🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
It's particularly disappointing when you consider how successful the Elizabeth Line has been. It's possible the enormous construction bill will be paid off within 20 years because passenger numbers are so high.
The rot started in 2021 when they cut the eastern leg. Unfortunately this did not cause as much fuss at the time, but it should have done.
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
I also explained the other day how we could have done this on the cheap without anyone noticing
LNER trains go really fast. 125mph. And they look like high speed trains. Very sleek. 125mph is absolutely fast enough for a country as compact as Britain. We don’t need “350kph”
We should have just built a load of those sleek 125mph trains, labelled them High Speed, job done for about three pounds and tuppence
HS2 would still have cost a fortune because the home counties all insisted on the bits going through their lovely countryside being buried inside very expensive tunnels. Plus you still have to build the stations & links into London, which are quoted as part of the cost of HS2 but somehow don’t get included when people compare it with the cost of an equivalent railway in France or Spain.
Yes, HS2 cost more than it should have done & the high spec was definitely a part of that, but another large part was the way the price was driven ever higher by NIMBY-style planning interference.
On topic, I'm not sure it's that simple. Get rid of them all and you'd just get another lot. Someone has to run all these businesses and organisations.
It's the groupthink, lack of accountability and integrity that's the issue and I think that's more of a structural and values problem.
93% don't go to private schools, and they usually don't get an opportunity to get to the top because of that accident.
I think that's a myth.
There are plenty at the top who aren't from private schools. It might be that 30-40% are but the majority are not.
The key thing is they all operate as a club once they're in.
The problem is the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" mentality.
It was parodied well with Sir Humphrey decades ago, and nothing has changed since.
The terminology of "NU10K" may be new, but the concept is not remotely new, and it is absolutely correct.
I think there is a different flavour to this version, hence a new moniker for it.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
The PO case is particularly Kafkaesque, since they were investigator and prosecutor in their own interest, and therefore used the computer evidence rule as a shield for their lies.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Have tried similar, but wireless (my phone doesn't have a headphone jack). Found them uncomfortable when I roll over onto my side - might just be the crappy Amazon brand I bought, though.
For someone who used to be famous for using her brain, that skill appears to have deserted her in recent years.
She was good at very fast arithmetic. That does not mean she is or would be sensible or wise about anything else.
On the other hand it's a shame we haven't been able to find and smoke some of their fast boats. Maybe we should put a couple of Q ships out there
We certainly could. Lynx/Seahawk Romeo with a nutter on the door gun but, unlike air strikes, it's a bit unpredictable and unlikely to align favourably with the news cycle. Better just to bomb some bits of desert at the time of choosing and call it done.
Crab Air would not have to be asked twice for this lastest act of strategic foresight. They will bomb any part of the Middle East at any time in order to justify the continued and highly expensive existence of "Club Med" at Akrotiri.
On the other hand it seems to me there is immediate justification for blowing up the fast boats. They are the enemy in action, so obviously self defence. They are also pirates and get short shrift in maritime law. Whereas bombing bits of desert look too much like "retaliation" which to my mind is never justifiable
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
The PO case is particularly Kafkaesque, since they were investigator and prosecutor in their own interest, and therefore used the computer evidence rule as a shield for their lies.
"The Commissioner before whom the fugitive from slavery was brought for a hearing ..... was compensated $10 if he found that the individual was proven a fugitive and only $5 if he determined the proof to be insufficient."
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
I also explained the other day how we could have done this on the cheap without anyone noticing
LNER trains go really fast. 125mph. And they look like high speed trains. Very sleek. 125mph is absolutely fast enough for a country as compact as Britain. We don’t need “350kph”
We should have just built a load of those sleek 125mph trains, labelled them High Speed, job done for about three pounds and tuppence
HS2 would still have cost a fortune because the home counties all insisted on the bits going through their lovely countryside being buried inside very expensive tunnels. Plus you still have to build the stations & links into London, which are quoted as part of the cost of HS2 but somehow don’t get included when people compare it with the cost of an equivalent railway in France or Spain.
Yes, HS2 cost more than it should have done & the high spec was definitely a part of that, but another large part was the way the price was driven ever higher by NIMBY-style planning interference.
I wonder what a 100% tunnelled HS2 would have cost? Drive it in a straight line, wherever you want.
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
Was this the thing where clocking in/out systems made it look like specific nurses were on the ward when patients died, but further evidence revealed that it was routine for nurses to arrive early and leave after clocking in & out and so there was no actual pattern at all - it was a false signal in the data, where the data didn’t actually reflect reality.
For someone who used to be famous for using her brain, that skill appears to have deserted her in recent years.
She was good at very fast arithmetic. That does not mean she is or would be sensible or wise about anything else.
On the other hand it's a shame we haven't been able to find and smoke some of their fast boats. Maybe we should put a couple of Q ships out there
We certainly could. Lynx/Seahawk Romeo with a nutter on the door gun but, unlike air strikes, it's a bit unpredictable and unlikely to align favourably with the news cycle. Better just to bomb some bits of desert at the time of choosing and call it done.
Crab Air would not have to be asked twice for this lastest act of strategic foresight. They will bomb any part of the Middle East at any time in order to justify the continued and highly expensive existence of "Club Med" at Akrotiri.
We might have to recall The Living Legend Of Aviation that is Harry Windsor back to duty, he's a self proclaimed ace at slotting fellas from a helicopter.
On topic, I'm not sure it's that simple. Get rid of them all and you'd just get another lot. Someone has to run all these businesses and organisations.
It's the groupthink, lack of accountability and integrity that's the issue and I think that's more of a structural and values problem.
93% don't go to private schools, and they usually don't get an opportunity to get to the top because of that accident.
I think that's a myth.
There are plenty at the top who aren't from private schools. It might be that 30-40% are but the majority are not.
The key thing is they all operate as a club once they're in.
Yes, private education and to a slightly smaller extent Oxbridge education is a common background for the elite and certainly more of them have that background than the population as a whole but most members of the elite haven't been to either.
For someone who used to be famous for using her brain, that skill appears to have deserted her in recent years.
She was good at very fast arithmetic. That does not mean she is or would be sensible or wise about anything else.
On the other hand it's a shame we haven't been able to find and smoke some of their fast boats. Maybe we should put a couple of Q ships out there
We certainly could. Lynx/Seahawk Romeo with a nutter on the door gun but, unlike air strikes, it's a bit unpredictable and unlikely to align favourably with the news cycle. Better just to bomb some bits of desert at the time of choosing and call it done.
Crab Air would not have to be asked twice for this lastest act of strategic foresight. They will bomb any part of the Middle East at any time in order to justify the continued and highly expensive existence of "Club Med" at Akrotiri.
On the other hand it seems to me there is immediate justification for blowing up the fast boats. They are the enemy in action, so obviously self defence. They are also pirates and get short shrift in maritime law. Whereas bombing bits of desert look too much like "retaliation" which to my mind is never justifiable
I'm not at all sure why we have gone to war on behalf of Israel.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Any good for travel? I've got an overnight flight to Bangkok coming up and would like to hit the ground running, so sleeping on the plane would be a good idea
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
A traditional establishment background, well-connected, Eton, tax barrister, married to a judge etc. A bit naughty with his expenses. Spouted the MoD party line over the Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash.
But.
He had the necessary character traits which are so often missing: he listened, he changed his mind when he learnt new facts, he was curious, he actually learnt the lessons from that helicopter crash ie that computers are not infallible and organisations can become stubbornly attached to a view in the face of reality, and he was determined.
And humble - he says that his efforts failed. Which they did though I think he underestimates the value that having any MPs listen to their case and try to do something was to the subpostmasters.
It is values and character and judgment (asking ourselves not whether we "can" do something but whether we "should") which matter above everything else. This is what we need to teach our children. It is what we need to reward and promote. It is what we need to praise.
Until we start doing that instead rewarding those with the slopiest of shoulders, those whose only skill is to network, lick arse and blame others, those who never take responsibility, those who are only good at spouting the latest "received opinion", however stupid or damaging, rather than thinking for themselves, those who think the appearance of things is more important than the substance, we will get nowhere.
Of course you're right, and goodness knows, one does one's best.
But.
We're also in a world where living by values is utterly praiseworthy, but only if you accept that it means being content with fewer rewards. Because to listen to one's concience, to make sure that you can always face yourself in the mirror, is to be weaker than the one who has had their Jiminy Cricket killed and mounted and had all mirrors removed from their house. I'm sure we can all think of terrible people who got to the top by doing terrible things.
Personally, I wouldn't, couldn't live any other way. But that means coming to terms with the fact that the pirates have more fun and accumulate more glittering prizes. And whilst it's OK for me to make that decision (albeit massively sculpted by how I was brought up), it's harder to act that way on behalf of others.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Have tried similar, but wireless (my phone doesn't have a headphone jack). Found them uncomfortable when I roll over onto my side - might just be the crappy Amazon brand I bought, though.
I find these really good. You don’t even notice the earphones. If you’ve got a big head, buy medium - tighter is better and they loosen
Probably worth a punt for £30?
They’ve been a godsend for me on dozens of occasions when sleep was otherwise impossible. I never travel without at least one set
PS I buy dongles (for about £2) so you adapt a 3.5mm jack for a lightning socket
We await the results of the Letby and PO inquiries to see if the managers involved to face more severe sanctions
I think one thing being missed in this NU10K suggestion is that many of the key players in both cases were/are not senior management, the sort who get high pay and gongs and move easily from one field to another. Many of the key players were mid or even low level managers. Stephen Bradshaw rather than Paula Vennells.
For someone who used to be famous for using her brain, that skill appears to have deserted her in recent years.
She was good at very fast arithmetic. That does not mean she is or would be sensible or wise about anything else.
On the other hand it's a shame we haven't been able to find and smoke some of their fast boats. Maybe we should put a couple of Q ships out there
We certainly could. Lynx/Seahawk Romeo with a nutter on the door gun but, unlike air strikes, it's a bit unpredictable and unlikely to align favourably with the news cycle. Better just to bomb some bits of desert at the time of choosing and call it done.
Crab Air would not have to be asked twice for this lastest act of strategic foresight. They will bomb any part of the Middle East at any time in order to justify the continued and highly expensive existence of "Club Med" at Akrotiri.
On the other hand it seems to me there is immediate justification for blowing up the fast boats. They are the enemy in action, so obviously self defence. They are also pirates and get short shrift in maritime law. Whereas bombing bits of desert look too much like "retaliation" which to my mind is never justifiable
I'm not at all sure why we have gone to war on behalf of Israel.
What a world, eh.
We haven't, we are protecting international shipping lanes
Meanwhile, here's a thing of beauty, and not just because it backs up my theory about the next election. (Ignore Con to Lab swingers, the decisive groups are the 2019 Con voters staying at home and the 2017 stay at homers who hated both Johnson and Corbyn but are likely to back Starmer unenthusiastically but sufficiently);
Where are 2019 voters today? With each square 100k voters in the colour of their 2019 vote (white = too young), this is how polls currently suggest they intend to vote this year.
Am sceptical Labour have gained that many non-voters, but key story is scattering of Tory vote.
That is a very pretty graph. I like this style of presentation
I am interested in where the data regarding dead voters comes from, as I have not seen that before.
I'd guess that it's done on number of deaths by age group applied to GE2019 vote by age group. So you work out how many in 65-70 died and multiple that by voting proportions from GE2019, how many 70-75 died and multiply by voting proportions etc. You could do that with e.g. BES or 2019 exit polls etc with age break down (for BES and maybe other polls you could add other demographics to make it more accurate in case there are things that correlate with 2019 vote and risk of death other than age).
Also possible this is a panel survey and they know, although that would require linkage to death records etc - BES has a panel component and could link to ONS potentially, with consent, if they have it.
A traditional establishment background, well-connected, Eton, tax barrister, married to a judge etc. A bit naughty with his expenses. Spouted the MoD party line over the Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash.
But.
He had the necessary character traits which are so often missing: he listened, he changed his mind when he learnt new facts, he was curious, he actually learnt the lessons from that helicopter crash ie that computers are not infallible and organisations can become stubbornly attached to a view in the face of reality, and he was determined.
And humble - he says that his efforts failed. Which they did though I think he underestimates the value that having any MPs listen to their case and try to do something was to the subpostmasters.
It is values and character and judgment (asking ourselves not whether we "can" do something but whether we "should") which matter above everything else. This is what we need to teach our children. It is what we need to reward and promote. It is what we need to praise.
Until we start doing that instead rewarding those with the slopiest of shoulders, those whose only skill is to network, lick arse and blame others, those who never take responsibility, those who are only good at spouting the latest "received opinion", however stupid or damaging, rather than thinking for themselves, those who think the appearance of things is more important than the substance, we will get nowhere.
Excellent post. This is precisely so.
I know James and he's exactly like this. I expected him to be a typical pompous Tory MP when I first met him in 2010, and I wasn't even 30 yet and a nobody.
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
It's a sign of how absurdly weak SKS is that he's taken the easy get out card of not pledging to reverse it.
He'll be in office in 11 months and easily could.
The narrative was that Sunak planned to sell the land required and pronto, to salt the earth and prevent a policy reversal by any alternative government.
Yes, that's the narrative and it's a bit disappointing to see so many on the Labour side defend SKS rather than challenge him on it.
None of the land has yet been sold. And he could easily put a spanner in the works of any sales by saying he'll stop it and reacquire it once he takes office, thus ensuring hardly anyone bothers to buy it.
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
I also explained the other day how we could have done this on the cheap without anyone noticing
LNER trains go really fast. 125mph. And they look like high speed trains. Very sleek. 125mph is absolutely fast enough for a country as compact as Britain. We don’t need “350kph”
We should have just built a load of those sleek 125mph trains, labelled them High Speed, job done for about three pounds and tuppence
HS2 would still have cost a fortune because the home counties all insisted on the bits going through their lovely countryside being buried inside very expensive tunnels. Plus you still have to build the stations & links into London, which are quoted as part of the cost of HS2 but somehow don’t get included when people compare it with the cost of an equivalent railway in France or Spain.
Yes, HS2 cost more than it should have done & the high spec was definitely a part of that, but another large part was the way the price was driven ever higher by NIMBY-style planning interference.
I wonder what a 100% tunnelled HS2 would have cost? Drive it in a straight line, wherever you want.
Mole people don't vote.
That's what they're doing with the new maglev shinkansen in Japan. (Also because of the mountains, you'd have to dig a bunch of tunnels anyhow). The problem they have is that one of the prefectures they go under isn't getting a station, and its governor is really narked off about this, so he's made up a whole concern about water falling out of his rivers into the tunnel. His concerns about the rivers disappearing would go away if they'd agree to build a station, but that would cost a fortune because now you need to get people from the surface all the way to the deep underground tunnel.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
It's a sign of how absurdly weak SKS is that he's taken the easy get out card of not pledging to reverse it.
He'll be in office in 11 months and easily could.
I think if the land is not sold off quickly before the election, Labour have suggested they at least desire to reverse it,
or maybe at least do something, maybe the cheaper alternative Leon has just suggested, though when going into one of these big one hit projects the temptation is to future proof it isn’t it.
I think everyone thinks, even without a complete reverse decision as manifesto commitment, Labour would put in a faster passenger line to be additional to slower freight line.
Was it 45 minutes Manchester to London? I have been on buses on the Hooton By Pass stuck at traffic lights for more than 45 minutes. To go Manchester to London in that sort of time does sound sort of transformative. But it’s the fact it’s “additional” meaning good for commercial freight and business that was selling point, not just passengers.
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
Was this the thing where clocking in/out systems made it look like specific nurses were on the ward when patients died, but further evidence revealed that it was routine for nurses to arrive early and leave after clocking in & out and so there was no actual pattern at all - it was a false signal in the data, where the data didn’t actually reflect reality.
NB A vague memory suggests this particular case was about controlled drugs going missing rather than patient deaths. Same problematic reliance on “computer says X” though.
I guess the header is, in part at least, an attempt to answer the question: Where does power lie in the UK? The examples given in the article of the NU10K are mainly high-flying public servants, and I wouldn't dispute that the revolving door of jobs they inhabit needs sorting.
However, if I were one of the captains of industry, or one of the CEOs of the FTSE companies, I'd be delighted if the meme of the NU10K takes hold, as it distracts from where real power and wealth lie. Yes, some of the NU10K are (too) highly paid, but they earn little compared to the FTSE CEOs who last year earned, on average, £3.91m - 118 times the median wage, up from 79 times in 2020.
It's a long time since the capitalist class replaced the aristocracy as the main source of power and wealth in the UK. I see no sign whatsoever of the really, really rich and powerful being replaced by the NU10K, but they would enjoy the header. Are Mone and Barrowman part of the NU10K? I think not.
There's an executive oligarchy in big business in much the same way there's one within big government.
With I'm sure some crossover.
I would say that the NU10K embraces big business as much as big government.
There is a great deal of movement between the private and public, as a part of that.
And some of the worst of it is probably the people we don't know about, because they just get on with quietly accumulating money and power.
There's always been some sort of mutually protecting elite. Our current one has some distinctive features, though.
One is meritocracy-gone-sour, the sense that I'm at the top as a reward for my brilliance, not as a duty to serve.
Another is that modern communications and data processing mean that the new despots have tools to monitor and control that Napoleon, Hitler and the Stasi could only dream of.
Linked to that, things have scaled bigger. Fewer people at the top deciding stuff, more remote from the worms under the hoe. That will encourage a certain inhumanity.
Is this worse than the old elite? Hard to tell. But it's different, and it has clear downsides
The saving grace is that they are too stupid to do a Stalin. Or even Lee Kuan Yew.
The old elite was worse, in aggregate.
The new elite has at least the illusion of diversity. None in thought or action of course. Just bankrupt managerialism of thousand page reports that no one reads.
Time for a Free Market in management (public and private). Fuck up, you are finished. And replaced by someone else. Until we get some winners.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
On topic, I'm not sure it's that simple. Get rid of them all and you'd just get another lot. Someone has to run all these businesses and organisations.
It's the groupthink, lack of accountability and integrity that's the issue and I think that's more of a structural and values problem.
93% don't go to private schools, and they usually don't get an opportunity to get to the top because of that accident.
I think that's a myth.
There are plenty at the top who aren't from private schools. It might be that 30-40% are but the majority are not.
The key thing is they all operate as a club once they're in.
Yes, private education and to a slightly smaller extent Oxbridge education is a common background for the elite and certainly more of them have that background than the population as a whole but most members of the elite haven't been to either.
Obviously they've done the research and I haven't, so fair enough, but I am absolutely gobsmacked that it's as low as 39% of the elite went to private school.
And... if we are saying the people who have got into the elite had done so through their own effort rather than their connections, isn't that a meritocracy?
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Any good for travel? I've got an overnight flight to Bangkok coming up and would like to hit the ground running, so sleeping on the plane would be a good idea
West to East is always a killer. What time do you arrive. Early afternoon-ish? There is no great way whatever you do on the plane (eat, drink, be merry, sleep) because your body clock is up the wazoo. East to West is much easier if you can stay up the whole day after landing at 5-6am you've got it cracked.
On topic I don't understand what the thread means. How do we identify the people who are supposed to be replaced? Is there a list?
Yes, they usually have something like Sir, Lady, MBE, OBE etc in their names. HTH.
Are you sure that's what it means? I read it again and it doesn't seem like it. As far as I can tell that only applies to Cressida Dick.
The head of Rotherham's Childrens services Joyce Thacker OBE Cressida Dick DBE Chairman of the NCB during Aberfan (who was heavily criticised) Lord Robens Paula Vennells CBE (until this week) Dame Alison Rose
With the exception of currently pinpointing the exact individuals responsible for the Lucy Letby case (inquiry pending) and the Blood Scandal (lots of different politicians), everyone mentioned or referenced in th thread header has received some form of honour.
For someone who used to be famous for using her brain, that skill appears to have deserted her in recent years.
She was good at very fast arithmetic. That does not mean she is or would be sensible or wise about anything else.
On the other hand it's a shame we haven't been able to find and smoke some of their fast boats. Maybe we should put a couple of Q ships out there
We certainly could. Lynx/Seahawk Romeo with a nutter on the door gun but, unlike air strikes, it's a bit unpredictable and unlikely to align favourably with the news cycle. Better just to bomb some bits of desert at the time of choosing and call it done.
Crab Air would not have to be asked twice for this lastest act of strategic foresight. They will bomb any part of the Middle East at any time in order to justify the continued and highly expensive existence of "Club Med" at Akrotiri.
On the other hand it seems to me there is immediate justification for blowing up the fast boats. They are the enemy in action, so obviously self defence. They are also pirates and get short shrift in maritime law. Whereas bombing bits of desert look too much like "retaliation" which to my mind is never justifiable
I'm not at all sure why we have gone to war on behalf of Israel.
What a world, eh.
We haven't, we are protecting international shipping lanes
Which are being attacked as a way of attacking Israel so we are going to war on Israel's side in response.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Have tried similar, but wireless (my phone doesn't have a headphone jack). Found them uncomfortable when I roll over onto my side - might just be the crappy Amazon brand I bought, though.
I find these really good. You don’t even notice the earphones. If you’ve got a big head, buy medium - tighter is better and they loosen
Probably worth a punt for £30?
They’ve been a godsend for me on dozens of occasions when sleep was otherwise impossible. I never travel without at least one set
PS I buy dongles (for about £2) so you adapt a 3.5mm jack for a lightning socket
See here - in my hotel room now
I will give them a go. The wireless ones I got off Amazon were 17.99 and went straight in the bin. Uncomfortable and awful sound. Thirty quid for something thats actually wearable is worth a punt, thanks.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Any good for travel? I've got an overnight flight to Bangkok coming up and would like to hit the ground running, so sleeping on the plane would be a good idea
Really good for travel. Also great for noisy hotel rooms, snoring partners, any time you just HAVE to kip
As I say: buy the cheap wired ones (so much less hassle) and just get an adapter/dongle for the lightning/USBC connection. Don’t need charging
Plug them into a sleep app - I like the sound of waterfalls - fit them snugly over your head - they’re very cosy, kinda comforting - bingo. I introduced my ex wife to them and she loves them and told all her friends
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Have tried similar, but wireless (my phone doesn't have a headphone jack). Found them uncomfortable when I roll over onto my side - might just be the crappy Amazon brand I bought, though.
I find these really good. You don’t even notice the earphones. If you’ve got a big head, buy medium - tighter is better and they loosen
Probably worth a punt for £30?
They’ve been a godsend for me on dozens of occasions when sleep was otherwise impossible. I never travel without at least one set
PS I buy dongles (for about £2) so you adapt a 3.5mm jack for a lightning socket
See here - in my hotel room now
I will give them a go. The wireless ones I got off Amazon were 17.99 and went straight in the bin. Uncomfortable and awful sound. Thirty quid for something thats actually wearable is worth a punt, thanks.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Doesn’t the concept also try to protect traditional retail and leisure and hospitality businesses too? If you have a thriving suburban high street a short trip away you’re much less likely to want/need the internet postal/delivery solutions?
I don’t really see the problem TBC. It appears to be badged as anti car, but to be honest if people don’t need to make car trips somewhere does that make it a problem?
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
Was this the thing where clocking in/out systems made it look like specific nurses were on the ward when patients died, but further evidence revealed that it was routine for nurses to arrive early and leave after clocking in & out and so there was no actual pattern at all - it was a false signal in the data, where the data didn’t actually reflect reality.
“The corruption of patient data in a hospital prompted a criminal investigation, resulting in approximately 70 nurses being disciplined, with some charged with wilful neglect contrary to the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Some nurses received custodial sentences.”
It is abundantly clear that the criminal justice system has failed over and over again to treat computerised information with the appropriate level of scepticism.
For someone who used to be famous for using her brain, that skill appears to have deserted her in recent years.
She was good at very fast arithmetic. That does not mean she is or would be sensible or wise about anything else.
On the other hand it's a shame we haven't been able to find and smoke some of their fast boats. Maybe we should put a couple of Q ships out there
We certainly could. Lynx/Seahawk Romeo with a nutter on the door gun but, unlike air strikes, it's a bit unpredictable and unlikely to align favourably with the news cycle. Better just to bomb some bits of desert at the time of choosing and call it done.
Crab Air would not have to be asked twice for this lastest act of strategic foresight. They will bomb any part of the Middle East at any time in order to justify the continued and highly expensive existence of "Club Med" at Akrotiri.
On the other hand it seems to me there is immediate justification for blowing up the fast boats. They are the enemy in action, so obviously self defence. They are also pirates and get short shrift in maritime law. Whereas bombing bits of desert look too much like "retaliation" which to my mind is never justifiable
I'm not at all sure why we have gone to war on behalf of Israel.
What a world, eh.
We haven't, we are protecting international shipping lanes
Yesterday's festivities only hit one target on the coast at Al Hudaydah. Everything else receiving the knuckle shampoo was 50-100+km inland. If it's about protecting shipping lanes then it's a strange way of doing it.
On topic I don't understand what the thread means. How do we identify the people who are supposed to be replaced? Is there a list?
Someone who's good at data journalism - Anna Powell-Smith or someone like that - and who doesn't mind ferreting around FOI requests, could actually work this out. Take the list of public appointments for the last n years. Do a bit of analysis to see which names crop up repeatedly.
(You'd probably want to crowdsource the compilation of the dataset - I suspect it would be too much for one person to do.)
On topic I don't understand what the thread means. How do we identify the people who are supposed to be replaced? Is there a list?
Yes, they usually have something like Sir, Lady, MBE, OBE etc in their names. HTH.
Are you sure that's what it means? I read it again and it doesn't seem like it. As far as I can tell that only applies to Cressida Dick.
The head of Rotherham's Childrens services Joyce Thacker OBE Cressida Dick DBE Chairman of the NCB during Aberfan (who was heavily criticised) Lord Robens Paula Vennells CBE (until this week) Dame Alison Rose
With the exception of currently pinpointing the exact individuals responsible for the Lucy Letby case (inquiry pending) and the Blood Scandal (lots of different politicians), everyone mentioned or referenced in th thread header has received some form of honour.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Doesn’t the concept also try to protect traditional retail and leisure and hospitality businesses too? If you have a thriving suburban high street a short trip away you’re much less likely to want/need the internet postal/delivery solutions?
I don’t really see the problem TBC. It appears to be badged as anti car, but to be honest if people don’t need to make car trips somewhere does that make it a problem?
Yeah its a load of bullshit by people who want 19th century living standards.
Oh we're going to go back to people shopping at a butcher and a grocer and a baker and we'll leave the internet and the car behind ... f*** off no we're not.
If you want that, then shop at those places and if lots of others do, they'll thrive. If others don't, don't try and force it on them via "planning".
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
Chillax. The Election is 100% May 2nd
Reasons for May 2nd Inflation battle won still fresh in minds Tax cuts and upbeat “right track - turning corner” budget still a bit fresh in pocket and minds Dirty Tricks Unit now on steroids and will burn out by September May 2nd, coinciding with local and Mayor elections, allows to be have Uxbridge style election focus, on taxes on motorist, and on how Labours Green Contract will screw UK economy and every taxpayer. Avoids this years expected surge in illegal channel crossings, that would be failure impossible to explain Avoids the damning interim covid report publication Avoids credibility and moral shattering set of locals before General Election Avoids mortgage crisis of key voters actually deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals Avoids the predicted doom and gloom of Q3 economic downtown Avoids another “zombie conference” before election, last years seems to have properly screwed Tory polling Avoids two year anniversary of Trussterfuck in the news Avoids two year anniversary of PM Sunak in the news, and much reflection how things haven’t got better Avoids opposition fun with “squatting” “frit” narrative, that some believe torpedoed Majors chance of much better result
In favour of June or later Micawberism - something better might turn up, despite all the expert predictions of a conveyer belt of ever increasing worse news coming on from 1st June. Courageously presumes voters still open minded who to vote for, and actually interested in hearing substance from Labour before deciding 🤣 Anything else? 😃
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
Was this the thing where clocking in/out systems made it look like specific nurses were on the ward when patients died, but further evidence revealed that it was routine for nurses to arrive early and leave after clocking in & out and so there was no actual pattern at all - it was a false signal in the data, where the data didn’t actually reflect reality.
As someone who analyses routinely collected healthcare data, the issues here don't surprise me. Great care has to be taken in validating and cleaning data. In my field, for example, there can be issues with nonsense values being recorded (typos, out by factors of ten due to missing/added zeroes) or values used improperly as a missing value indicator. Missing dates of birth (or anything) have a default to the system epoch (1970, often, depending on the underlying OS). Duplicate recording is not uncommon (50+ trips to A&E in one day for one person...), people dying multiple times or receiving treatment for years after a recorded death. Take some data and run some analyses and these rogue observations can have high leverage and dramatically skew results. You have to check, flag dubious measurements, run without, run with, impute, 'correct' and compare the results from all of those before becoming confident of any findings.
I'd be massively skeptical of any hospital data used in prosecutions absent other evidence of the facts.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
It's a sign of how absurdly weak SKS is that he's taken the easy get out card of not pledging to reverse it.
He'll be in office in 11 months and easily could.
I think if the land is not sold off quickly before the election, Labour have suggested they at least desire to reverse it,
or maybe at least do something, maybe the cheaper alternative Leon has just suggested, though when going into one of these big one hit projects the temptation is to future proof it isn’t it.
I think everyone thinks, even without a complete reverse decision as manifesto commitment, Labour would put in a faster passenger line to be additional to slower freight line.
Was it 45 minutes Manchester to London? I have been on buses on the Hooton By Pass stuck at traffic lights for more than 45 minutes. To go Manchester to London in that sort of time does sound sort of transformative. But it’s the fact it’s “additional” meaning good for commercial freight and business that was selling point, not just passengers.
They really should have called it “Capacity 2050”, rather than “HS2”.
The main reason for it, is to separate passenger and freight trains; and by far the biggest HS2 benefit would be getting tens of thousands of lorries off the roads.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
We're in an AONB, so there are planning constraints preventing the town expanding anyway.
Even in a city which is adopting 15-minute principles I don't think there's generally a presumption against "people building a house". But when Barratt or David Wilson come along and say "we want to put 2000 houses here", the council turns round and says "ok, but if you do that, you have to build a school and a shop and so on". Which is as it should be. If we're talking "forcing" and "preventing", the intention is basically that affordable housing shouldn't mean people are forced into car dependency - not that people are prevented from using their car at all.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
We're in an AONB, so there are planning constraints preventing the town expanding anyway.
Even in a city which is adopting 15-minute principles I don't think there's generally a presumption against "people building a house". But when Barratt or David Wilson come along and say "we want to put 2000 houses here", the council turns round and says "ok, but if you do that, you have to build a school and a shop and so on". Which is as it should be. If we're talking "forcing" and "preventing", the intention is basically that affordable housing shouldn't mean people are forced into car dependency - not that people are prevented from using their car at all.
There are also no car developments (in London afaik only). Where the council won't issue parking permits for that address. I'm sure there are 1,000 ways round it, that said.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
We're in an AONB, so there are planning constraints preventing the town expanding anyway.
Even in a city which is adopting 15-minute principles I don't think there's generally a presumption against "people building a house". But when Barratt or David Wilson come along and say "we want to put 2000 houses here", the council turns round and says "ok, but if you do that, you have to build a school and a shop and so on". Which is as it should be. If we're talking "forcing" and "preventing", the intention is basically that affordable housing shouldn't mean people are forced into car dependency - not that people are prevented from using their car at all.
So yes, putting up barriers.
People need homes, the housing shortage is one of the worst problems facing this country. May be nice for you living in a home of your own to tell developers to bugger off, but that's the worst kind of NIMBYism.
On topic I don't understand what the thread means. How do we identify the people who are supposed to be replaced? Is there a list?
Yes, they usually have something like Sir, Lady, MBE, OBE etc in their names. HTH.
Are you sure that's what it means? I read it again and it doesn't seem like it. As far as I can tell that only applies to Cressida Dick.
The head of Rotherham's Childrens services Joyce Thacker OBE Cressida Dick DBE Chairman of the NCB during Aberfan (who was heavily criticised) Lord Robens Paula Vennells CBE (until this week) Dame Alison Rose
With the exception of currently pinpointing the exact individuals responsible for the Lucy Letby case (inquiry pending) and the Blood Scandal (lots of different politicians), everyone mentioned or referenced in th thread header has received some form of honour.
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
The PO case is particularly Kafkaesque, since they were investigator and prosecutor in their own interest, and therefore used the computer evidence rule as a shield for their lies.
And paid bonuses for prosecutions.
That surely has to be ruled out.
Of course.
A very close second to a proper whistleblowing policy is a proper conflicts of interest one, especially in the public sector.
From what I can see, this is either not widely understood or widely ignored. Conflicts of interest are at the heart of most scandals.
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
It's a sign of how absurdly weak SKS is that he's taken the easy get out card of not pledging to reverse it.
He'll be in office in 11 months and easily could.
I think if the land is not sold off quickly before the election, Labour have suggested they at least desire to reverse it,
or maybe at least do something, maybe the cheaper alternative Leon has just suggested, though when going into one of these big one hit projects the temptation is to future proof it isn’t it.
I think everyone thinks, even without a complete reverse decision as manifesto commitment, Labour would put in a faster passenger line to be additional to slower freight line.
Was it 45 minutes Manchester to London? I have been on buses on the Hooton By Pass stuck at traffic lights for more than 45 minutes. To go Manchester to London in that sort of time does sound sort of transformative. But it’s the fact it’s “additional” meaning good for commercial freight and business that was selling point, not just passengers.
They really should have called it “Capacity 2050”, rather than “HS2”.
The main reason for it, is to separate passenger and freight trains; and by far the biggest HS2 benefit would be getting tens of thousands of lorries off the roads.
The extra capacity on the roads would be like building a new motorway network, to paraphrase Wenger's "like a new signing" for players returning from injury.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
Happily, there are large majorities across party lines in favour of 15-minute cities, which concludes the debate .
🌹Labour 42% (-) 🌳Conservatives 27% (-1) 🔶Liberal Democrats 10% (-1) 🟣Reform UK 9% (+1) 💚Greens 8% (+2) Labour lead of 15 Field work 9/1-11/1
Bad news for Davey, in this first poll with the PO Scandal leading the news.
"People think Ed Davey should resign 42%-19% - again it isn't unusual for people to say a politician (even fictional ones should resign). But more worryingly for the Lib Dem leader his own supporters are split 28%-33% on the question of if he should go."
One thing I like of this pollster is how they break down by generation, and also try to squeeze the initial "Don't Knows" into a choice.
Lab ahead with all age groups under 75, even boomers. If forced to choose then DKs break fairly evenly, but narrowly for Labour.
Strewth. If don't knows are breaking for Labour (even slightly) then that's devastating. If the crossover age is 75+ then...well.
Yeah, but, no. All the don’t knows breaking Tory might vote on the day, whilst all those favouring Labour stay at home, might not remotely be even split from each.
Something has happened reasonably recently for large number of voters to decide conclusively against Tories. I think it might have been Conference Season. I think Radical Rishi Unleashed & The Great HS2 Surrender has gone down badly with voters. Conservative drift downward seems to stem from that week?
The HS2 decision really fucked the infrastructure industry in this country and has caused chaos, quite aside from it being economically devastating.
I'm still furious about it. And the idea that Sunak thought this was evidence of him taking great decisions for the long-term that would appeal to voters.
I mean, WTF?
There’s a reputational damage to our country from this isn’t there, the rest of the world watching and thinking - you can’t do it? Imagine HS2 as a war, and you lost it, everyone sees you as weak. But it is a war, a huge commercial war out there globally, where we, global Britain, are seen not to be able to do stuff other countries have mastered before Breakfast, or at least Elevenses. I don’t think Sunak and those around him have quite grasped all the angles of what they’ve done.
Is it other countries focus more on cheaper tunnelling, being cheaper than buying up all the land and building on it?
It's a sign of how absurdly weak SKS is that he's taken the easy get out card of not pledging to reverse it.
He'll be in office in 11 months and easily could.
I think if the land is not sold off quickly before the election, Labour have suggested they at least desire to reverse it,
or maybe at least do something, maybe the cheaper alternative Leon has just suggested, though when going into one of these big one hit projects the temptation is to future proof it isn’t it.
I think everyone thinks, even without a complete reverse decision as manifesto commitment, Labour would put in a faster passenger line to be additional to slower freight line.
Was it 45 minutes Manchester to London? I have been on buses on the Hooton By Pass stuck at traffic lights for more than 45 minutes. To go Manchester to London in that sort of time does sound sort of transformative. But it’s the fact it’s “additional” meaning good for commercial freight and business that was selling point, not just passengers.
They really should have called it “Capacity 2050”, rather than “HS2”.
The main reason for it, is to separate passenger and freight trains; and by far the biggest HS2 benefit would be getting tens of thousands of lorries off the roads.
The extra capacity on the roads would be like building a new motorway network, to paraphrase Wenger's "like a new signing" for players returning from injury.
Be considerably better to actually build a new motorway network though.
Trying to force ever more people onto the same motorway network is part of the problem, our population has grown by 20% but our motorway network has been neglected for decades, while new rail routes have been built.
No problems with building more rail networks, again, but it should come on top of and as a lesser priority to building more motorways.
The advantage of new motorways is they provide alternative routes. Taking some lorries off the M6 doesn't do much for people who need to travel along a route where the M6 does not go, so they're not able to use it anyway since it doesn't go there anyway. Similarly for anyone travelling on the M6 at times where its travelling at 70mph+ then taking vehicles off the road does absolutely nothing, but providing alternative routes does.
And of course with new motorways, we can build new towns on the new junctions of those new motorways.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Having everything 15 minutes away is great in theory.
However, the manifestations of this policy appear to be primarily aimed at making it more difficult to drive anywhere - by dividing neighbourhoods by blocking roads, reducing lanes for cars, designating key roads as for residents only, and reducing or even eliminating parking in new developments.
'Stephen Mason, a barrister and expert on electronic evidence, said: “It says, for the person who’s saying ‘there’s something wrong with this computer’, that they have to prove it. Even if it’s the person accusing them who has the information.”
Mason, along with eight other legal and computer experts, was invited by the government to suggest an update to the law in 2020, following a high court ruling against the Post Office, but the recommendations they submitted were never applied.'
This change in the law is essential and urgent.
The heart of this scandal.
It was a shortcut, for convenience. People were tying up court cases with long winded examination of computer systems. There is also the fun point that it is impossible to prove a computer system is correct. Or incorrect.
It was so simple to make Computer = Truth. A stroke of the pen...
This allowed the PO to hide their bullshit for *decades*. Without it, the cases would have begun collapsing many, many years ago. There would have been human suffering, but nothing on this scale.
And with it in place, the same thing could happen tomorrow.
The same thing could be happening *right now*.
The same thing is happening right now. In one of my headers on this I pointed out that dodgy computer evidence was at the heart of prosecutions of some nurses in Wales. The prosecutions collapsed, fortunately.
Was this the thing where clocking in/out systems made it look like specific nurses were on the ward when patients died, but further evidence revealed that it was routine for nurses to arrive early and leave after clocking in & out and so there was no actual pattern at all - it was a false signal in the data, where the data didn’t actually reflect reality.
“The corruption of patient data in a hospital prompted a criminal investigation, resulting in approximately 70 nurses being disciplined, with some charged with wilful neglect contrary to the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Some nurses received custodial sentences.”
It is abundantly clear that the criminal justice system has failed over and over again to treat computerised information with the appropriate level of scepticism.
What I wrote last May -
It can't even understand basic statistics - as the Sally Clark case showed.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
Happily, there are large majorities across party lines in favour of 15-minute cities, which concludes the debate .
Happily we live in a free society, so debates are never concluded.
If large majorities want that, then people will move into those areas without any need for any planning restrictions.
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
"The Post Office threatened and lied to the BBC in 2015 ahead of a Panorama programme with a Horizon whistleblower which exposed the scandal, the public broadcaster said. The BBC said experts who were interviewed for the programme were sent intimidating letters by Post Office lawyers who also sent letters to the broadcaster, threatening to sue Panorama. According to the BBC, senior Post Office managers also told the broadcaster at the time that no staff or the company who developed Horizon, Fujitsu, could access post office operators accounts, despite being warned four years earlier this was possible. The BBC says the claims did not stop the programme, titled Trouble at the Post Office, but it did delay the broadcast of the show. The Post Office has been contacted for comment. It told the BBC it will not comment while the public inquiry continues."
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
Happily, there are large majorities across party lines in favour of 15-minute cities, which concludes the debate .
Happily we live in a free society, so debates are never concluded.
If large majorities want that, then people will move into those areas without any need for any planning restrictions.
Yes, no problem with it for *new* developments. It’s the imposition on existing road networks which upsets people.
On topic I don't understand what the thread means. How do we identify the people who are supposed to be replaced? Is there a list?
Yes, they usually have something like Sir, Lady, MBE, OBE etc in their names. HTH.
Are you sure that's what it means? I read it again and it doesn't seem like it. As far as I can tell that only applies to Cressida Dick.
The head of Rotherham's Childrens services Joyce Thacker OBE Cressida Dick DBE Chairman of the NCB during Aberfan (who was heavily criticised) Lord Robens Paula Vennells CBE (until this week) Dame Alison Rose
With the exception of currently pinpointing the exact individuals responsible for the Lucy Letby case (inquiry pending) and the Blood Scandal (lots of different politicians), everyone mentioned or referenced in th thread header has received some form of honour.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Having everything 15 minutes away is great in theory.
However, the manifestations of this policy appear to be primarily aimed at making it more difficult to drive anywhere - by dividing neighbourhoods by blocking roads, reducing lanes for cars, designating key roads as for residents only, and reducing or even eliminating parking in new developments.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Having everything 15 minutes away is great in theory.
However, the manifestations of this policy appear to be primarily aimed at making it more difficult to drive anywhere - by dividing neighbourhoods by blocking roads, reducing lanes for cars, designating key roads as for residents only, and reducing or even eliminating parking in new developments.
That's more to do with Oxford's Council being crap, Oxford having critical transport issues and Oxford Council latching on to a buzz word to justify their harebrained fix.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Two ways. Firstly, "planning" is forcing people, if its a requirement.
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
"Putting up barriers" is an entirely different thing. That's a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. Don't confuse the two.
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
As I said, if its voluntary, there's nothing wrong with it.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
Happily, there are large majorities across party lines in favour of 15-minute cities, which concludes the debate .
Happily we live in a free society, so debates are never concluded.
If large majorities want that, then people will move into those areas without any need for any planning restrictions.
Yes, no problem with it for *new* developments. It’s the imposition on existing road networks which upsets people.
There is a problem with it for new developments, if its a requirement for planning, its just a weapon used by NIMBYs to block developments.
If its a voluntary, optional, add-on for new developments then there's no issues with it. So long as developments aren't blocked if they don't meet it.
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
It means that we have limited attention span. And that is us on pb.com. For the non nerdy it needs to be on prime time tv for it to matter.
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
900 are fucking up in the background, creating the next scandal to keep @Cyclefree in future headers to write.
9,000 are waiting, in the queue, patiently, to fuck up. They *are* British, after all.
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
Yes. We didn't get much of an explanation why the detail-obsessed specialist would do a better job running a giant organisation than a professional manager.
Waterproof earphones are bleeding’ magic by the way. Thanks to @rcs1000 for the tip
You can swim laps listening to audio books. It takes away nearly all the boredom. And swimming is so good for you
The headphones I want are ones I can comfortably fall asleep in. You get crappy "headband" ones for sleeping but they're uncomfortable and the audio is crap. Comfortable noise cancellers that will switch off after an hour or so, so i can drift off listening to something, but will also bring up white noise / noise cancelling again if they detect ambient noise rising above a certain db.
Thought about this a lot when I used to travel for work. Million dollar idea there for somebody...
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
Have tried similar, but wireless (my phone doesn't have a headphone jack). Found them uncomfortable when I roll over onto my side - might just be the crappy Amazon brand I bought, though.
I am a bad sleeper but have found listening to comedy programs to get back to sleep to be ideal. They are entertaining but not something so interesting that I have to follow in detail. So it doesn't matter at all if I nod off. This is relevant because I have to hear words; music or calming noises don't do it. I have tried an under the pillow speaker but I can't make out any words. I haven tried a headband with speakers, I'm sure they would be uncomfortable for side sleeping.
What I have found to be great is a pair of bluetooth earbuds. Smaller than airpods. I only wear one. It doesn't disturb me if I fall asleep and if I turn over when asleep it falls out without disturbing me. I highly recommend it. So much better than wired earbuds. The company who made the set I have is called Hama and are not expensive, but I am sure there are several other similar types.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Having everything 15 minutes away is great in theory.
However, the manifestations of this policy appear to be primarily aimed at making it more difficult to drive anywhere - by dividing neighbourhoods by blocking roads, reducing lanes for cars, designating key roads as for residents only, and reducing or even eliminating parking in new developments.
Edit: 15-minute cities are great in practice as well as in theory. I lived in such an area in Germany. We hardly ever needed to use a car, but if we ever did, there were no restrictions on doing so.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
On topic, I'm not sure it's that simple. Get rid of them all and you'd just get another lot. Someone has to run all these businesses and organisations.
It's the groupthink, lack of accountability and integrity that's the issue and I think that's more of a structural and values problem.
93% don't go to private schools, and they usually don't get an opportunity to get to the top because of that accident.
I think that's a myth.
There are plenty at the top who aren't from private schools. It might be that 30-40% are but the majority are not.
The key thing is they all operate as a club once they're in.
I'm not wholly bought into this idea that well placed people all help each other out. In my experience they tend to be only too happy to stab each other in the back as and when needed. I would also say more generally that life experience has tended to make me realise that any group tends to look cliquey from the outside and much less so from the inside, and the reality is usually somewhere in between.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
So nobody wants to make it a planning requirement? Nobody wants to stand in the way of construction if it's not met?
You may want to get your story straight by having a conversation with @El_Capitano because he gladly wants to stand in the way of "Barratt Homes or David Wilson Homes" getting some much-needed houses built.
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
Yes. We didn't get much of an explanation why the detail-obsessed specialist would do a better job running a giant organisation than a professional manager.
They probably wouldn't. But you do need experts at high levels, people who actually understand how the things lower down are working. The CEO doesn't need to be a tech nerd, but the CTO* should have some understanding of the systems being run (and be able to understand what technical people further down are saying) and the CFO should be able to do sums (or whatever it is CFOs do )
*interestingly, the PO doesn't seem to have one, not sure whether it did during the relevant years...
Interesting. A left wing party that is anti-green, anti-immigrant, anti-vaccination and anti-Ukraine.
Kind of strange mix of policies for a left wing party.
I think the 'left' comes purely from it being interventionist on the economy.
Left in the sense of saying: they will make rich people and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes they will introduce higher social security and pensions and minimum wage
Kind of on topic because the first lines of their founding manifesto read:
"Our country is not in good shape. For years, governments have ignored the wishes of the majority. Instead of rewarding performance, money was redistributed from the hardworking to the top ten thousand. "
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
Yes. We didn't get much of an explanation why the detail-obsessed specialist would do a better job running a giant organisation than a professional manager.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
So nobody wants to make it a planning requirement? Nobody wants to stand in the way of construction if it's not met?
You may want to get your story straight by having a conversation with @El_Capitano because he gladly wants to stand in the way of "Barratt Homes or David Wilson Homes" getting some much-needed houses built.
Are the Tories really going to go into the next election campaigning for public services to be further away?
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
So nobody wants to make it a planning requirement? Nobody wants to stand in the way of construction if it's not met?
You may want to get your story straight by having a conversation with @El_Capitano because he gladly wants to stand in the way of "Barratt Homes or David Wilson Homes" getting some much-needed houses built.
Are the Tories really going to go into the next election campaigning for public services to be further away?
For some reason an image of Father Dougal has just popped unbidden into my mind...
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
Yes. We didn't get much of an explanation why the detail-obsessed specialist would do a better job running a giant organisation than a professional manager.
They probably wouldn't. But you do need experts at high levels, people who actually understand how the things lower down are working. The CEO doesn't need to be a tech nerd, but the CTO* should have some understanding of the systems being run (and be able to understand what technical people further down are saying) and the CFO should be able to do sums (or whatever it is CFOs do )
*interestingly, the PO doesn't seem to have one, not sure whether it did during the relevant years...
CFOs are just there to give a standard answer whenever departmental managers ask for an increased budget. Hence they became known as Chief FOs.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
So nobody wants to make it a planning requirement? Nobody wants to stand in the way of construction if it's not met?
You may want to get your story straight by having a conversation with @El_Capitano because he gladly wants to stand in the way of "Barratt Homes or David Wilson Homes" getting some much-needed houses built.
Are the Tories really going to go into the next election campaigning for public services to be further away?
I'm not a Tory so can't answer that.
But get your story straight.
Is nobody trying to force 15 minute cities on others?
Or is it a good thing that they are?
You keep flirting between both with no shame whatsoever.
Interesting. A left wing party that is anti-green, anti-immigrant, anti-vaccination and anti-Ukraine.
Kind of strange mix of policies for a left wing party.
I think the 'left' comes purely from it being interventionist on the economy.
Left in the sense of saying: they will make rich people and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes they will introduce higher social security and pensions and minimum wage
Kind of on topic because the first lines of their founding manifesto read:
"Our country is not in good shape. For years, governments have ignored the wishes of the majority. Instead of rewarding performance, money was redistributed from the hardworking to the top ten thousand. "
Be a bit of a bummer in these countries to be number 10,001 and just miss out on all the goodies.
On topic, I'm not sure it's that simple. Get rid of them all and you'd just get another lot. Someone has to run all these businesses and organisations.
It's the groupthink, lack of accountability and integrity that's the issue and I think that's more of a structural and values problem.
93% don't go to private schools, and they usually don't get an opportunity to get to the top because of that accident.
I think that's a myth.
There are plenty at the top who aren't from private schools. It might be that 30-40% are but the majority are not.
The key thing is they all operate as a club once they're in.
I'm not wholly bought into this idea that well placed people all help each other out. In my experience they tend to be only too happy to stab each other in the back as and when needed. I would also say more generally that life experience has tended to make me realise that any group tends to look cliquey from the outside and much less so from the inside, and the reality is usually somewhere in between.
My dad used to be forever railing about corrupt politicians; he thought they were utter scum.
However, he did have a friend who, at the time, was an MP. In return for my father's support in some matter to do with the local residents' association, he arranged for my dad to be able to buy his council house for a very favourable price.
He'd have laughed at the idea that this was corruption. Of course not. Just mates helping each other out.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
So nobody wants to make it a planning requirement? Nobody wants to stand in the way of construction if it's not met?
You may want to get your story straight by having a conversation with @El_Capitano because he gladly wants to stand in the way of "Barratt Homes or David Wilson Homes" getting some much-needed houses built.
That’s not forcing anyone to only go to places within 15 minutes.
There is a major problem with full-on, vaccine-denying, anti-democratic conspiracy theorists going on about 15 minute cities meaning everyone is in perpetual lockdown and not allowed to go anywhere, often linked with Grand Replacement Theory and Jews controlling the media/banks.
You repeating your usual rank about planning laws would do better to disassociate yourself from such nonsense rather than trying to co-opt their language.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
Is that the same as no one wanting to force blanket 20 mph zones on others? Yet that seems to happen rather widely.
Yes its driven by people wanting to improve the places where they live but its not true to say that no-one wants to force others to change their behaviour.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
No one has ever wanted to force “15 minute cities” on others. That’s pure conspiracy theory.
So nobody wants to make it a planning requirement? Nobody wants to stand in the way of construction if it's not met?
You may want to get your story straight by having a conversation with @El_Capitano because he gladly wants to stand in the way of "Barratt Homes or David Wilson Homes" getting some much-needed houses built.
That’s not forcing anyone to only go to places within 15 minutes.
There is a major problem with full-on, vaccine-denying, anti-democratic conspiracy theorists going on about 15 minute cities meaning everyone is in perpetual lockdown and not allowed to go anywhere, often linked with Grand Replacement Theory and Jews controlling the media/banks.
You repeating your usual rank about planning laws would do better to disassociate yourself from such nonsense rather than trying to co-opt their language.
Who said anything about forcing anyone to only go to places within 15 minutes? Not me.
The problem is your illiteracy. You're always tilting at windmills, imagining the worst of others so you can argue against that rather than what is actually written.
15 minute planning restrictions are an appalling, nasty bit of NIMBYism that is abused to block construction.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Having everything 15 minutes away is great in theory.
However, the manifestations of this policy appear to be primarily aimed at making it more difficult to drive anywhere - by dividing neighbourhoods by blocking roads, reducing lanes for cars, designating key roads as for residents only, and reducing or even eliminating parking in new developments.
Edit: 15-minute cities are great in practice as well as in theory. I lived in such an area in Germany. We hardly ever needed to use a car, but if we ever did, there were no restrictions on doing so.
11 months to a probable Labour victory and PBers are already losing their minds over the threat of militant vegetarianism, 15-minute cities and, bizarrely, Ed Davey.
Election now, for all our sakes.
As far as I notice, you're the one who keeps bringing up the stupid idea of "15-minute cities", I don't see many others doing so.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
15-minute cities are a planning concept.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
Having everything 15 minutes away is great in theory.
However, the manifestations of this policy appear to be primarily aimed at making it more difficult to drive anywhere - by dividing neighbourhoods by blocking roads, reducing lanes for cars, designating key roads as for residents only, and reducing or even eliminating parking in new developments.
Edit: 15-minute cities are great in practice as well as in theory. I lived in such an area in Germany. We hardly ever needed to use a car, but if we ever did, there were no restrictions on doing so.
And the evidence from the UK is that, where we have places like that, people want to live there, as shown by how expensive they are. See suburbs which grew up before World War 2 or mass car ownership.
The question is why modern suburbs (which price signals tell us are less desirable) don't develop the same nice features. In part, I suspect it's because reserving more space for storing and driving cars pushes everything else further apart and the walkability stops working.
But also, it's somewhere where Matt Ridley-style free market evolution doesn't lead to the optimal solution, because evolution doesn't always do so. (See peacock's tails, or the ability of humans to choke themselves to death.) If you start developing a new area, it's not commercially viable to provide local facilities, because there aren't enough customers yet. So they get used to driving further away for their needs and wants. And by the time the population is big enough, the habit is ingrained, so it's never worth anyone opening a butchers shop. Individuals acting rationally and optimally at a small scale, leading to a less than optimal solution overall.
"The Post Office threatened and lied to the BBC in 2015 ahead of a Panorama programme with a Horizon whistleblower which exposed the scandal, the public broadcaster said. The BBC said experts who were interviewed for the programme were sent intimidating letters by Post Office lawyers who also sent letters to the broadcaster, threatening to sue Panorama. According to the BBC, senior Post Office managers also told the broadcaster at the time that no staff or the company who developed Horizon, Fujitsu, could access post office operators accounts, despite being warned four years earlier this was possible. The BBC says the claims did not stop the programme, titled Trouble at the Post Office, but it did delay the broadcast of the show. The Post Office has been contacted for comment. It told the BBC it will not comment while the public inquiry continues."
“The Post Office threatened and lied to the BBC in 2015 ahead of a Panorama programme with a Horizon whistleblower”
Threats and lies as late as 2015 really does help Davey case avoiding becoming the sole sacrificial lamb the Tories are doing overtime to turn him into.
In fact it helps everyone up to 2015 struggling to get to the truth. But doesn’t really help anyone in power positions after the 2015 whistleblowers, unfortunately.
Over Christmas I put a lesson together for Church about Sacrificial Lambs - maybe Davey should hire me as a subject matter expert 😇
If there are 10,000 people running things, and only 100 of them, maximum, seem to be screwing up badly enough for us to notice, does that maybe mean that 99% of them are actually doing an OK job?
900 are fucking up in the background, creating the next scandal to keep @Cyclefree in future headers to write.
9,000 are waiting, in the queue, patiently, to fuck up. They *are* British, after all.
I have to say I am not bought into the idea that our managerial elite are all incompetent, venal liars. I don't *think* I am a member of this elite so I don't think I am talking my own book here, but I've certainly seen its workings up close and I've seen the elites of other countries too and I've seen the global transnational elite at work too (I'm a kind of Zelig of the elite world). I think we maybe have three problems in this area, most of which we share with other countries. 1. Our elite is too narrow - too middle class, way too SE, too privately educated, too Oxbridge, too white, still too male - so we must be missing talent. But it is less narrow than it used to be (and is this maybe breeding resentment I wonder?). 2. We live in an increasingly complex world especially with respect to anything tech related - and managers tend to be generalists and out of touch with new developments - and so they struggle to deal with this complexity. 3. We have a highly unequal income distribution so people are incentivised to try to rise above their abilities, and their failure is even more jarring and rage-inducing to the rest of the population.
Overall though I think our elite is actually not too bad, especially when judged against our own history or other countries. Our real problems lie elsewhere.
Comments
Yes, HS2 cost more than it should have done & the high spec was definitely a part of that, but another large part was the way the price was driven ever higher by NIMBY-style planning interference.
"Rod Liddle
I’ve invented a new game. It’s called ‘Six Degrees of Shami Chakrabarti’"
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-ve-invented-a-new-game-it-s-called-six-degrees-of-shami-chakrabarti/
https://www.sleepphones.co.uk/products/sleepphones-classic-headband-headphones
They work fine for me. Block out light and you can listen to white noise or music. I don’t notice the wire, and they are much cheaper/less hassle than wireless ones you have to charge
No good?
That surely has to be ruled out.
"The Commissioner before whom the fugitive from slavery was brought for a hearing ..... was compensated $10 if he found that the individual was proven a fugitive and only $5 if he determined the proof to be insufficient."
Mole people don't vote.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/prince-harry-aviation-award-b2476875.html
'Two fifths (39%) of the elite group as a whole were privately educated, more than five times as many as the population at large, while a quarter (24%) had graduated from Oxbridge.'
https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/elitist-britain-2019/
What a world, eh.
Election now, for all our sakes.
But.
We're also in a world where living by values is utterly praiseworthy, but only if you accept that it means being content with fewer rewards. Because to listen to one's concience, to make sure that you can always face yourself in the mirror, is to be weaker than the one who has had their Jiminy Cricket killed and mounted and had all mirrors removed from their house. I'm sure we can all think of terrible people who got to the top by doing terrible things.
Personally, I wouldn't, couldn't live any other way. But that means coming to terms with the fact that the pirates have more fun and accumulate more glittering prizes. And whilst it's OK for me to make that decision (albeit massively sculpted by how I was brought up), it's harder to act that way on behalf of others.
Probably worth a punt for £30?
They’ve been a godsend for me on dozens of occasions when sleep was otherwise impossible. I never travel without at least one set
PS I buy dongles (for about £2) so you adapt a 3.5mm jack for a lightning socket
See here - in my hotel room now
Also possible this is a panel survey and they know, although that would require linkage to death records etc - BES has a panel component and could link to ONS potentially, with consent, if they have it.
I'd also be interested in more, though.
I know James and he's exactly like this. I expected him to be a typical pompous Tory MP when I first met him in 2010, and I wasn't even 30 yet and a nobody.
He wasn't. He respected me and listened.
None of the land has yet been sold. And he could easily put a spanner in the works of any sales by saying he'll stop it and reacquire it once he takes office, thus ensuring hardly anyone bothers to buy it.
15 minute cities, like vegetarianism, is fine if its voluntary and you don't force your views on others.
When you want to push your beliefs upon others, its discriminatory, wrong, and don't be surprised if you get a backlash.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/06/labour-could-revive-hs2-northern-legs-after-government-fails-to-sell-off-land
or maybe at least do something, maybe the cheaper alternative Leon has just suggested, though when going into one of these big one hit projects the temptation is to future proof it isn’t it.
I think everyone thinks, even without a complete reverse decision as manifesto commitment, Labour would put in a faster passenger line to be additional to slower freight line.
Was it 45 minutes Manchester to London? I have been on buses on the Hooton By Pass stuck at traffic lights for more than 45 minutes. To go Manchester to London in that sort of time does sound sort of transformative. But it’s the fact it’s “additional” meaning good for commercial freight and business that was selling point, not just passengers.
They just mean that the key facilities you need for daily life are available within 15 minutes' walk or bike ride.
That's it. Full stop. I'm not sure how that can at all be construed as "forcing your views on others". No one is going to frogmarch you down to the corner shop 15 minutes away and force you to do all your shopping there.
And... if we are saying the people who have got into the elite had done so through their own effort rather than their connections, isn't that a meritocracy?
Cressida Dick DBE
Chairman of the NCB during Aberfan (who was heavily criticised) Lord Robens
Paula Vennells CBE (until this week)
Dame Alison Rose
With the exception of currently pinpointing the exact individuals responsible for the Lucy Letby case (inquiry pending) and the Blood Scandal (lots of different politicians), everyone mentioned or referenced in th thread header has received some form of honour.
As I say: buy the cheap wired ones (so much less hassle) and just get an adapter/dongle for the lightning/USBC connection. Don’t need charging
Plug them into a sleep app - I like the sound of waterfalls - fit them snugly over your head - they’re very cosy, kinda comforting - bingo. I introduced my ex wife to them and she loves them and told all her friends
Union 31%
AfD 22%
Green 14%
SPD 13%
BSW 4%
FDP 4%
Left 4%
FW 4%
Others 4%
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bündnis_Sahra_Wagenknecht
If you mean "build it and they will come", we're going to design this here and let people choose if they want to move here or not - then fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Compelling it so that design has to be used everywhere, even where people don't want it, that's a bad thing.
Secondly, if you're putting up barriers that make it harder for people to drive to alternatives, then that's anti-competitive and wrong too.
I have a Co-op within a 15 minute walk of me - considerably less in fact. I almost never go there though, unless its literally for just bread or milk or something like that. I get my meat delivered to me from a butcher I order online from, and the rest of my food I typically get from Asda or Aldi which I can drive to in less than 15 minutes and fill my boot with a much better selection of food, for cheaper too.
It has two types of vegetarian burger.
I don’t really see the problem TBC. It appears to be badged as anti car, but to be honest if people don’t need to make car trips somewhere does that make it a problem?
“The corruption of patient data in a hospital prompted a criminal investigation, resulting in approximately 70 nurses being disciplined, with some charged with wilful neglect contrary to the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Some nurses received custodial sentences.”
It is abundantly clear that the criminal justice system has failed over and over again to treat computerised information with the appropriate level of scepticism.
(You'd probably want to crowdsource the compilation of the dataset - I suspect it would be too much for one person to do.)
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/27/education-officials-appointment-after-rotherham-role-appropriate-review-finds
Oh we're going to go back to people shopping at a butcher and a grocer and a baker and we'll leave the internet and the car behind ... f*** off no we're not.
If you want that, then shop at those places and if lots of others do, they'll thrive. If others don't, don't try and force it on them via "planning".
Reasons for May 2nd
Inflation battle won still fresh in minds
Tax cuts and upbeat “right track - turning corner” budget still a bit fresh in pocket and minds
Dirty Tricks Unit now on steroids and will burn out by September
May 2nd, coinciding with local and Mayor elections, allows to be have Uxbridge style election focus, on taxes on motorist, and on how Labours Green Contract will screw UK economy and every taxpayer.
Avoids this years expected surge in illegal channel crossings, that would be failure impossible to explain
Avoids the damning interim covid report publication
Avoids credibility and moral shattering set of locals before General Election
Avoids mortgage crisis of key voters actually deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals
Avoids the predicted doom and gloom of Q3 economic downtown
Avoids another “zombie conference” before election, last years seems to have properly screwed Tory polling
Avoids two year anniversary of Trussterfuck in the news
Avoids two year anniversary of PM Sunak in the news, and much reflection how things haven’t got better
Avoids opposition fun with “squatting” “frit” narrative, that some believe torpedoed Majors chance of much better result
In favour of June or later
Micawberism - something better might turn up, despite all the expert predictions of a conveyer belt of ever increasing worse news coming on from 1st June.
Courageously presumes voters still open minded who to vote for, and actually interested in hearing substance from Labour before deciding 🤣
Anything else? 😃
I live in a (rural) 15-minute neighbourhood and there isn't a barrier in sight.
I'd be massively skeptical of any hospital data used in prosecutions absent other evidence of the facts.
Are there no planning or any other barriers preventing people from building a house sixteen or twenty minutes away from something if that's where they want to live?
Kind of strange mix of policies for a left wing party.
The main reason for it, is to separate passenger and freight trains; and by far the biggest HS2 benefit would be getting tens of thousands of lorries off the roads.
Even in a city which is adopting 15-minute principles I don't think there's generally a presumption against "people building a house". But when Barratt or David Wilson come along and say "we want to put 2000 houses here", the council turns round and says "ok, but if you do that, you have to build a school and a shop and so on". Which is as it should be. If we're talking "forcing" and "preventing", the intention is basically that affordable housing shouldn't mean people are forced into car dependency - not that people are prevented from using their car at all.
I hate the way people lump anti-immigration etc in with right-wing, that has nothing to do with left/right splits.
I'd consider both of us to lean to the right, but while we disagree on housing and some other things we're both very pro-immigration.
Racism/migration has nothing to do with the right or left economic split.
People need homes, the housing shortage is one of the worst problems facing this country. May be nice for you living in a home of your own to tell developers to bugger off, but that's the worst kind of NIMBYism.
No it should not be like that.
A very close second to a proper whistleblowing policy is a proper conflicts of interest one, especially in the public sector.
From what I can see, this is either not widely understood or widely ignored. Conflicts of interest are at the heart of most scandals.
Trying to force ever more people onto the same motorway network is part of the problem, our population has grown by 20% but our motorway network has been neglected for decades, while new rail routes have been built.
No problems with building more rail networks, again, but it should come on top of and as a lesser priority to building more motorways.
The advantage of new motorways is they provide alternative routes. Taking some lorries off the M6 doesn't do much for people who need to travel along a route where the M6 does not go, so they're not able to use it anyway since it doesn't go there anyway. Similarly for anyone travelling on the M6 at times where its travelling at 70mph+ then taking vehicles off the road does absolutely nothing, but providing alternative routes does.
And of course with new motorways, we can build new towns on the new junctions of those new motorways.
However, the manifestations of this policy appear to be primarily aimed at making it more difficult to drive anywhere - by dividing neighbourhoods by blocking roads, reducing lanes for cars, designating key roads as for residents only, and reducing or even eliminating parking in new developments.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-62223867
It can't even understand basic statistics - as the Sally Clark case showed.
See https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/05/08/the-cheque-is-in-the-post/
If large majorities want that, then people will move into those areas without any need for any planning restrictions.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jan/12/post-office-horizon-it-scandal-inquiry-threats-bbc-conservatives-labour-uk-politics-latest-updates
(Literally on the first paragraph)
If its a voluntary, optional, add-on for new developments then there's no issues with it. So long as developments aren't blocked if they don't meet it.
9,000 are waiting, in the queue, patiently, to fuck up. They *are* British, after all.
What I have found to be great is a pair of bluetooth earbuds. Smaller than airpods. I only wear one. It doesn't disturb me if I fall asleep and if I turn over when asleep it falls out without disturbing me. I highly recommend it. So much better than wired earbuds. The company who made the set I have is called Hama and are not expensive, but I am sure there are several other similar types.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/15-minute-city-urban-planning-idea-conspiracy-theory-misinformation-b1062266.html
Edit: 15-minute cities are great in practice as well as in theory. I lived in such an area in Germany. We hardly ever needed to use a car, but if we ever did, there were no restrictions on doing so.
You may want to get your story straight by having a conversation with @El_Capitano because he gladly wants to stand in the way of "Barratt Homes or David Wilson Homes" getting some much-needed houses built.
*interestingly, the PO doesn't seem to have one, not sure whether it did during the relevant years...
they will make rich people and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes
they will introduce higher social security and pensions and minimum wage
Kind of on topic because the first lines of their founding manifesto read:
"Our country is not in good shape. For years, governments have ignored the wishes of the majority. Instead of rewarding performance, money was redistributed from the hardworking to the top ten thousand. "
Have you read any of the reports about the PO?
But get your story straight.
Is nobody trying to force 15 minute cities on others?
Or is it a good thing that they are?
You keep flirting between both with no shame whatsoever.
However, he did have a friend who, at the time, was an MP. In return for my father's support in some matter to do with the local residents' association, he arranged for my dad to be able to buy his council house for a very favourable price.
He'd have laughed at the idea that this was corruption. Of course not. Just mates helping each other out.
There is a major problem with full-on, vaccine-denying, anti-democratic conspiracy theorists going on about 15 minute cities meaning everyone is in perpetual lockdown and not allowed to go anywhere, often linked with Grand Replacement Theory and Jews controlling the media/banks.
You repeating your usual rank about planning laws would do better to disassociate yourself from such nonsense rather than trying to co-opt their language.
Yes its driven by people wanting to improve the places where they live but its not true to say that no-one wants to force others to change their behaviour.
The problem is your illiteracy. You're always tilting at windmills, imagining the worst of others so you can argue against that rather than what is actually written.
15 minute planning restrictions are an appalling, nasty bit of NIMBYism that is abused to block construction.
The question is why modern suburbs (which price signals tell us are less desirable) don't develop the same nice features. In part, I suspect it's because reserving more space for storing and driving cars pushes everything else further apart and the walkability stops working.
But also, it's somewhere where Matt Ridley-style free market evolution doesn't lead to the optimal solution, because evolution doesn't always do so. (See peacock's tails, or the ability of humans to choke themselves to death.) If you start developing a new area, it's not commercially viable to provide local facilities, because there aren't enough customers yet. So they get used to driving further away for their needs and wants. And by the time the population is big enough, the habit is ingrained, so it's never worth anyone opening a butchers shop. Individuals acting rationally and optimally at a small scale, leading to a less than optimal solution overall.
Threats and lies as late as 2015 really does help Davey case avoiding becoming the sole sacrificial lamb the Tories are doing overtime to turn him into.
In fact it helps everyone up to 2015 struggling to get to the truth. But doesn’t really help anyone in power positions after the 2015 whistleblowers, unfortunately.
Over Christmas I put a lesson together for Church about Sacrificial Lambs - maybe Davey should hire me as a subject matter expert 😇
I think we maybe have three problems in this area, most of which we share with other countries.
1. Our elite is too narrow - too middle class, way too SE, too privately educated, too Oxbridge, too white, still too male - so we must be missing talent. But it is less narrow than it used to be (and is this maybe breeding resentment I wonder?).
2. We live in an increasingly complex world especially with respect to anything tech related - and managers tend to be generalists and out of touch with new developments - and so they struggle to deal with this complexity.
3. We have a highly unequal income distribution so people are incentivised to try to rise above their abilities, and their failure is even more jarring and rage-inducing to the rest of the population.
Overall though I think our elite is actually not too bad, especially when judged against our own history or other countries. Our real problems lie elsewhere.