Netanyahu are committing hara-kiri in plain sight. Their reputation world wide has been trashed. Perhaps one of the best reasons to think twice before supporting a proportional voting system when you have such a factional population.
The problem with Israel's system is that it's 100% party list based. The whole country is one big constituency. Which means that to get into the knesset, you need to either have your own political (or celebrity) cachet already, or be a party hack. So incentives are for the knesset to be divided, even more than in other countries, between ego-driven maniacs and bootlickers. There is not much fertile middle ground for conscientious public servants.
Yes don't write off PR (or a system more proportionate than FPTP) by comparing to a crap PR system. Lists are an awful system for several reasons.
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
You say all that, but Boris was very firmly against Russia wrt Ukraine; and the Conservatives under May were very strong over Salisbury. Compared to the Labour leader at the time, who seemed to want to blame anyone but Russia.
Jeremy Corbyn called for tighter sanctions than were enacted by Conservatives. Whether he did so as an alternative to war or as a cynical exercise to cut off Conservative funding is left as an exercise for the reader, but he did.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021 and fully expected Ukraine to fall within days (remember the stories of officers taking dress uniforms). Two reasons Ukraine would not have been a factor in 2019.
Oh come off it! Remember Corbyn wanted us to send a sample of the agent to Russia? What did he think they'd say? "It's us, guv!" or "That's an American/British/whatever agent" ? He sowed doubt about origin when we needed consensus.
Russia had everything it needed to become a great power after the calamities of the 1990s - aside from one thing. Leadership. Instead of trying to use its resources to raise Russia up, Putin and his cronies decided to steal, and to reduce everyone else down to their level. That's what he's truly interested in: not raising Russia up, but reducing everyone else.
And Ukraine, or Georgia, or a/n/other, would have been a factor. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and he'd know he might want to attack somewhere soon. It's not as if he had not already done so, is it?
You've sidestepped that Corbyn called for stronger sanctions, also that Tories were taking Russian money. And as it was, the Western response to Salisbury was led by America, not Britain. Arguably this was just realpolitik when Russia seemed scarier.
Russia's little helpers in the last few years have been Conservative, not Labour, and the big prize was Brexit which weakened and split both Britain and Europe.
Maid Mir.I.Am Chair of one of the “Five Houses” of the ruling Conservatives under investigation for "significant damage to the reputation" of the Commons and its members.” 😟
Sounds like Rishi Sunak: "Disengaged Battlers are focused on the everyday struggle for survival. They have work, but often it is insecure or involves irregular hours."
Prof Coffield does have a point. Durham and at least nominally some other universities also have a collegiate system so it's clearly unreasonable to let Oxbridge have multiple bites but not those. Something has to give.
To be fair, however, both London and Wales entered teams by college rather than by university even before they split up.
Admittedly the London colleges and the federal institutions of Wales were far bigger than Oxbridge colleges.
Is it really only two years since PB was transfixed by the daily updates on the number of booster vaccinations given, with an emerging Omicron sub-plot to keep things interesting?
OT. The Israeli's under Netanyahu are committing hara-kiri in plain sight. Their reputation world wide has been trashed. Perhaps one of the best reasons to think twice before supporting a proportional voting system when you have such a factional population.
The problem with Israel's system is that it's 100% party list based. The whole country is one big constituency. Which means that to get into the knesset, you need to either have your own political (or celebrity) cachet already, or be a party hack. So incentives are for the knesset to be divided, even more than in other countries, between ego-driven maniacs and bootlickers. There is not much fertile middle ground for conscientious public servants.
Being one constituency also glosses over how a significant chunk of the electorate do not live in Israel, but are in illegal West Bank settlements, while their Palestinian neighbours do not get to vote in Israeli elections.
Sounds like Rishi Sunak: "Disengaged Battlers are focused on the everyday struggle for survival. They have work, but often it is insecure or involves irregular hours."
Sunak probably more worried about Disengaged Butlers.
This penguin is the world's highest-ranking military animal.
Major General Sir Nils Olav III, Baron of the Bouvet Islands is a king penguin who resides in Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland and is the mascot and colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian King's Guard. https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1736658108322042352
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Not sure I've done the seven groups test before - maybe I have.
'Established Liberals', which doesn't come as a surprise - and, I'd guess, common on here along with the Progressive Activists.
I'm a Progressive Activist
"Far more active in posting about politics on social media than any other group"
Appears I am too, though tbh I feel more in common with the description of Civic Pragmatists. I actually share pretty much nothing political on social media fwiw, and I really don't think I could be described as much of an activist. Obviously it is not a great tool for individual diagnosis, but more helpful for looking at societal trends.
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Don't they broadly fall into various other categories? The write-ups of each category are somewhat kind, but you can quite easily imagine the worst examples of each, and none of them are pleasant.
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Don't they broadly fall into various other categories? The write-ups of each category are somewhat kind, but you can quite easily imagine the worst examples of each, and none of them are pleasant.
Yes to your second sentence. But No to the first. None of the 7 categories remotely capture the lives and attitudes of loads of people.
Not sure I've done the seven groups test before - maybe I have.
'Established Liberals', which doesn't come as a surprise - and, I'd guess, common on here along with the Progressive Activists.
I'm a Progressive Activist
"Far more active in posting about politics on social media than any other group"
Appears I am too, though tbh I feel more in common with the description of Civic Pragmatists. I actually share pretty much nothing political on social media fwiw, and I really don't think I could be described as much of an activist. Obviously it is not a great tool for individual diagnosis, but more helpful for looking at societal trends.
Also kind of disliked some of the binaries offered; I think obedience and good manners are still important for kids, for example - though being creative and self-reliant will be important for them in the long run.
Last time I looked with the back of an envelope at the debt situation of Thames Water it looked to me as if something is going to pop and that much of the south east will be managing without water for a few years. It was obviously unsustainable.
As water is both regulated and (obvs) essential, it doesn't take much imagination to work out who is going to pay for any necessary salvage work after all its investors have taken their losses.
I guess it takes a special skill to bust an outfit that has a monopoly of an essential commodity but it can be done with effort.
We've been in the new Marriott in Goa for almost a week and I have to say, it's easily one of the best hotels I've stayed in. We've got a family suite and it's absolutely lovely and it's only about £350 per night for the room including an incredible breakfast every morning. They also have evening childcare for toddlers which gives us the ability to enjoy a properly timed dinner reservation and we just pick Jen up and take her up to the room when we're done.
The amenities are absolutely brilliant too, the pool on the rooftop is amazing, has a great view and the bar staff are incredibly attentive.
@Leon if the gazette is still sending you out on travel reviews I'd highly recommend requesting the JW Marriott at Vagator Beach. It's a tiny bit of luxury in an otherwise vibrant and very Indian bit of north Goa. There's also a couple of really incredible restaurants nearby and absolutely loads of amazing south Indian restaurants. Also if you want to roll back the years and go for an all night rave I've been told by other guests this is the place to do it. Not that I'm interested in such things now that I've got a kid and another one on the way...
I think if we went to the middle east the same hotel quality would be 2-3x the price.
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Don't they broadly fall into various other categories? The write-ups of each category are somewhat kind, but you can quite easily imagine the worst examples of each, and none of them are pleasant.
Yes to your second sentence. But No to the first. None of the 7 categories remotely capture the lives and attitudes of loads of people.
I'm not sure if you're arguing to have thousands of categories or just these seven plus one for arseholes.
But I'm not really whatever it is you are after is meaningful. These sorts of categorisations seek to group people in a reasonably limited number of groups using something like linear discriminant analysis. So the idea is that group membership is reasonably predictive of your view on X, Y and Z.
Does it work for every case in the sense of being 100% predictive of everything, and is every group blurb perfectly descriptive of all members? No, clearly not, but to do that you'd need to have many thousands of groups, which would make it pointless.
Last time I looked with the back of an envelope at the debt situation of Thames Water it looked to me as if something is going to pop and that much of the south east will be managing without water for a few years. It was obviously unsustainable.
As water is both regulated and (obvs) essential, it doesn't take much imagination to work out who is going to pay for any necessary salvage work after all its investors have taken their losses.
I guess it takes a special skill to bust an outfit that has a monopoly of an essential commodity but it can be done with effort.
If only Thames Water can hang on for a year, we can pin this failure on Starmer (assuming he wins).
Last time I looked with the back of an envelope at the debt situation of Thames Water it looked to me as if something is going to pop and that much of the south east will be managing without water for a few years. It was obviously unsustainable.
As water is both regulated and (obvs) essential, it doesn't take much imagination to work out who is going to pay for any necessary salvage work after all its investors have taken their losses.
I guess it takes a special skill to bust an outfit that has a monopoly of an essential commodity but it can be done with effort.
If only Thames Water can hang on for a year, we can pin this failure on Starmer (assuming he wins).
If Sunak really is frit and bins off plan A (2nd May) for a later election, we're bound to see similar bullshittery with regards to councils.
A deadly combination of a Tory government who slashed direct funding to zero and Tory councils encouraged to invest in property to fill the cash black hole has so many of them teetering on the edge. We're going to see another bonfire of Tory councils in May, so any that go pop in June onwards will definitely be the fault of the new Labour / LD administrations who have obviously broken the finances on day 1.
They tried that approach this year and were roundly laughed at. But will do so again given the chance because the party sneeringly assumes everyone is a moron.
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Don't they broadly fall into various other categories? The write-ups of each category are somewhat kind, but you can quite easily imagine the worst examples of each, and none of them are pleasant.
Yes to your second sentence. But No to the first. None of the 7 categories remotely capture the lives and attitudes of loads of people.
I'm not sure if you're arguing to have thousands of categories or just these seven plus one for arseholes.
But I'm not really whatever it is you are after is meaningful. These sorts of categorisations seek to group people in a reasonably limited number of groups using something like linear discriminant analysis. So the idea is that group membership is reasonably predictive of your view on X, Y and Z.
Does it work for every case in the sense of being 100% predictive of everything, and is every group blurb perfectly descriptive of all members? No, clearly not, but to do that you'd need to have many thousands of groups, which would make it pointless.
I think your first sentence captures it pretty well, making 8 categories, the eighth being the group of people who clearly belong to none of the 7 groups.
My point is that this group is not small, and certainly not insignificant. Taken as a whole their lives give gainful if taxing and unrewarding employment to multitudes.
Just looking at today's thread and there's a lot of poor statistics from the first series of tweets. At subsample level loads of those variations with the identified groups are non significant.
We've been in the new Marriott in Goa for almost a week and I have to say, it's easily one of the best hotels I've stayed in. We've got a family suite and it's absolutely lovely and it's only about £350 per night for the room including an incredible breakfast every morning. They also have evening childcare for toddlers which gives us the ability to enjoy a properly timed dinner reservation and we just pick Jen up and take her up to the room when we're done.
The amenities are absolutely brilliant too, the pool on the rooftop is amazing, has a great view and the bar staff are incredibly attentive.
@Leon if the gazette is still sending you out on travel reviews I'd highly recommend requesting the JW Marriott at Vagator Beach. It's a tiny bit of luxury in an otherwise vibrant and very Indian bit of north Goa. There's also a couple of really incredible restaurants nearby and absolutely loads of amazing south Indian restaurants. Also if you want to roll back the years and go for an all night rave I've been told by other guests this is the place to do it. Not that I'm interested in such things now that I've got a kid and another one on the way...
I think if we went to the middle east the same hotel quality would be 2-3x the price.
Ta!
I’ve been looking for a way to get the Gazette to send be to Goa/South India - that could be it
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
You say all that, but Boris was very firmly against Russia wrt Ukraine; and the Conservatives under May were very strong over Salisbury. Compared to the Labour leader at the time, who seemed to want to blame anyone but Russia.
Jeremy Corbyn called for tighter sanctions than were enacted by Conservatives. Whether he did so as an alternative to war or as a cynical exercise to cut off Conservative funding is left as an exercise for the reader, but he did.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021 and fully expected Ukraine to fall within days (remember the stories of officers taking dress uniforms). Two reasons Ukraine would not have been a factor in 2019.
Tighter sanctions would have done nothing to deter Russia.
Military assistance (since 2014), something that Corbyn steadfastly opposes, has enabled Ukraine to resist (in addition to the courage of its own people).
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Don't they broadly fall into various other categories? The write-ups of each category are somewhat kind, but you can quite easily imagine the worst examples of each, and none of them are pleasant.
Yes to your second sentence. But No to the first. None of the 7 categories remotely capture the lives and attitudes of loads of people.
I'm not sure if you're arguing to have thousands of categories or just these seven plus one for arseholes.
But I'm not really whatever it is you are after is meaningful. These sorts of categorisations seek to group people in a reasonably limited number of groups using something like linear discriminant analysis. So the idea is that group membership is reasonably predictive of your view on X, Y and Z.
Does it work for every case in the sense of being 100% predictive of everything, and is every group blurb perfectly descriptive of all members? No, clearly not, but to do that you'd need to have many thousands of groups, which would make it pointless.
I think your first sentence captures it pretty well, making 8 categories, the eighth being the group of people who clearly belong to none of the 7 groups.
My point is that this group is not small, and certainly not insignificant. Taken as a whole their lives give gainful if taxing and unrewarding employment to multitudes.
That's meaningless if the "other" group isn't, in itself, predictive of anything. Maybe the clientele of Wetherspoons at 11.30am on a Wednesday have similar views to burglars, who in turn have similar views to dope pedlars and the exceptionally selfish. But I'd not count on it, and presumably the statistical analysis does not support it. There is no real point, in this sort of analysis, to create a group for "doesn't fit that well in any group" if that group in itself has little or no predictive value.
This is quite something. Whether you despise @VivekGRamaswamy or embrace his beliefs, he’s extremely good at this. Simultaneously folksy, charming, smart, lucid, and expressive. Doesn’t talk down; reminds me of a young Blair. Could easily be president within a decade
He is the holy grail for the GOP. The young articulate persuasive non-mad Trump
Heard him once and he is a total fanny. Faker than a three bob bit.
I listened to him on the Merryn Somerset-Webb podcast last Spring and he was plugging a book on woke capitalism. Quite eloquent but struck me as a little bit bonkers.
I note that Mitt Romney - one of the few sane Republicans - said that he would vote for any of the current non-Trump candidates for the Republican nomination, with the exception of Ramaswamy. So Vivek probably is bonkers. The little I've seen of him suggests another victim of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
We've been in the new Marriott in Goa for almost a week and I have to say, it's easily one of the best hotels I've stayed in. We've got a family suite and it's absolutely lovely and it's only about £350 per night for the room including an incredible breakfast every morning. They also have evening childcare for toddlers which gives us the ability to enjoy a properly timed dinner reservation and we just pick Jen up and take her up to the room when we're done.
The amenities are absolutely brilliant too, the pool on the rooftop is amazing, has a great view and the bar staff are incredibly attentive.
@Leon if the gazette is still sending you out on travel reviews I'd highly recommend requesting the JW Marriott at Vagator Beach. It's a tiny bit of luxury in an otherwise vibrant and very Indian bit of north Goa. There's also a couple of really incredible restaurants nearby and absolutely loads of amazing south Indian restaurants. Also if you want to roll back the years and go for an all night rave I've been told by other guests this is the place to do it. Not that I'm interested in such things now that I've got a kid and another one on the way...
I think if we went to the middle east the same hotel quality would be 2-3x the price.
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
Isn't the killer line the final one of the article, "The proposal lacks an Ecological Appraisal. The proposal does not demonstrate that the loss of protected Amenity Greenspace would be able to be adequately replaced or result in an enhancement of the biodiversity on site, resulting in an unacceptable impact on the natural environment on the site."
Essentially, it's an incomplete application. Boringly, yes you do need to do the work as part of a planning application to demonstrate what the ecological impact is, and mitigate it. It isn't some kind of ludicrous ask, and hundreds of applicants do it successfully every day. This one clearly hasn't bothered.
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
Isn't the killer line the final one of the article, "The proposal lacks an Ecological Appraisal. The proposal does not demonstrate that the loss of protected Amenity Greenspace would be able to be adequately replaced or result in an enhancement of the biodiversity on site, resulting in an unacceptable impact on the natural environment on the site."
Essentially, it's an incomplete application. Boringly, yes you do need to do the work as part of a planning application to demonstrate what the ecological impact is, and mitigate it. It isn't some kind of ludicrous ask, and hundreds of applicants do it successfully every day. This one clearly hasn't bothered.
+1 - the only question I have is why wasn’t this application rejected on submission due to being incomplete, I suspect it only got as far as the committee because the council didn’t want to lose the application fee
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Don't they broadly fall into various other categories? The write-ups of each category are somewhat kind, but you can quite easily imagine the worst examples of each, and none of them are pleasant.
Yes to your second sentence. But No to the first. None of the 7 categories remotely capture the lives and attitudes of loads of people.
I'm not sure if you're arguing to have thousands of categories or just these seven plus one for arseholes.
But I'm not really whatever it is you are after is meaningful. These sorts of categorisations seek to group people in a reasonably limited number of groups using something like linear discriminant analysis. So the idea is that group membership is reasonably predictive of your view on X, Y and Z.
Does it work for every case in the sense of being 100% predictive of everything, and is every group blurb perfectly descriptive of all members? No, clearly not, but to do that you'd need to have many thousands of groups, which would make it pointless.
I think your first sentence captures it pretty well, making 8 categories, the eighth being the group of people who clearly belong to none of the 7 groups.
My point is that this group is not small, and certainly not insignificant. Taken as a whole their lives give gainful if taxing and unrewarding employment to multitudes.
That's meaningless if the "other" group isn't, in itself, predictive of anything. Maybe the clientele of Wetherspoons at 11.30am on a Wednesday have similar views to burglars, who in turn have similar views to dope pedlars and the exceptionally selfish. But I'd not count on it, and presumably the statistical analysis does not support it. There is no real point, in this sort of analysis, to create a group for "doesn't fit that well in any group" if that group in itself has little or no predictive value.
This is quite something. Whether you despise @VivekGRamaswamy or embrace his beliefs, he’s extremely good at this. Simultaneously folksy, charming, smart, lucid, and expressive. Doesn’t talk down; reminds me of a young Blair. Could easily be president within a decade
He is the holy grail for the GOP. The young articulate persuasive non-mad Trump
Well I was quite impressed and agree with everything you say, but then we get to the last minute and it turns out he is as mad as a box of frogs. I was expecting him to hug a bible and the American flag. Even having said that I still think your assessment is correct and that is a sad thing to say about the current GOP and the American nation.
Quite striking statistic at the end, that of eight MPs currently under investigation for breaches of parliamentary standards, seven are Tories and the eighth was elected as a Tory. I know there are more Tory MPs than any other party but that still seems a disproportionate amount of (alleged) bad behaviour.
This set of 7 segments is idealistic to an remarkable degree. There are no categories, SFAICS, covering the varied terrain of: unemployable layabouts, career criminals, small scale dealers, useless selfish gits, the invincibly ignorant, people with tinted car windows, addicts of daytime telly, those whose custom keeps proper drinking pubs open during the day, MUFC supporters and lots of other characters who brighten our days. It is delusional to miss them out and fails to capture the reality of how life actually is for people.
Don't they broadly fall into various other categories? The write-ups of each category are somewhat kind, but you can quite easily imagine the worst examples of each, and none of them are pleasant.
Yes to your second sentence. But No to the first. None of the 7 categories remotely capture the lives and attitudes of loads of people.
I'm not sure if you're arguing to have thousands of categories or just these seven plus one for arseholes.
But I'm not really whatever it is you are after is meaningful. These sorts of categorisations seek to group people in a reasonably limited number of groups using something like linear discriminant analysis. So the idea is that group membership is reasonably predictive of your view on X, Y and Z.
Does it work for every case in the sense of being 100% predictive of everything, and is every group blurb perfectly descriptive of all members? No, clearly not, but to do that you'd need to have many thousands of groups, which would make it pointless.
I think your first sentence captures it pretty well, making 8 categories, the eighth being the group of people who clearly belong to none of the 7 groups.
My point is that this group is not small, and certainly not insignificant. Taken as a whole their lives give gainful if taxing and unrewarding employment to multitudes.
That's meaningless if the "other" group isn't, in itself, predictive of anything. Maybe the clientele of Wetherspoons at 11.30am on a Wednesday have similar views to burglars, who in turn have similar views to dope pedlars and the exceptionally selfish. But I'd not count on it, and presumably the statistical analysis does not support it. There is no real point, in this sort of analysis, to create a group for "doesn't fit that well in any group" if that group in itself has little or no predictive value.
An other group is useful if you are doing a multivariate analysis and want to include those people in the analysis.
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
Isn't the killer line the final one of the article, "The proposal lacks an Ecological Appraisal. The proposal does not demonstrate that the loss of protected Amenity Greenspace would be able to be adequately replaced or result in an enhancement of the biodiversity on site, resulting in an unacceptable impact on the natural environment on the site."
Essentially, it's an incomplete application. Boringly, yes you do need to do the work as part of a planning application to demonstrate what the ecological impact is, and mitigate it. It isn't some kind of ludicrous ask, and hundreds of applicants do it successfully every day. This one clearly hasn't bothered.
+1 - the only question I have is why wasn’t this application rejected on submission due to being incomplete, I suspect it only got as far as the committee because the council didn’t want to lose the application fee
Possibly the developer pushed for it. It's not an uncommon tactic to put in a maximalist first application, knowing it'll be rejected, appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, and hope for them to decide "we agree with the Council on A, B and C, but disagree on X, Y and Z". You then close off issues X, Y and Z (as the Planning Inspectorate has found for you) and only need to compromise to a degree on A, B and C.
People see planning refusals and assume it's the Council being unreasonable. Sometimes that's true. But sometimes the developer has a bit of a kamikaze first run at it for the reason described.
Some comment on why MIC don't have an eighth group for 'assholes'. It strikes me they already have two (possibly three) of their seven groups representing that widespread demographic.
Some comment on why MIC don't have an eighth group for 'assholes'. It strikes me they already have two (possibly three) of their seven groups representing that widespread demographic.
Also, given we're British and like to maintain standards, it's important to note that we have 'arseholes' rather than 'assholes'.
Quite striking statistic at the end, that of eight MPs currently under investigation for breaches of parliamentary standards, seven are Tories and the eighth was elected as a Tory. I know there are more Tory MPs than any other party but that still seems a disproportionate amount of (alleged) bad behaviour.
Your counting quantity, but what is the quality? For example is "significant damage to the reputation of the Commons and its members” merely sending Christmas Card using tax payer cash or a wrong logo?
This is quite something. Whether you despise @VivekGRamaswamy or embrace his beliefs, he’s extremely good at this. Simultaneously folksy, charming, smart, lucid, and expressive. Doesn’t talk down; reminds me of a young Blair. Could easily be president within a decade
He is the holy grail for the GOP. The young articulate persuasive non-mad Trump
Well I was quite impressed and agree with everything you say, but then we get to the last minute and it turns out he is as mad as a box of frogs. I was expecting him to hug a bible and the American flag. Even having said that I still think your assessment is correct and that is a sad thing to say about the current GOP and the American nation.
He says Jan 6 was an “inside job”. He’s flirted with 9/11 conspiracy theories. He believes in Great Replacement Theory. He says the climate change “agenda” is a hoax.
He wants to end aid to Ukraine, keep Ukraine out of NATO, and leave Russia in control of parts of Ukraine.
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
Isn't the killer line the final one of the article, "The proposal lacks an Ecological Appraisal. The proposal does not demonstrate that the loss of protected Amenity Greenspace would be able to be adequately replaced or result in an enhancement of the biodiversity on site, resulting in an unacceptable impact on the natural environment on the site."
Essentially, it's an incomplete application. Boringly, yes you do need to do the work as part of a planning application to demonstrate what the ecological impact is, and mitigate it. It isn't some kind of ludicrous ask, and hundreds of applicants do it successfully every day. This one clearly hasn't bothered.
Obviously political correctness gone mad. Actually went to an aprés funeral thing just round the corner from there a couple of weeks ago. The area could certainly do with a bit of an uplift but if there’s one thing the east end of Glasgow doesn’t need, it’s another ill considered, thrown up development that’ll look like downtown Gaza in 20 years time.
The Tory party comms are just a sad reflection on where the party is after it was trashed by Boris Johnson and the congenital liars and wreckers of Vote Leave. The whole operation is like Downing Street the morning after a Lockdown party, piles of vomit in the corner, broken garden furniture and everyone looking worse for wear. They need a period in opposition to nurse their hangovers.
Thing is, in the days of Vote Leave and Vote Boris, the social media stuff worked. This time, it doesn't seem to be doing so. What's the difference? Off the top.of my head, I can think of three possibilities.
One is that the meme artists are less good. Another is that we, as an audience have grown wiser to this sort of thing. The third is that, apart from the remaining loyalists, we don't want to believe Conservative messaging, and approach anything any of them say with suspicion.
One of the problems Team Sunak has is that they are trapped in the public opinion equivalent of quicksand. The more noise they make, the more the "just make it stop" segment of the population will hate them.
The dirty war on Social Media is going to be a feature of all elections from now on. Best done by willing and deniable fellow travellers.
I suspect the Russian Troll farms will be mobilised again, but not in favour of the Tories this time because of Ukraine. Neither will they like Labour. I anticipate that they will be briefed to go negative, or support the right and left wing fringes.
"not in favour of the Tories this time"
What makes you think they were in favour of the Tories last time? A Corbyn government might have suited Russia quite well.
(Then again, I believe the Russian trolls are often more interested in spreading discord and argument over any specific agenda.)
Breaking up the EU would have been Russia's priority last time. The less said about donations and getting sons of KGB men into the House of Lords, the better. Secondary to that, as you say, any discord is better than harmony.
You say all that, but Boris was very firmly against Russia wrt Ukraine; and the Conservatives under May were very strong over Salisbury. Compared to the Labour leader at the time, who seemed to want to blame anyone but Russia.
Jeremy Corbyn called for tighter sanctions than were enacted by Conservatives. Whether he did so as an alternative to war or as a cynical exercise to cut off Conservative funding is left as an exercise for the reader, but he did.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2021 and fully expected Ukraine to fall within days (remember the stories of officers taking dress uniforms). Two reasons Ukraine would not have been a factor in 2019.
Oh come off it! Remember Corbyn wanted us to send a sample of the agent to Russia? What did he think they'd say? "It's us, guv!" or "That's an American/British/whatever agent" ? He sowed doubt about origin when we needed consensus.
Russia had everything it needed to become a great power after the calamities of the 1990s - aside from one thing. Leadership. Instead of trying to use its resources to raise Russia up, Putin and his cronies decided to steal, and to reduce everyone else down to their level. That's what he's truly interested in: not raising Russia up, but reducing everyone else.
And Ukraine, or Georgia, or a/n/other, would have been a factor. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and he'd know he might want to attack somewhere soon. It's not as if he had not already done so, is it?
You've sidestepped that Corbyn called for stronger sanctions, also that Tories were taking Russian money. And as it was, the Western response to Salisbury was led by America, not Britain. Arguably this was just realpolitik when Russia seemed scarier.
Russia's little helpers in the last few years have been Conservative, not Labour, and the big prize was Brexit which weakened and split both Britain and Europe.
Do you think America would have given a shit if we hadn’t insisted?
That was how we got the most effective response to Russia - and they got something in return
Are there any genuine circumstances in which I can wear a balaclava that won't make me look like a bank robber?
The only time I have worn a balaclava was when boating in mid-winter. I probably did look like a bank robber, but a narrowboat is such a rediculous choice of getaway vehicle, no one would have misaken me for one.
Some comment on why MIC don't have an eighth group for 'assholes'. It strikes me they already have two (possibly three) of their seven groups representing that widespread demographic.
Respectfully disagree. The 7 groups, it seems to me, are characterised by their essential decency and diverse forms of idealism. This by no means captures the extent of human diversity in our national life. See above.
Glasgow council rejects a development on a patch of derelict land to put in a retail and restaurant development
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
Isn't the killer line the final one of the article, "The proposal lacks an Ecological Appraisal. The proposal does not demonstrate that the loss of protected Amenity Greenspace would be able to be adequately replaced or result in an enhancement of the biodiversity on site, resulting in an unacceptable impact on the natural environment on the site."
Essentially, it's an incomplete application. Boringly, yes you do need to do the work as part of a planning application to demonstrate what the ecological impact is, and mitigate it. It isn't some kind of ludicrous ask, and hundreds of applicants do it successfully every day. This one clearly hasn't bothered.
Bear in mind that "brownfield" sites can sometimes possess considerable value for biodiversity and as amenities. Do we really want every town and city to be wall-to-wall tarmac and concrete? The fact that these developers didn't even bother to address the environmental impacts tells you a lot about them.
It’s also a sneaky dividing line to make Scots think they are hard done by
A below inflation rise isn’t great but sounds a lot better than a “real terms cut”.
The point is UK Government budgets do not provide funding for specific policy areas in Scotland such as the NHS. The Scottish Government is free to spend the money it receives from UK government as a result of the autumn statement however it likes.
But don't let that get in the way of abit of grievance mongering.
Comments
The EU will regret not having the capacity in the Treaties to expel a member who no longer meets the democratic requirements. Of course if they try to introduce that in the next Treaty Hungary will not agree.
The problem with these, in my view, isn't that they are negative as such. It's that they are a bit sh1t.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/18/bbc-called-to-defend-elitist-format-of-university-challenge
Or do they want Oxford and Cambridge to enter just one college each?
"Under the Conservatives Britain has built 100,000 new homes and let in 100,000 illegal immigrants" which made no sense. I suppose it's supposed to mean Starmer is against building new homes and in favour of letting in illegal immigrants.
So there are 2 problems. First - the message is very unclear. Second - if people recognise that there aren't enough new homes being built and too many illegal immigrants arriving they are going to blame the government mainly.
At best the Conservative message seems to be "we are shit but Labour probably won't be better so don't give them a chance"
Expect to see many of the more extreme Amercian tactics of negative compaigning cross the Pond next year, while the actual American election is going to be a total sh!t-show of misinformation.
Funny thing is, there are certain Oxford colleges I hope lose (cough Merton cough) and it's a bit like cheering on Man Utd's opponents in Europe.
All PR messaging requires credibility in the message and the messenger. I don't think CCHQ understand the extent to which they're lacking on both points.
They've also reached the point where they can't just play negative. They've been in power for 13 years. Government failures are their failures. Pointing out a vacuum of policy in the opposition - even where legitimate - isn't an adequate response when their own policies on those same policy areas are so obviously failing.
Which reminds me, while Yentob is essentially beyond parody, he was the subject of my favourite of the Guardian's Long Reads pieces.
"If you have enjoyed any of the following in the last 48 years: Cracked Actor, Yentob’s 1974 documentary about David Bowie; Omnibus; Arena; films such as Chelsea Hotel and The Orson Welles Story; The Late Show; Have I Got News for You?; Absolutely Fabulous; Noel’s House Party; Holby City; Wallace and Gromit; Pride and Prejudice; Ballykissangel; the cancellation of Eldorado; the expansion of EastEnders to three nights a week; the films of Adam Curtis; CBeebies; Life on Mars; The Office; The Thick of It; QI; Sherlock; Strictly Come Dancing; on and on and on and on – then you, along with the loyal readers of Britain’s rightwing press, have been enjoying the work and creative decisions of Alan Yentob."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/13/alan-yentob-last-impresario-bbc
Part of what happened in 2016 and 2019 was a group of political outsiders hacking the system to get the outcome they wanted. Their hack was to lie much more outrageously than normal politicians.
As outsiders, they didn't recognise that the cost of doing that was always going to come back and bite the perpetrators on the bum. Perhaps the only surprise was that it happened so soon.
"Members of the council's planning committee have now elected to reject the plans, stating they are not in accordance with the council’s Development Plan or the “global climate and nature crisis”.
"It adds that the plans were in opposition with the "Tackling the climate and nature crises" policy and "Climate mitigation and adaption", adding, "the proposal fails to give significant weight to the global climate and nature crisis or to consider how the surface water would be managed or take account of future risks of climate change."
No wonder nothing much gets built in the UK
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/glasgow-plans-for-retail-and-restaurant-development-in-east-end-rejected-by-council/ar-AA1lFoXq?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=dc4b48d603884f329c76935c24b053d6&ei=17
Note, there is a distinction to be drawn between the classic balaclava, and the three hole (eyes and mouth) version preferred by gangsters.
https://twitter.com/NickTorfaen/status/1736656417430356114
Russia's little helpers in the last few years have been Conservative, not Labour, and the big prize was Brexit which weakened and split both Britain and Europe.
https://www.britainschoice.uk/segments/disengaged-battlers/
https://news.sky.com/story/tory-mp-miriam-cates-under-investigation-by-parliaments-standards-watchdog-13033359
Dirty business from Number 10 Dirty Tricks Unit and the Whips to knobble and tie up those who disagree with them? 😠
"Disengaged Battlers are focused on the everyday struggle for survival. They have work, but often it is insecure or involves irregular hours."
Admittedly the London colleges and the federal institutions of Wales were far bigger than Oxbridge colleges.
'Established Liberals', which doesn't come as a surprise - and, I'd guess, common on here along with the Progressive Activists.
The greatest difficulty one would encounter is finding a bank that hasn't been permanently closed.
"Far more active in posting about politics on social media than any other group"
This penguin is the world's highest-ranking military animal.
Major General Sir Nils Olav III, Baron of the Bouvet Islands is a king penguin who resides in Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland and is the mascot and colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian King's Guard.
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1736658108322042352
Water firms use up to 28% of bill payments to service debt in areas of England
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/dec/18/water-firms-use-up-to-28-percent-of-bill-payments-to-service-debt-in-areas-of-england
As water is both regulated and (obvs) essential, it doesn't take much imagination to work out who is going to pay for any necessary salvage work after all its investors have taken their losses.
I guess it takes a special skill to bust an outfit that has a monopoly of an essential commodity but it can be done with effort.
The amenities are absolutely brilliant too, the pool on the rooftop is amazing, has a great view and the bar staff are incredibly attentive.
@Leon if the gazette is still sending you out on travel reviews I'd highly recommend requesting the JW Marriott at Vagator Beach. It's a tiny bit of luxury in an otherwise vibrant and very Indian bit of north Goa. There's also a couple of really incredible restaurants nearby and absolutely loads of amazing south Indian restaurants. Also if you want to roll back the years and go for an all night rave I've been told by other guests this is the place to do it. Not that I'm interested in such things now that I've got a kid and another one on the way...
I think if we went to the middle east the same hotel quality would be 2-3x the price.
But I'm not really whatever it is you are after is meaningful. These sorts of categorisations seek to group people in a reasonably limited number of groups using something like linear discriminant analysis. So the idea is that group membership is reasonably predictive of your view on X, Y and Z.
Does it work for every case in the sense of being 100% predictive of everything, and is every group blurb perfectly descriptive of all members? No, clearly not, but to do that you'd need to have many thousands of groups, which would make it pointless.
A deadly combination of a Tory government who slashed direct funding to zero and Tory councils encouraged to invest in property to fill the cash black hole has so many of them teetering on the edge. We're going to see another bonfire of Tory councils in May, so any that go pop in June onwards will definitely be the fault of the new Labour / LD administrations who have obviously broken the finances on day 1.
They tried that approach this year and were roundly laughed at. But will do so again given the chance because the party sneeringly assumes everyone is a moron.
My point is that this group is not small, and certainly not insignificant. Taken as a whole their lives give gainful if taxing and unrewarding employment to multitudes.
I’ve been looking for a way to get the Gazette to send be to Goa/South India - that could be it
Military assistance (since 2014), something that Corbyn steadfastly opposes, has enabled Ukraine to resist (in addition to the courage of its own people).
No doubt you're correct that a shortage of brown envelopes is involved.
Essentially, it's an incomplete application. Boringly, yes you do need to do the work as part of a planning application to demonstrate what the ecological impact is, and mitigate it. It isn't some kind of ludicrous ask, and hundreds of applicants do it successfully every day. This one clearly hasn't bothered.
https://twitter.com/scotgov/status/1736370730051195272
Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X :
⚠️ Suspected breach of obligations to counter #IllegalContent and #Disinformation
⚠️ Suspected breach of #Transparency obligations
⚠️ Suspected #DeceptiveDesign of user interface
#DSA
Quite striking statistic at the end, that of eight MPs currently under investigation for breaches of parliamentary standards, seven are Tories and the eighth was elected as a Tory. I know there are more Tory MPs than any other party but that still seems a disproportionate amount of (alleged) bad behaviour.
https://x.com/ub1ub2/status/1736033413751034285?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
People see planning refusals and assume it's the Council being unreasonable. Sometimes that's true. But sometimes the developer has a bit of a kamikaze first run at it for the reason described.
He wants to end aid to Ukraine, keep Ukraine out of NATO, and leave Russia in control of parts of Ukraine.
And… and!… he’s a vegetarian.
Actually went to an aprés funeral thing just round the corner from there a couple of weeks ago. The area could certainly do with a bit of an uplift but if there’s one thing the east end of Glasgow doesn’t need, it’s another ill considered, thrown up development that’ll look like downtown Gaza in 20 years time.
That was how we got the most effective response to Russia - and they got something in return
A below inflation rise isn’t great but sounds a lot better than a “real terms cut”.
But don't let that get in the way of abit of grievance mongering.