Late to the party but interesting header @Malmesbury, thanks. I must admit I read the title, thought “why are pb.com branching out into conspiracy theories?” and scrolled down expecting to see @Leon or @Luckyguy1983 or one of our other pet conspirators authoring it.
I think it’s a compliment to say that, when I saw who wrote it, I scrolled back up and read the whole thing.
I am with @algarkirk that much data is needed before it can move beyond the realms of lizard-people.
All the same, assuming there is some truth to the lack of accountability, I do wonder whether this is just a very imperfect antidote to our current tendency to fetishise individual responsibility in our culture.
Sure, Paula Vennells is an inadequate human, but we should not have systems or cultures that allow individual inadequacies to have this big an impact. Ergo, individuals who are held responsible for systemic failures probably aren’t as responsible as we think they are.
This doesn’t mean the opposite is true I.e. that they have much talent. I’d argue few people stand out much either because of their talent or their mendacity. It’s the systems and culture (largely a product of late-stage capitalism) that are more at fault for eg the Horizon mess.
I've been out exercising and have missed lots of the conversation, so apols. if this has been covered.
But I think something like this nu10k might be best seen as not a universal truth, but as a nebulous category. There are certainly people it fits rather well (Private Eye would often mention them...), but the lower edges of the 10k will be very nebulous, with far more than 10k people who partly fit it, or even those who aspire to be one of the 10k.
Also, the nu10k might face more challenges if 'we' got better at training people up from the ranks. In ye olden days, a young lad might be picked out as having management potential on the railways (Gerard Fiennes being one example). They spent a few years at the bottom of the ladder, learning the basics of the business, and would then get promoted up. Many fell by the wayside or got diverted. But at the end of it, you had people at the top who knew the business inside out.
Nowadays, someone gets promoted to leadership who has zero idea about the industry they are in. That need not be a barrier to success, but it seems it all too often is.
A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.
Thanks Ben
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
Late to the party but interesting header @Malmesbury, thanks. I must admit I read the title, thought “why are pb.com branching out into conspiracy theories?” and scrolled down expecting to see @Leon or @Luckyguy1983 or one of our other pet conspirators authoring it.
I think it’s a compliment to say that, when I saw who wrote it, I scrolled back up and read the whole thing.
I am with @algarkirk that much data is needed before it can move beyond the realms of lizard-people.
All the same, assuming there is some truth to the lack of accountability, I do wonder whether this is just a very imperfect antidote to our current tendency to fetishise individual responsibility in our culture.
Sure, Paula Vennells is an inadequate human, but we should not have systems or cultures that allow individual inadequacies to have this big an impact. Ergo, individuals who are held responsible for systemic failures probably aren’t as responsible as we think they are.
This doesn’t mean the opposite is true I.e. that they have much talent. I’d argue few people stand out much either because of their talent or their mendacity. It’s the systems and culture (largely a product of late-stage capitalism) that are more at fault for eg the Horizon mess.
What about we hold people to account for the things they are in charge of?
Then they might have an incentive to run their organisations well.
Late Stage Capitalism is just like “woke” - a label that has ceased to mean more than an insult
Two fair points. On the former - we should hold people accountable but we should avoid blame. Currently I think we go too far down the blame game.
Putting aside the bullshit nature of many jobs, including fairly senior roles, someone who is competent enough to succeed at interview most likely remains reasonably competent even if they lead an organisation that performs poorly. I’m not saying that they have no responsibility when things go wrong, but they also don’t have all the responsibility.
Until recently I volunteered for a disaster relief organisation that, amongst other sensible policies, used the practice taken from aviation and elsewhere of having quarterly near-miss webinars, where we all fessed up to and discussed the times we’d nearly had a RTA, been kidnapped, had aid stolen, got sick etc. No blame, but accountability, helped to ensure that we genuinely ‘learned the lessons’.
To loop back to your header, someone who presided over a fuck-up but fesses up and reflects on it is probably more competent than they were before, not less. Experience brings wisdom (for most people).
On your second point - agreed, it was just short-hand for a system that prioritises short-term shareholder value over trust and long-term organisational health. Eg the post office incentivising profit over its public service role as it was privatised. I hope that’s a bit more specific and meaningful.
We await the results of the Letby and PO inquiries to see if the managers involved to face more severe sanctions
The problem HY is it will be the little people who are punished. That is why I think we were so excited that politicians of Davy and Starmer's stature may end up serving jail time.
My mother died as part of the Princess of Wales Hospital neglect saga. Two Filipino nurses were given custodial sentences. The Hospital managers received no sanction. Many remain in post a dozen years later.
Has anyone called for Davey or Starmer to serve jail time? Resignations, yes. But jail?
I'm sorry to hear about your mother. A family member got caught up in the Stafford Hospital mess; he survived, but the attitude of the staff was appalling at all levels.
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.
“Asda”
“Aldi”
Can’t we get some sort of tier system on PB where these people post “below stairs” as it were, and we don’t have to see their ludicrous proletarian comments? Some of us are sensitive
I’ll mention your suggestion to Robert as I too am triggered by proles and things from a lower tax bracket.
The nearest Waitrose to me is 20 miles away at a motorway services. I'd better return to lurking in the basement.
Has anyone made a 'poshness map' based on supermarkets? Might be quite amusing.
PS I reckon Aldi/Lidl are a bit more classes than ASDA, which is definitely Non-U.
I shop at Waitrose and Lidl, like many over-educated and under-earning middle class Britons.
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.
I agree, and citing "Common Cause" in the header has a whiff of conspiracy theory and populism to it.
What evidence does the writer have that any of his "NU10k" have had any training by Common Cause?
I agree that any conspiracy is far fetched and fanciful. It is more a case of people like us looking after people like us.
In principle, people should be able to make mistakes and start again. If that were not so we would end up with almost no decisions made at all. But the reluctance to accept that gross mismanagement requires gross consequences for the individual is very marked in much of our society and not just in the public sector either.
We've barely reached a point of agreeing people should not be rewarded for gross mismanagement, let alone face negative consequences. Rewarded in the sense of moving on and often upwards without pushback
So a bit of performative punishment of a few is probably necessary if we're even to get close to trying to fix the wider issues.
But let's be honest, we're not going to.
The mistake is viewing fthis as some sort of organised Freemasons-type of conspiracy, rather than as a rationally performing system.
The outcome that people who reach the top of business or politics are, nowadays, rarely if ever punished (in any meaningful way) for messing up on the job, is that those punishment decisions sit with other people who are at the top of politics and business, and know that they are just one mistake away from finding themselves in the same position.
The Post Office case is different, in that lawyers sit in judgement, with the one pitfall that a number of lawyers themselves might be in the firing line.
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.
“Asda”
“Aldi”
Can’t we get some sort of tier system on PB where these people post “below stairs” as it were, and we don’t have to see their ludicrous proletarian comments? Some of us are sensitive
I’ll mention your suggestion to Robert as I too am triggered by proles and things from a lower tax bracket.
The nearest Waitrose to me is 20 miles away at a motorway services. I'd better return to lurking in the basement.
Has anyone made a 'poshness map' based on supermarkets? Might be quite amusing.
PS I reckon Aldi/Lidl are a bit more classes than ASDA, which is definitely Non-U.
What three words. Spar. Lidl. Co-Op. (And it takes all day because of the quality of conversation).
@Carnyx when I was a child I lived with my parents, and we would visit my grandparents. My great-grandparents were dead before I can remember.
Now I'm in my forties, I live in a new build, I visit my parents and I still visit my grandparents who still live in the same houses they lived in 30 years ago.
So where in your vision of blocking construction should I live? Still with my parents as I did thirty years ago, with my own children, and my siblings (also adults) and my nieces and nephews until my grandparents die?
Unless we kill off old people, then young people need somewhere to live when they grow up. Our population has grown by ten million - that's not an externality, it is growth, and growth needs paying for sometimes. We need the houses, blocking them deals with no shit.
A shame this website isn't about political betting these days (and hasn't for a long time).
Couldn't be further from the truth. Its mainly that there isn't much worth betting on right now. This will change as we get closer to the election(s) and see some more volatility in the markets, but right now there is not a lot of movement.
I personally think Labour majority is a value bet. Labour majority 1.31 on Betfair. 100 quid now gets you 131 quid around 2 am on the night of the election. With the polls as they are I am amazed this is still as good as it is. Where else can you get 31% on your investment in under 12 months?
And yet.
People are clearly not buying that the huge labour lead is going to be reflected on polling day.
(Remember folks, only bet what you are prepared to lose/can afford to lose)
Meanwhile, as if PB hasn't spent enough time on the post office, arguably one of the most extraordinary and shocking elements of the whole thing is the "racist categorisation" of the SPOs.
I mean ffs we are in the 21st century and we are (they were) still using those terms. It's a real WTAF moment. Vennells or whoever is in charge should get a thrashing for that alone.
IK Brunel once wrote back to a contractor - “If you really were my obedient servant, I would begin with a little flogging.”
“Negroid” is bad enough (and it is genuinely shocking, from 2010???) even worse that’s another article using the phrase “1800s” to mean “the nineteenth century”. Not 1800-1810. But who knows. These fucking twats are so stupid they may actually mean the 18th century
Does anyone have any idea?
The eighteen hundreds does refer to the 19th century just as the nineteen hundreds does refer to the 20th century. Not just 1800-1809 and 1900-1909 respectively. I assume you meant until 1809 as 1810 would never be part of that decade anyway if you were going off decades.
Its a problem with the English language that there's no really nice way to refer to the decades of '00-'09 and '10-'19 respectively as can easily be done with eg the nineteen eighties.
The 1910s are the nineteen-tens. That just works. The decade before is the Edwardian era (despite him being only one of ten English king Edwards - potatoes excluded - and a fairly undistinguished one at that).
Even after decades of use I still find it hard to relate BCE centuries to the actual number involved, in two ways. I have to stop and think that the 4th century BCE is 400-300, and stop even longer to work out that a reference to 'the late 7th century BCE' means not the 690s but the 610s. Is this affliction common?
It's a bit wokey. Use BC instead.
In terms of the numbers, 'late' and 'early' are confusing but not so much the centuries, which mirror the AD ones: twentieth century BC is 2000-1901BC.
Thanks. I use AD/BC most of the time, but context is all. PB is a bit multicultural for systems reflecting but one religious tradition.
I treat the division a bit like Christmas. It might have Christian roots but it's sufficiently embedded in secular life that it's moved beyond that. And CE/BCE suffers from being both a bit meaningless and too similar.
A shame this website isn't about political betting these days (and hasn't for a long time).
If it's not about political betting and hasn't been for some time, and you don't like it, then why have you continued to visit it. Surely a long time ago minus a week or two you should have twigged and stopped coming here.
A shame this website isn't about political betting these days (and hasn't for a long time).
Where do you stand on BA pilots and the covid vaccination? Just asking.
And what about dendrochronology?
I'll bite on that one - dendrochronology is useful but flawed. Too prone to selection bias and data mining. Very useful for dating purposes, less so for telling me what the temperature was in Stockholm in 1648.
Who on God’s green earth writes “negroid” in a public-ish document in 2010???
Even yer average klansman wouid be baulking at that in 2010
I wonder if it is just some ancient text from the 1920s - or the 1300s - which never got amended
Well quite. People were balked at that in the 1990s.
Sign of an organisation that's lost its moral compass.
Anyone following the Inquiry live will have been struck, apart from anything else, by the low quality the staff employed by the PO, at all levels.
It was in a perverse way fortuitous that the first witness to appear after the TV series had been screened was Stephen Bradshaw. It was a relatively large audience therefore that was able to witness the kind of pond life the PO engaged as so-called investigators.
Regular viewers will be abe to confirm that the respondents higher up the food chain were not much of an improvement.
There's a problem here. A moment's thought would suggest this: Being a Post office investigator is not a job that anyone capable of doing it properly would want to do.
If you would be good at doing it it is obvious that you would look first to police work, criminal defence work, forensic accounting, and a number of other intrinsically interesting fields.
When in Nepal, I was told that
- you try to get in the U.K. Gurkhas - then you try to get in the Singapore Gurkhas - then you try and get in the Indian Army Gurkhas - then you try the Nepalese Army Gurkhas - then you try the Nepalese Army - as a last resort you join the Nepalese Police
The Nepalese seemed to look down on the police. Strangely.
Late to the party but interesting header @Malmesbury, thanks. I must admit I read the title, thought “why are pb.com branching out into conspiracy theories?” and scrolled down expecting to see @Leon or @Luckyguy1983 or one of our other pet conspirators authoring it.
I think it’s a compliment to say that, when I saw who wrote it, I scrolled back up and read the whole thing.
I am with @algarkirk that much data is needed before it can move beyond the realms of lizard-people.
All the same, assuming there is some truth to the lack of accountability, I do wonder whether this is just a very imperfect antidote to our current tendency to fetishise individual responsibility in our culture.
Sure, Paula Vennells is an inadequate human, but we should not have systems or cultures that allow individual inadequacies to have this big an impact. Ergo, individuals who are held responsible for systemic failures probably aren’t as responsible as we think they are.
This doesn’t mean the opposite is true I.e. that they have much talent. I’d argue few people stand out much either because of their talent or their mendacity. It’s the systems and culture (largely a product of late-stage capitalism) that are more at fault for eg the Horizon mess.
I've been out exercising and have missed lots of the conversation, so apols. if this has been covered.
But I think something like this nu10k might be best seen as not a universal truth, but as a nebulous category. There are certainly people it fits rather well (Private Eye would often mention them...), but the lower edges of the 10k will be very nebulous, with far more than 10k people who partly fit it, or even those who aspire to be one of the 10k.
Also, the nu10k might face more challenges if 'we' got better at training people up from the ranks. In ye olden days, a young lad might be picked out as having management potential on the railways (Gerard Fiennes being one example). They spent a few years at the bottom of the ladder, learning the basics of the business, and would then get promoted up. Many fell by the wayside or got diverted. But at the end of it, you had people at the top who knew the business inside out.
Nowadays, someone gets promoted to leadership who has zero idea about the industry they are in. That need not be a barrier to success, but it seems it all too often is.
We’re back to #NU10K being an ill-defined, nebulous thing. Some of the complaints have been against NHS managers. I train some NHS managers. NHS managers generally start at the bottom and work their way up. Cressida Dick, named in the article, joined the police as a Constable.
So, who and what are we talking about? Or is this just to be a catch-all slogan for anything people want to complain about?
FPTs - apologies if posted already, 2 polls out on NH, Trump at +14/+16 so Haley momentum (as such) may have stalled.
The fruity right do seem to like this Nu10k concept. Not to put Malmesbury off but it's food for thought.
The fruity right also like railways. Big ones. And animal rights.
Do we have to tear up the tracks and go fox hunting?
No, listen, good header and you make some interesting points on this topic, it's just the overall 'nu10k' framing I'm not keen on. It lends itself too readily to reactionary cynicism and antiwokery. But that's not your fault.
Dylan Difford @Dylan_Difford · 2h The estimates for where the 14m 2019 Conservatives are today: 6.4m (46%) Still Conservative 1.7m (12%) Don't Know 1.7m (12%) Labour 1.7m (12%) Reform 1.2m (8%) Deceased 0.5m (4%) Lib Dem 0.5m (4%) Would Not Vote 0.2m (1%) Green 0.1m (1%) Other
Vote Tory and be 11/1 to die before you get another vote. Vote safe, pick another party.
Vote Green, and live for ever!
Or, just possibly, approaching death the voter thinks, “stuff the environment!”, and switches parties.
Far more people die in bed than in the pub. Heed the warning.
A shame this website isn't about political betting these days (and hasn't for a long time).
Couldn't be further from the truth. Its mainly that there isn't much worth betting on right now. This will change as we get closer to the election(s) and see some more volatility in the markets, but right now there is not a lot of movement.
I personally think Labour majority is a value bet. Labour majority 1.31 on Betfair. 100 quid now gets you 131 quid around 2 am on the night of the election. With the polls as they are I am amazed this is still as good as it is. Where else can you get 31% on your investment in under 12 months?
And yet.
People are clearly not buying that the huge labour lead is going to be reflected on polling day.
(Remember folks, only bet what you are prepared to lose/can afford to lose)
Yes. They are not buying it because we live in times of strange volatility. It's the longer prices that are attractive therefore. I still think NOM is where the value lies. Agree with the advice about afford to lose from long experience!
FPTs - apologies if posted already, 2 polls out on NH, Trump at +14/+16 so Haley momentum (as such) may have stalled.
The fruity right do seem to like this Nu10k concept. Not to put Malmesbury off but it's food for thought.
The fruity right also like railways. Big ones. And animal rights.
Do we have to tear up the tracks and go fox hunting?
No, listen, good header and you make some interesting points on this topic, it's just the overall 'nu10k' framing I'm not keen on. It lends itself too readily to reactionary cynicism and antiwokery. But that's not your fault.
Nearly anything can be miss used. A chap, back in the day, said some stuff about people being nice to each other. Got nailed to a tree for his trouble. The number of people killed in his name over the following 20 centuries...
Pointing out the problem isn't... a problem. It's what you do next. I want to democratise society by restoring accountability and ethics in the permeant administrative structure (private and public). Fuck up, and sorry, you don't get an OBE. Or a pay rise.
Maybe, if we are Neon Fascist extremists - commit perjury (for example), then you should get 10 minutes probation.
I know, the last is probably over the top, but hey. I'm like that.
A shame this website isn't about political betting these days (and hasn't for a long time).
Couldn't be further from the truth. Its mainly that there isn't much worth betting on right now. This will change as we get closer to the election(s) and see some more volatility in the markets, but right now there is not a lot of movement.
I personally think Labour majority is a value bet. Labour majority 1.31 on Betfair. 100 quid now gets you 131 quid around 2 am on the night of the election. With the polls as they are I am amazed this is still as good as it is. Where else can you get 31% on your investment in under 12 months?
And yet.
People are clearly not buying that the huge labour lead is going to be reflected on polling day.
(Remember folks, only bet what you are prepared to lose/can afford to lose)
Jeremy isn't using capital letters. Colour me skeptical but is it Saturday morning already.
A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.
Thanks Ben
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
The Biden/Trump choice is fine as long as they choose Biden.
Was in Aberdeen this morning. A city centre almost completely dead. I know that the November figures were good because of Black Friday, but I expect December to be bad and January - which is traditionally bad - to be a disaster.
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
You are aware the "Zelensky has a big house from stolen aid" thing is straight off the stupider part of Russian Telegram? Usually using a picture scrapped from a real estate agents website.
@Carnyx when I was a child I lived with my parents, and we would visit my grandparents. My great-grandparents were dead before I can remember.
Now I'm in my forties, I live in a new build, I visit my parents and I still visit my grandparents who still live in the same houses they lived in 30 years ago.
So where in your vision of blocking construction should I live? Still with my parents as I did thirty years ago, with my own children, and my siblings (also adults) and my nieces and nephews until my grandparents die?
Unless we kill off old people, then young people need somewhere to live when they grow up. Our population has grown by ten million - that's not an externality, it is growth, and growth needs paying for sometimes. We need the houses, blocking them deals with no shit.
Where I live, houses had to be stopped from being built because of the sewerage issues.
A new plant was paid for from public money to give lots of excess capacity. (Not something one can do now, as there isn't the money, unless the developers cough up.)
This was part of a massive enlargement of the town. By a factor of 5, by now, I should think.
And I've never complained about house building - except once, when they tried to build on a school's playing fields.
Go and shove your sanctimony into the earth closet you obviously need to dig in your garden - or expect other people to get, because that's all they'll get from you.
Who on God’s green earth writes “negroid” in a public-ish document in 2010???
Even yer average klansman wouid be baulking at that in 2010
I wonder if it is just some ancient text from the 1920s - or the 1300s - which never got amended
Well quite. People were balked at that in the 1990s.
Sign of an organisation that's lost its moral compass.
Anyone following the Inquiry live will have been struck, apart from anything else, by the low quality the staff employed by the PO, at all levels.
It was in a perverse way fortuitous that the first witness to appear after the TV series had been screened was Stephen Bradshaw. It was a relatively large audience therefore that was able to witness the kind of pond life the PO engaged as so-called investigators.
Regular viewers will be abe to confirm that the respondents higher up the food chain were not much of an improvement.
There's a problem here. A moment's thought would suggest this: Being a Post office investigator is not a job that anyone capable of doing it properly would want to do.
If you would be good at doing it it is obvious that you would look first to police work, criminal defence work, forensic accounting, and a number of other intrinsically interesting fields.
Taking Peter’s point seriously, the issue is that the GPO (as was) generally promoted internally, such that today’s senior managers were people who had left school early and worked their way up from postman (or woman, rare in those days) or from counter clerk.
Provided that internal selection processes worked effectively, the task was to identify those talented people who had, for whatever reason (usually family or financial, sometimes behavioural), avoided A-level and university education and gone into full-time work at sixteen. In the post-war years this worked reasonably well, and some genuinely able people worked their way up from the ranks (Alan Johnson is a later exemplar, although of course he went up through the Union).
As the tendency for people with ability to stay on at school, and go to university, increased through the 1970s and 80s, so the pool of potential senior talent amongst those joining work at sixteen reduced. So the business tried, against considerable union opposition, to bring in able people half way up the management structure, direct from university. Which was how I joined, in the first cohort after the union lifted its embargo on graduate entrants, after a small cohort got in during the late 70s.
What we found were offices staffed by middle managers who, whilst having a tad more insight than those they managed, were expert in rising slowly through the ranks as - in the exact words I was given as advice by one of them in my first few months - “always keeping your head down and your umbrella up”. The ‘don’t volunteer for anything’ culture had imported itself directly from the army and military service into the GPO.
The upshot was that all of these managers did their jobs in the way that they had been told, copying what the previous job holder had done, and were remarkably incurious (or, more accurately, tremendously risk averse) at any different way of doing things.
Hearing Bradshaw’s evidence took me right back; these were exactly the people I was surrounded by in 1984. And I loved it, as resolving problems and identifying improvements was so easy, as absolutely no-one else was doing it. The mystery, in Bradshaw’s case, is how he’s managed to survive still employed through to the current day.
A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.
Thanks Ben
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
The Biden/Trump choice is fine as long as they choose Biden.
But at this stage I think I’d take a Haley presidency over the Biden/Trump choice. Too much downside risk with that one.
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Well, you're advocating a new country for Putin.
(Several probably.)
Ukraine is a lost cause IMO
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
You're a lost cause as far as I'm concerned.
More dead Russians in this conflict, the better. They're the invaders and if they get Ukraine cheaply then where's next?
The more military kit we give to Ukraine, the more chance that can help keep Ukrainians alive to defeat the orcs attacking them.
Tankies are going to tankie. Russia is going to lose in Ukraine. The question is whether they are militarily defeated in conventional warfare or via a long drawn out Afghanistan style defeat. Left wingers that have been desperate to appease Putin from the get go really don't care about freedom or democracy. They just hate the West.
@Carnyx when I was a child I lived with my parents, and we would visit my grandparents. My great-grandparents were dead before I can remember.
Now I'm in my forties, I live in a new build, I visit my parents and I still visit my grandparents who still live in the same houses they lived in 30 years ago.
So where in your vision of blocking construction should I live? Still with my parents as I did thirty years ago, with my own children, and my siblings (also adults) and my nieces and nephews until my grandparents die?
Unless we kill off old people, then young people need somewhere to live when they grow up. Our population has grown by ten million - that's not an externality, it is growth, and growth needs paying for sometimes. We need the houses, blocking them deals with no shit.
Where I live, houses had to be stopped from being built because of the sewerage issues.
A new plant was paid for from public money to give lots of excess capacity. (Not something one can do now, as there isn't the money, unless the developers cough up.)
This was part of a massive enlargement of the town. By a factor of 5, by now, I should think.
And I've never complained about house building - except once, when they tried to build on a school's playing fields.
Go and shove your sanctimony into the earth closet you obviously need to dig in your garden - or expect other people to get, because that's all they'll get from you.
Oh piss off, when was the last time you were dumping your shit in someone else's home as you didn't have and couldn't get your own?
If more plants are needed, then yes they need to be paid for, and yes they should be paid for by whoever owns and runs the plants - which in your case is the taxpayer because the utilities there are taxpayer owned. In England it means the private firms have that obligation and they need to cough up or go bankrupt and have the taxpayer take their assets from them for nothing if they're bankrupt and then deal with it.
It is not an externality though. My children need to shit, whether they have their own bedroom, or they live in a room with me in somebody else's house.
We await the results of the Letby and PO inquiries to see if the managers involved to face more severe sanctions
The problem HY is it will be the little people who are punished. That is why I think we were so excited that politicians of Davy and Starmer's stature may end up serving jail time.
My mother died as part of the Princess of Wales Hospital neglect saga. Two Filipino nurses were given custodial sentences. The Hospital managers received no sanction. Many remain in post a dozen years later.
Has anyone called for Davey or Starmer to serve jail time? Resignations, yes. But jail?
I'm sorry to hear about your mother. A family member got caught up in the Stafford Hospital mess; he survived, but the attitude of the staff was appalling at all levels.
Resignations would be a good start.But are they too important?
Bradshaw who's smugness yesterday was vomit inducing. I wonder if he has twigged he is small enough and the perfect candidate to carry the can for senior managers and politicians.
SKS fails to say whether the lowest paid people would pay less tax under a Labour government, using the excuse of the 'state of the public finances' but signs blank cheque to Ukraine and a war on Yemen within 60 Seconds
SKS fails to say whether the lowest paid people would pay less tax under a Labour government, using the excuse of the 'state of the public finances' but signs blank cheque to Ukraine and a war on Yemen within 60 Seconds
This is the sort of stupid comment from people that are unable to do basic maths in their head to be able to compare large numbers.
For all PB Non League fans in the Bedfordshire area the most local of local Derbies and a potential chance to meet BJO!! Might go to Prescott Cables vs Vauxhall Motors though if that would improve PB attendance at Wootton
Wootton Blue Cross FC @BlueWoottonMens · 46m 😍 | TONIGHT! Game On! ⚽️
Only a few hours away from Wootton Vs Wootton… 1st Vs Reserves! 😉
🏆 | County Cup 🍻 | Open 4pm | KO 7:45pm 🏟️ | MK43 9JT | FREE Entry! 🥪 | Hot Food Available
Meanwhile, as if PB hasn't spent enough time on the post office, arguably one of the most extraordinary and shocking elements of the whole thing is the "racist categorisation" of the SPOs.
I mean ffs we are in the 21st century and we are (they were) still using those terms. It's a real WTAF moment. Vennells or whoever is in charge should get a thrashing for that alone.
IK Brunel once wrote back to a contractor - “If you really were my obedient servant, I would begin with a little flogging.”
“Negroid” is bad enough (and it is genuinely shocking, from 2010???) even worse that’s another article using the phrase “1800s” to mean “the nineteenth century”. Not 1800-1810. But who knows. These fucking twats are so stupid they may actually mean the 18th century
Does anyone have any idea?
The eighteen hundreds does refer to the 19th century just as the nineteen hundreds does refer to the 20th century. Not just 1800-1809 and 1900-1909 respectively. I assume you meant until 1809 as 1810 would never be part of that decade anyway if you were going off decades.
Its a problem with the English language that there's no really nice way to refer to the decades of '00-'09 and '10-'19 respectively as can easily be done with eg the nineteen eighties.
The 1910s are the nineteen-tens. That just works. The decade before is the Edwardian era (despite him being only one of ten English king Edwards - potatoes excluded - and a fairly undistinguished one at that).
Even after decades of use I still find it hard to relate BCE centuries to the actual number involved, in two ways. I have to stop and think that the 4th century BCE is 400-300, and stop even longer to work out that a reference to 'the late 7th century BCE' means not the 690s but the 610s. Is this affliction common?
It's a bit wokey. Use BC instead.
In terms of the numbers, 'late' and 'early' are confusing but not so much the centuries, which mirror the AD ones: twentieth century BC is 2000-1901BC.
Thanks. I use AD/BC most of the time, but context is all. PB is a bit multicultural for systems reflecting but one religious tradition.
HE is a far better system for understanding history.
SKS fails to say whether the lowest paid people would pay less tax under a Labour government, using the excuse of the 'state of the public finances' but signs blank cheque to Ukraine and a war on Yemen within 60 Seconds
Can't we wait for there to be a PM Starmer before judging how he gets on?
A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.
Thanks Ben
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
The Biden/Trump choice is fine as long as they choose Biden.
But at this stage I think I’d take a Haley presidency over the Biden/Trump choice. Too much downside risk with that one.
Yes I'd rather Trump not be on the ballot. I remain hopeful of that.
For all those of you who have looked thru medieval acts of Parliaments (including the Scottish and Irish Parliaments) - buffs nails - you may be familiar with the "Xth year in the reign of Y" convention. This got really funny with Charles II, whose reign was backdated to his father's death hence memoryholing the Interregnum.
A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.
Thanks Ben
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
The Biden/Trump choice is fine as long as they choose Biden.
But at this stage I think I’d take a Haley presidency over the Biden/Trump choice. Too much downside risk with that one.
Yes I'd rather Trump not be on the ballot. I remain hopeful of that.
Agreed but there are different ways to achieve that. Much as I think the court cases against Trump are legitimate, I don't think they will be seen as such by those Americans that would consider voting for Trump this time around.
So if he is off the ballot by non-democratic means I suspect that weakens, rather than strengthens, American democracy.
Whereas if he is off the ballot because Haley beats him in the primaries (slim chance though that is) I suspect this strengthens American democracy. And much as I vehemently disagree with the tenets of the US Republican party, I'd prefer to see them back in power for a generation than see the collapse of US democracy.
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Well, you're advocating a new country for Putin.
(Several probably.)
Ukraine is a lost cause IMO
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
And how far are you willing to let Russia come westwards before you think "Hmmm, perhaps we should have stopped him before Ukraine?"
The Baltics? Romania? Eastern Germany?
Because Putin's made it quite clear: he sees his empire as stretching as far west as he can take it. So what's your limit?
Ukraine and not all of Ukraine.
The sooner we negotiate a settlement the less they get.
As the ROTW catch up with me eventually the price literally financially and in death of Ukranians will grow exponentially and the outcome is going to be worse.
Ukraine cant win wont win and eventually the West will move on.
Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll of his countrymen though so thats the main thing
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Well, you're advocating a new country for Putin.
(Several probably.)
Ukraine is a lost cause IMO
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
And how far are you willing to let Russia come westwards before you think "Hmmm, perhaps we should have stopped him before Ukraine?"
The Baltics? Romania? Eastern Germany?
Because Putin's made it quite clear: he sees his empire as stretching as far west as he can take it. So what's your limit?
Ukraine and not all of Ukraine.
The sooner we negotiate a settlement the less they get.
As the ROTW catch up with me eventually the price literally financially and in death of Ukranians will grow exponentially and the outcome is going to be worse.
Ukraine cant win wont win and eventually the West will move on.
Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll of his countrymen
What evidence do you have of Zelensky's corrupt wealth gains? Genuine question, not loaded.
Makes me proud of Britain to be there while the US is fucking about. We will always stand up to fascism.
Let's hope it's an example to the Americans and (non-Baltic and non-Polish) Europeans.
And that he gets similarly serious about the dire state our own armed forces are in.
But yes, briefly, one can be proud to be British today.
Glory to Ukraine. Their heroic resistance has shown that no one can deter, and no power can overcome, free people who want to stay free.
Ukraine has really shown a 1940 mentality in terms of resisting evil. They will be an asset to NATO.
I take it you mean a Britain-in-1940 attitude, not a Belgium-in-1940, Netherlands-in-1940, Denmark-in-1940, USA-in-1940, USSR-in-1940, Ireland-in-1940 or France-in-1940 attitude.
He missed out a fucking big television, washing machines, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers from his list of working class aspirations. Got the cars in though, so safe for your vote, Bart? Maybe needs to re-watch trainspotting.
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Well, you're advocating a new country for Putin.
(Several probably.)
Ukraine is a lost cause IMO
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
And how far are you willing to let Russia come westwards before you think "Hmmm, perhaps we should have stopped him before Ukraine?"
The Baltics? Romania? Eastern Germany?
Because Putin's made it quite clear: he sees his empire as stretching as far west as he can take it. So what's your limit?
Ukraine and not all of Ukraine.
The sooner we negotiate a settlement the less they get.
As the ROTW catch up with me eventually the price literally financially and in death of Ukranians will grow exponentially and the outcome is going to be worse.
Ukraine cant win wont win and eventually the West will move on.
Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll of his countrymen though so thats the main thing
So what will you do when a Russia - strengthened by its victory - goes for the rest of Ukraine, or other countries?
I don't believe thar Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll; in fact, he was quite rich before he stood for president (he founded and ran a TV company, as well as being an actor). What's your evidence for that?
The most interesting NATO related story today was Turkey’s response to the Coalition air strikes.
Add in the Turkish foot dragging over the Scandawegian accession countries, and elements of support to Russia, and you start to have to wonder whether NATO needs to expel Turkey.
Meanwhile, as if PB hasn't spent enough time on the post office, arguably one of the most extraordinary and shocking elements of the whole thing is the "racist categorisation" of the SPOs.
I mean ffs we are in the 21st century and we are (they were) still using those terms. It's a real WTAF moment. Vennells or whoever is in charge should get a thrashing for that alone.
IK Brunel once wrote back to a contractor - “If you really were my obedient servant, I would begin with a little flogging.”
“Negroid” is bad enough (and it is genuinely shocking, from 2010???) even worse that’s another article using the phrase “1800s” to mean “the nineteenth century”. Not 1800-1810. But who knows. These fucking twats are so stupid they may actually mean the 18th century
Does anyone have any idea?
The eighteen hundreds does refer to the 19th century just as the nineteen hundreds does refer to the 20th century. Not just 1800-1809 and 1900-1909 respectively. I assume you meant until 1809 as 1810 would never be part of that decade anyway if you were going off decades.
Its a problem with the English language that there's no really nice way to refer to the decades of '00-'09 and '10-'19 respectively as can easily be done with eg the nineteen eighties.
The 1910s are the nineteen-tens. That just works. The decade before is the Edwardian era (despite him being only one of ten English king Edwards - potatoes excluded - and a fairly undistinguished one at that).
Even after decades of use I still find it hard to relate BCE centuries to the actual number involved, in two ways. I have to stop and think that the 4th century BCE is 400-300, and stop even longer to work out that a reference to 'the late 7th century BCE' means not the 690s but the 610s. Is this affliction common?
It's a bit wokey. Use BC instead.
In terms of the numbers, 'late' and 'early' are confusing but not so much the centuries, which mirror the AD ones: twentieth century BC is 2000-1901BC.
Thanks. I use AD/BC most of the time, but context is all. PB is a bit multicultural for systems reflecting but one religious tradition.
I treat the division a bit like Christmas. It might have Christian roots but it's sufficiently embedded in secular life that it's moved beyond that. And CE/BCE suffers from being both a bit meaningless and too similar.
CE/BCE is worse. It's the same dates, but aspiring to some sort of universality it doesn't deserve, given the Chinese, Persian, Jewish, etc calendars.
If I was devising a calender that aspired to cultural universality I'd be looking for the earliest well-dated event that wasn't unique to a single culture. Something like the Crab Nebula supernova (1054 AD), but ideally a lot older, so that as many dates as possible would have a positive year.
The oldest such event seems to be the 185 AD supernova in Centaurus, which unfortunately would lead to more negative dates than the Christian calendar.
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Well, you're advocating a new country for Putin.
(Several probably.)
Ukraine is a lost cause IMO
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
And how far are you willing to let Russia come westwards before you think "Hmmm, perhaps we should have stopped him before Ukraine?"
The Baltics? Romania? Eastern Germany?
Because Putin's made it quite clear: he sees his empire as stretching as far west as he can take it. So what's your limit?
Ukraine and not all of Ukraine.
The sooner we negotiate a settlement the less they get.
As the ROTW catch up with me eventually the price literally financially and in death of Ukranians will grow exponentially and the outcome is going to be worse.
Ukraine cant win wont win and eventually the West will move on.
Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll of his countrymen though so thats the main thing
The most interesting NATO related story today was Turkey’s response to the Coalition air strikes.
Add in the Turkish foot dragging over the Scandawegian accession countries, and elements of support to Russia, and you start to have to wonder whether NATO needs to expel Turkey.
It needs to be put on the table. Same with Hungary. At the moment, both are benefiting from a correct assumption that they can play silly, deal with the enemy and be appeased with concessions. Hungary in particular needs to go. Turkey is harder due to it being so strategically important but Erdogan needs to understand that there are limits.
Meanwhile, as if PB hasn't spent enough time on the post office, arguably one of the most extraordinary and shocking elements of the whole thing is the "racist categorisation" of the SPOs.
I mean ffs we are in the 21st century and we are (they were) still using those terms. It's a real WTAF moment. Vennells or whoever is in charge should get a thrashing for that alone.
IK Brunel once wrote back to a contractor - “If you really were my obedient servant, I would begin with a little flogging.”
“Negroid” is bad enough (and it is genuinely shocking, from 2010???) even worse that’s another article using the phrase “1800s” to mean “the nineteenth century”. Not 1800-1810. But who knows. These fucking twats are so stupid they may actually mean the 18th century
Does anyone have any idea?
The eighteen hundreds does refer to the 19th century just as the nineteen hundreds does refer to the 20th century. Not just 1800-1809 and 1900-1909 respectively. I assume you meant until 1809 as 1810 would never be part of that decade anyway if you were going off decades.
Its a problem with the English language that there's no really nice way to refer to the decades of '00-'09 and '10-'19 respectively as can easily be done with eg the nineteen eighties.
The 1910s are the nineteen-tens. That just works. The decade before is the Edwardian era (despite him being only one of ten English king Edwards - potatoes excluded - and a fairly undistinguished one at that).
Even after decades of use I still find it hard to relate BCE centuries to the actual number involved, in two ways. I have to stop and think that the 4th century BCE is 400-300, and stop even longer to work out that a reference to 'the late 7th century BCE' means not the 690s but the 610s. Is this affliction common?
It's a bit wokey. Use BC instead.
In terms of the numbers, 'late' and 'early' are confusing but not so much the centuries, which mirror the AD ones: twentieth century BC is 2000-1901BC.
Thanks. I use AD/BC most of the time, but context is all. PB is a bit multicultural for systems reflecting but one religious tradition.
I treat the division a bit like Christmas. It might have Christian roots but it's sufficiently embedded in secular life that it's moved beyond that. And CE/BCE suffers from being both a bit meaningless and too similar.
CE/BCE is worse. It's the same dates, but aspiring to some sort of universality it doesn't deserve, given the Chinese, Persian, Jewish, etc calendars.
If I was devising a calender that aspired to cultural universality I'd be looking for the earliest well-dated event that wasn't unique to a single culture. Something like the Crab Nebula supernova (1054 AD), but ideally a lot older, so that as many dates as possible would have a positive year.
The oldest such event seems to be the 185 AD supernova in Centaurus, which unfortunately would lead to more negative dates than the Christian calendar.
Here's hoping 1840 will be a great year!
Let’s all start again at year one, cultural revolution style.
A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.
Thanks Ben
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
The Biden/Trump choice is fine as long as they choose Biden.
But at this stage I think I’d take a Haley presidency over the Biden/Trump choice. Too much downside risk with that one.
Yes I'd rather Trump not be on the ballot. I remain hopeful of that.
Agreed but there are different ways to achieve that. Much as I think the court cases against Trump are legitimate, I don't think they will be seen as such by those Americans that would consider voting for Trump this time around.
So if he is off the ballot by non-democratic means I suspect that weakens, rather than strengthens, American democracy.
Whereas if he is off the ballot because Haley beats him in the primaries (slim chance though that is) I suspect this strengthens American democracy. And much as I vehemently disagree with the tenets of the US Republican party, I'd prefer to see them back in power for a generation than see the collapse of US democracy.
Agree 100% on Haley getting the GOP nomination being the best outcome.
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Well, you're advocating a new country for Putin.
(Several probably.)
Ukraine is a lost cause IMO
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
And how far are you willing to let Russia come westwards before you think "Hmmm, perhaps we should have stopped him before Ukraine?"
The Baltics? Romania? Eastern Germany?
Because Putin's made it quite clear: he sees his empire as stretching as far west as he can take it. So what's your limit?
Ukraine and not all of Ukraine.
The sooner we negotiate a settlement the less they get.
As the ROTW catch up with me eventually the price literally financially and in death of Ukranians will grow exponentially and the outcome is going to be worse.
Ukraine cant win wont win and eventually the West will move on.
Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll of his countrymen though so thats the main thing
So what will you do when a Russia - strengthened by its victory - goes for the rest of Ukraine, or other countries?
I don't believe thar Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll; in fact, he was quite rich before he stood for president (he founded and ran a TV company, as well as being an actor). What's your evidence for that?
I am like Israel dont bother with evidence and as i have already posted my whereabouts this evening I best be careful
We await the results of the Letby and PO inquiries to see if the managers involved to face more severe sanctions
The problem HY is it will be the little people who are punished. That is why I think we were so excited that politicians of Davy and Starmer's stature may end up serving jail time.
My mother died as part of the Princess of Wales Hospital neglect saga. Two Filipino nurses were given custodial sentences. The Hospital managers received no sanction. Many remain in post a dozen years later.
This sort of thing is what’s behind @Malmesbury’s thinking, that those taking the large pay cheques appear to be unable to be held to account for their failures; and on the rare occasions when they do resign, they usually take a large payout and pop up in a similar (or better!) high-paid job a few months later. None of them ever get ‘struck off’ the management grades, in the same way as often happens to those on the front line.
SKS fails to say whether the lowest paid people would pay less tax under a Labour government, using the excuse of the 'state of the public finances' but signs blank cheque to Ukraine and a war on Yemen within 60 Seconds
Can't we wait for there to be a PM Starmer before judging how he gets on?
We await the results of the Letby and PO inquiries to see if the managers involved to face more severe sanctions
The problem HY is it will be the little people who are punished. That is why I think we were so excited that politicians of Davy and Starmer's stature may end up serving jail time.
My mother died as part of the Princess of Wales Hospital neglect saga. Two Filipino nurses were given custodial sentences. The Hospital managers received no sanction. Many remain in post a dozen years later.
This sort of thing is what’s behind @Malmesbury’s thinking, that those taking the large pay cheques appear to be unable to be held to account for their failures; and on the rare occasions when they do resign, they usually take a large payout and pop up in a similar (or better!) high-paid job a few months later. None of them ever get ‘struck off’ the management grades, in the same way as often happens to those on the front line.
Peter Bone using his GF as a proxy MP also highlights this. He was out canvassing yesterday.
The most interesting NATO related story today was Turkey’s response to the Coalition air strikes.
Add in the Turkish foot dragging over the Scandawegian accession countries, and elements of support to Russia, and you start to have to wonder whether NATO needs to expel Turkey.
It needs to be put on the table. Same with Hungary. At the moment, both are benefiting from a correct assumption that they can play silly, deal with the enemy and be appeased with concessions. Hungary in particular needs to go. Turkey is harder due to it being so strategically important but Erdogan needs to understand that there are limits.
Yes, Hungary is a good point too. They need to be told that they need to choose. With us or against us.
Dylan Difford @Dylan_Difford · 2h The estimates for where the 14m 2019 Conservatives are today: 6.4m (46%) Still Conservative 1.7m (12%) Don't Know 1.7m (12%) Labour 1.7m (12%) Reform 1.2m (8%) Deceased 0.5m (4%) Lib Dem 0.5m (4%) Would Not Vote 0.2m (1%) Green 0.1m (1%) Other
Vote Tory and be 11/1 to die before you get another vote. Vote safe, pick another party.
Vote Green, and live for ever!
Or, just possibly, approaching death the voter thinks, “stuff the environment!”, and switches parties.
Far more people die in bed than in the pub. Heed the warning.
Thanks for the reminder. It’s beer o’clock, cheers PB! 🍻
UK is set to give Ukraine £2.5 billion in military support
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Well, you're advocating a new country for Putin.
(Several probably.)
Ukraine is a lost cause IMO
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
And how far are you willing to let Russia come westwards before you think "Hmmm, perhaps we should have stopped him before Ukraine?"
The Baltics? Romania? Eastern Germany?
Because Putin's made it quite clear: he sees his empire as stretching as far west as he can take it. So what's your limit?
Ukraine and not all of Ukraine.
The sooner we negotiate a settlement the less they get.
As the ROTW catch up with me eventually the price literally financially and in death of Ukranians will grow exponentially and the outcome is going to be worse.
Ukraine cant win wont win and eventually the West will move on.
Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll of his countrymen though so thats the main thing
So what will you do when a Russia - strengthened by its victory - goes for the rest of Ukraine, or other countries?
I don't believe thar Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll; in fact, he was quite rich before he stood for president (he founded and ran a TV company, as well as being an actor). What's your evidence for that?
I am like Israel dont bother with evidence and as i have already posted my whereabouts this evening I best be careful
A new Emerson College Polling/WHDH New Hampshire survey finds former President Donald Trump leading the Republican Primary with 44% support, followed by Nikki Haley with 28%. Haley has gained ten points since November, while Trump has lost five. Chris Christie, who suspended his campaign on Wednesday evening, received 12% of voter support. Ron DeSantis holds 7%, and Vivek Ramaswamy holds 4%, while five percent remain undecided.
Thanks Ben
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
The Biden/Trump choice is fine as long as they choose Biden.
But at this stage I think I’d take a Haley presidency over the Biden/Trump choice. Too much downside risk with that one.
Yes I'd rather Trump not be on the ballot. I remain hopeful of that.
Agreed but there are different ways to achieve that. Much as I think the court cases against Trump are legitimate, I don't think they will be seen as such by those Americans that would consider voting for Trump this time around.
So if he is off the ballot by non-democratic means I suspect that weakens, rather than strengthens, American democracy.
Whereas if he is off the ballot because Haley beats him in the primaries (slim chance though that is) I suspect this strengthens American democracy. And much as I vehemently disagree with the tenets of the US Republican party, I'd prefer to see them back in power for a generation than see the collapse of US democracy.
Agree 100% on Haley getting the GOP nomination being the best outcome.
Can I make a bid for “least bad” in place of “best”?
We await the results of the Letby and PO inquiries to see if the managers involved to face more severe sanctions
The problem HY is it will be the little people who are punished. That is why I think we were so excited that politicians of Davy and Starmer's stature may end up serving jail time.
It's always the little people who are punished. It was something I and my colleagues observed 25 years ago that the punishment for misdemeanours in our organisation was inversely proportional to their position in the organisation, ie those at the bottom got sacked, those in the middle got a final written warning, and those at the top got a hand slap, if anything. It doesn't seem right that a senior manager who loses millions through mismanagement gets off with no major penalty, when someone who makes a mistake further down the tree that costs the organisation a lot less gets a final written warning or sacked.
He missed out a fucking big television, washing machines, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers from his list of working class aspirations. Got the cars in though, so safe for your vote, Bart? Maybe needs to re-watch trainspotting.
We await the results of the Letby and PO inquiries to see if the managers involved to face more severe sanctions
The problem HY is it will be the little people who are punished. That is why I think we were so excited that politicians of Davy and Starmer's stature may end up serving jail time.
My mother died as part of the Princess of Wales Hospital neglect saga. Two Filipino nurses were given custodial sentences. The Hospital managers received no sanction. Many remain in post a dozen years later.
This sort of thing is what’s behind @Malmesbury’s thinking, that those taking the large pay cheques appear to be unable to be held to account for their failures; and on the rare occasions when they do resign, they usually take a large payout and pop up in a similar (or better!) high-paid job a few months later. None of them ever get ‘struck off’ the management grades, in the same way as often happens to those on the front line.
Being in charge of such things often is career ending, but while those directly involved can be sentenced for manslaughter, higher up it is often a corporate responsibility rather than any individual, so corporate manslaughter is the correct sanction.
There are plans to have a register for health service managers that people can be struck off if sanction is needed, and any managers with nursing, medical or similar registration already can be.
As do I. As does almost everyone. Shame it’s impossible because Hamas doesn’t want it, and that our view is utterly irrelevant anyway seeing as we’re not a party to the conflict…
Comments
But I think something like this nu10k might be best seen as not a universal truth, but as a nebulous category. There are certainly people it fits rather well (Private Eye would often mention them...), but the lower edges of the 10k will be very nebulous, with far more than 10k people who partly fit it, or even those who aspire to be one of the 10k.
Also, the nu10k might face more challenges if 'we' got better at training people up from the ranks. In ye olden days, a young lad might be picked out as having management potential on the railways (Gerard Fiennes being one example). They spent a few years at the bottom of the ladder, learning the basics of the business, and would then get promoted up. Many fell by the wayside or got diverted. But at the end of it, you had people at the top who knew the business inside out.
Nowadays, someone gets promoted to leadership who has zero idea about the industry they are in. That need not be a barrier to success, but it seems it all too often is.
I guess I was hoping they were both outdated and Hayley would close the gap more in the next set of Polls.
Fingers crossed
US with a Biden / Trump choice is even worse than our Sunak/SKS one
Putting aside the bullshit nature of many jobs, including fairly senior roles, someone who is competent enough to succeed at interview most likely remains reasonably competent even if they lead an organisation that performs poorly. I’m not saying that they have no responsibility when things go wrong, but they also don’t have all the responsibility.
Until recently I volunteered for a disaster relief organisation that, amongst other sensible policies, used the practice taken from aviation and elsewhere of having quarterly near-miss webinars, where we all fessed up to and discussed the times we’d nearly had a RTA, been kidnapped, had aid stolen, got sick etc. No blame, but accountability, helped to ensure that we genuinely ‘learned the lessons’.
To loop back to your header, someone who presided over a fuck-up but fesses up and reflects on it is probably more competent than they were before, not less. Experience brings wisdom (for most people).
On your second point - agreed, it was just short-hand for a system that prioritises short-term shareholder value over trust and long-term organisational health. Eg the post office incentivising profit over its public service role as it was privatised. I hope that’s a bit more specific and meaningful.
I'm sorry to hear about your mother. A family member got caught up in the Stafford Hospital mess; he survived, but the attitude of the staff was appalling at all levels.
Now I'm in my forties, I live in a new build, I visit my parents and I still visit my grandparents who still live in the same houses they lived in 30 years ago.
So where in your vision of blocking construction should I live? Still with my parents as I did thirty years ago, with my own children, and my siblings (also adults) and my nieces and nephews until my grandparents die?
Unless we kill off old people, then young people need somewhere to live when they grow up. Our population has grown by ten million - that's not an externality, it is growth, and growth needs paying for sometimes. We need the houses, blocking them deals with no shit.
I personally think Labour majority is a value bet. Labour majority 1.31 on Betfair. 100 quid now gets you 131 quid around 2 am on the night of the election. With the polls as they are I am amazed this is still as good as it is. Where else can you get 31% on your investment in under 12 months?
And yet.
People are clearly not buying that the huge labour lead is going to be reflected on polling day.
(Remember folks, only bet what you are prepared to lose/can afford to lose)
- you try to get in the U.K. Gurkhas
- then you try to get in the Singapore Gurkhas
- then you try and get in the Indian Army Gurkhas
- then you try the Nepalese Army Gurkhas
- then you try the Nepalese Army
- as a last resort you join the Nepalese Police
The Nepalese seemed to look down on the police. Strangely.
So, who and what are we talking about? Or is this just to be a catch-all slogan for anything people want to complain about?
I thought we were out of money to feed kids and keep the NHS functional
New house for Zelensky!!
Or is it just you?
I expect the mob will get to him when it has finished with Davy and Starmer.
(Several probably.)
Pointing out the problem isn't... a problem. It's what you do next. I want to democratise society by restoring accountability and ethics in the permeant administrative structure (private and public). Fuck up, and sorry, you don't get an OBE. Or a pay rise.
Maybe, if we are Neon Fascist extremists - commit perjury (for example), then you should get 10 minutes probation.
I know, the last is probably over the top, but hey. I'm like that.
Nobody has got any money.
Russia gets more or all of Ukraine whether it takes 6 months or 6 years
How much we spend has a direct correlation with the number of dead Ukrainians and Russians thats all
A new plant was paid for from public money to give lots of excess capacity. (Not something one can do now, as there isn't the money, unless the developers cough up.)
This was part of a massive enlargement of the town. By a factor of 5, by now, I should think.
And I've never complained about house building - except once, when they tried to build on a school's playing fields.
Go and shove your sanctimony into the earth closet you obviously need to dig in your garden - or expect other people to get, because that's all they'll get from you.
Provided that internal selection processes worked effectively, the task was to identify those talented people who had, for whatever reason (usually family or financial, sometimes behavioural), avoided A-level and university education and gone into full-time work at sixteen. In the post-war years this worked reasonably well, and some genuinely able people worked their way up from the ranks (Alan Johnson is a later exemplar, although of course he went up through the Union).
As the tendency for people with ability to stay on at school, and go to university, increased through the 1970s and 80s, so the pool of potential senior talent amongst those joining work at sixteen reduced. So the business tried, against considerable union opposition, to bring in able people half way up the management structure, direct from university. Which was how I joined, in the first cohort after the union lifted its embargo on graduate entrants, after a small cohort got in during the late 70s.
What we found were offices staffed by middle managers who, whilst having a tad more insight than those they managed, were expert in rising slowly through the ranks as - in the exact words I was given as advice by one of them in my first few months - “always keeping your head down and your umbrella up”. The ‘don’t volunteer for anything’ culture had imported itself directly from the army and military service into the GPO.
The upshot was that all of these managers did their jobs in the way that they had been told, copying what the previous job holder had done, and were remarkably incurious (or, more accurately, tremendously risk averse) at any different way of doing things.
Hearing Bradshaw’s evidence took me right back; these were exactly the people I was surrounded by in 1984. And I loved it, as resolving problems and identifying improvements was so easy, as absolutely no-one else was doing it. The mystery, in Bradshaw’s case, is how he’s managed to survive still employed through to the current day.
I predict that his retirement is incoming.
More dead Russians in this conflict, the better. They're the invaders and if they get Ukraine cheaply then where's next?
The more military kit we give to Ukraine, the more chance that can help keep Ukrainians alive to defeat the orcs attacking them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/12/rishi-sunak-to-visit-kyiv-after-announcing-rise-in-uk-military-aid-to-ukraine
Makes me proud of Britain to be there while the US is fucking about. We will always stand up to fascism.
If more plants are needed, then yes they need to be paid for, and yes they should be paid for by whoever owns and runs the plants - which in your case is the taxpayer because the utilities there are taxpayer owned. In England it means the private firms have that obligation and they need to cough up or go bankrupt and have the taxpayer take their assets from them for nothing if they're bankrupt and then deal with it.
It is not an externality though. My children need to shit, whether they have their own bedroom, or they live in a room with me in somebody else's house.
Bradshaw who's smugness yesterday was vomit inducing. I wonder if he has twigged he is small enough and the perfect candidate to carry the can for senior managers and politicians.
Both ‘Meldrew-before-his-time’ Casino and ‘site twat’ Leon arguing that these people need more woke training, as a priority.
And that he gets similarly serious about the dire state our own armed forces are in.
But yes, briefly, one can be proud to be British today.
Glory to Ukraine. Their heroic resistance has shown that no one can deter, and no power can overcome, free people who want to stay free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqrfv8QkmYA
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Either on here, with discussion, or quietly on Betfair, with our £££
The Baltics?
Romania?
Eastern Germany?
Because Putin's made it quite clear: he sees his empire as stretching as far west as he can take it. So what's your limit?
The Atlantic Ocean probably.
So if he is off the ballot by non-democratic means I suspect that weakens, rather than strengthens, American democracy.
Whereas if he is off the ballot because Haley beats him in the primaries (slim chance though that is) I suspect this strengthens American democracy. And much as I vehemently disagree with the tenets of the US Republican party, I'd prefer to see them back in power for a generation than see the collapse of US democracy.
The sooner we negotiate a settlement the less they get.
As the ROTW catch up with me eventually the price literally financially and in death of Ukranians will grow exponentially and the outcome is going to be worse.
Ukraine cant win wont win and eventually the West will move on.
Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll of his countrymen though so thats the main thing
He is going to crumble like a cheap mince pie in a GE
I am old enough to remember when the left fought them by any means necessary.
I don't believe thar Zelensky has become very rich on the back of the massive death toll; in fact, he was quite rich before he stood for president (he founded and ran a TV company, as well as being an actor). What's your evidence for that?
Add in the Turkish foot dragging over the Scandawegian accession countries, and elements of support to Russia, and you start to have to wonder whether NATO needs to expel Turkey.
Fortunately, many on the left did not descend to those depths.
It's another example of the left and right extremes of politics meeting in a very dark place.
If I was devising a calender that aspired to cultural universality I'd be looking for the earliest well-dated event that wasn't unique to a single culture. Something like the Crab Nebula supernova (1054 AD), but ideally a lot older, so that as many dates as possible would have a positive year.
The oldest such event seems to be the 185 AD supernova in Centaurus, which unfortunately would lead to more negative dates than the Christian calendar.
Here's hoping 1840 will be a great year!
Rishi did indeed stop ALL boats by the end of the year.
Another pledge ticked.
https://news.sky.com/story/no-small-boats-have-crossed-the-channel-for-25-days-the-longest-break-since-2020-13046327
(Just don't read the bit about Storm Henk)
https://en.hespress.com/77214-egyptian-journalist-found-dead-after-exposing-zelenskys-family-purchase-of-5-m-villa-in-egypt.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-67947135.amp
71% of Brits back an immediate Gaza ceasefire.
✅ Support 71%
❌ Oppose 12%
82% of Labour voters back a ceasefire.
Via
@YouGov
, 20-21 December
Question for you, with what is going on at the moment, do you think Shapps should stand down from defence because he is Jewish?
There are plans to have a register for health service managers that people can be struck off if sanction is needed, and any managers with nursing, medical or similar registration already can be.