I'm a great believer in the positive and negative power of corporate culture. Any organisation - especially large and long-established ones - have a corporate culture within them. These are often set by the founder(s), and can take years to change as long-serving staff are understandably resistant to change.
Corporate cultures can be positive for the organisation, or can be negative. Because of the resistance to change, negative cultures (or aspects of culture) can take years to turn around.
The Post Office, at top level, not postmasters, appears to have a rotten corporate culture. I fear it's not just the top bods who need to change, but many people within the organisation.
Yup: culture beats strategy hands down.
You start with change at the top and you keep going until you hit the layer you need, the one that is worthwhile and then you make them feel - through reward and praise - that they are doing the right thing by doing the right thing. It takes time and hard work and persistence. It can be done. But only if you first realise it needs to be done. The PO has not even got to that point yet.
The PO hasn’t got to the “yes, we fucked up” point. Yet.
Thursday's Question Time departed with the usual practice of an audience divided proportonately between activists from the political parties, and went out and got an audience entirely of undecided voters. And it's worth a listen for a hugely more measured and thoughtful discussion.
They should do that all the time. Have one of the large polling companies send out invites based on location and polling answers over time.
It’s the most tedious of programmes when the majority of the questions and comments come from party activists, which is reflected in the number of people choosing to watch.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
It looks as if the Post Office has been claiming the compensation payments made to subpostmasters as tax deductible expenses. HMRC disagrees and is arguing that the PO needs to pony up ca. £100 m in tax.
Of course this is one bit of the government paying money to another bit. But still - delightful to see a body prosecuting others for false accounting not being able to get its tax affairs in order.
'While the Post Office appears to have deducted compensation provisions from their taxable profits, it apparently ignored them when it came to calculating executive pay.'
Their entire accounts for the past 20 years are going to have to be rewritten, aren't they.
The whole thing will probably be worth about £3.16 by the end and the whole shebang can be bought with loose change when going to your local branch to buy some balloons, sellotape and a birthday card for a friend's 3 year old.
Bagsy first in the queue: I will enjoy sacking everyone.
I just read this bit of news and my eyes were out on stalks. It is an absolutely bog standard tax principle that compensation payments of this kind are not a deductible expense. You don't get tax relief for breaking the law. Any High Street accountant could tell you that. What were they thinking? How did the auditors not point it out to them?
As for bonuses based on pre-compensation payents, they're 'aving a larf, surely? The way they've performed,they should be paying us, not the other way round.
I should say the PO must be technically insolvent as of now. There is no way it is going to be able meet its liabilities when they are all totted up. Of course that means the bill will be passed on to me and thee, but hopefully we will get some say in the matter of retribution. I'd go for garotting of those responsible, starting with the Board and working my way down.
Others, Ms Cyclefree, might want something a bit harsher, but I'm a tolerant soul.
The whole problem is they were not thinking. Not capable of it, you see.
The argument they could use is the same one Bates uses - that the payments are (significantly) reimbursement. The original shortfalls were made good by the SPMRs and generated taxable income that added to the bottom line. Hence reversing this out should be deductible.
Of course, this won’t, and shouldn’t, fly. But it’s a way of looking at it.
To the extent that it is returning what was never theirs in the first place I think that is ok. The accounts really ought to be rewritten but then since this is a Government owned company it wouldn't make sense to be too particular about it. The real problem is that the PO doesn't know the figures. It probably lost track of them years ago, if indeed it ever had track. (The whole organisation seems utterly shambolic so that would hardly be surprising.)
The punitive element, which one assumes now will be large, has got no chance of getting past HMRC, public body or not.
Frankly you have to question whether it is still a going concern in the normal sense. Caretaker administration beckons?
I really don't know. The whole bloody mess keeps getting worse.
On your point
"Caretaker administration beckons?"
Surely a magnificent opportunity to reward some deserving Conservative donors.
Why not an actual caretaker? They could hardly do any worse.
I’ve got an idea.
There’s this chap called Bates. Could do with a good job, as I understand it. Some hands on experience in Post Office management….
Arbuthnot himself put up for Chairman last time around, but the government wasn't brave enough
Didn't even put him on the shortlist.
tbf having been a barrister and then an MP and then a Lord, his relevant experience was a bit thin.
Unlike Tim Parker, who had lots of experience but decided to devote only a day to his work as PO Chair.
Under this "experienced" Chair, the PO sought to get the judge recused, wasted money on more hopeless litigation, cocked up the compensation schemes such that some SPMs have been faced with enormous tax bills, has managed to cock up its own accounts, and has utterly failed to comply properly or expeditiously with the requirements of the Williams Inquiry.
Yes, I can see why he might have been preferred over Arbuthnot, who actually managed to notice that things were going wrong and what those problems were.
Thursday's Question Time departed with the usual practice of an audience divided proportonately between activists from the political parties, and went out and got an audience entirely of undecided voters. And it's worth a listen for a hugely more measured and thoughtful discussion.
It’s always reassuring when you get to see the non-loopy version of the general public on screen.
As practical matter, probably not many Republics gonna be waiting in line OUTSIDE on Monday night; Iowans are better organized than that; they generally find the counting more problematic than the weather.
And folks may well start turning up, an being checked in, before 7pm. With actual voting not until then.
Essentially the caucuses are meetings. A few people will get up and make speeches, others will comment, most will be there just to fill out a ballot and drop it in the box.
IF turnout at a locality is heavy, could take a while to get past the ID checkers. But again these lines and waiting should be indoors.
Typically caucus meetings are held at schools and churches, normal election polling places. Or in peoples homes.
Also pretty common in some places to hold caucuses for several precincts at same location, say a high school with plenty of classrooms for meetings, or in an auditorium or school gym.
Reckon the REAL turnout issue, will be folks not wanting to drive too far from home that night. May be somewhat more of a factor in rural precincts, where the trip to & from caucus may be longer.
AP are saying it is going to be -45. I presume that is Fahrenheit but it doesn't make much difference at that sort of number. That is seriously cold. Not a night for being out driving. This is madness.
No, this is Sparta.
Being serious, the difference between there and here is they're set up for driving at extreme temperatures where we aren't. A bit of snow and everyone freaks out in this country, but in other countries they're used to it.
I was in Alberta a few years ago and visited my sister-in-law's school when it was -25C, and you could see from where the snow was cleared versus where it was piled up that it was piled up higher than the height of the children. The school was open as normal - if they shut for that, they'd be shut for half the school year!
Later in my trip we went out when it was -40C. Again, people didn't blink an eye about it.
OK Iowa isn't the same as the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, so not quite that used to it, but still more used to and set up for the cold and snow than we are in this country.
Anyway I just mentioned the info about the director of the PO being on the Board of the CPS and his response was:
"Don't they have enough of these duffers to go round? Do they have to do double duffer duty?"
I mean, that's the icing on the cake, isn't it - we're running out of duffers.
People talk a lot here about MPs having two jobs, but it seems to me a far bigger issue is this Directorship merry-go-round where people have 4-8 jobs and are Directors for each.
If Directors were forbidden to get compensation from any other firm apart from their own, one job alone, then the quality of governance of firms in this country would need to change remarkably.
Might actually get some Directors who take their responsibilities seriously. Or maybe still not.
If the Executive Director carousel didn't exist how would we grow the salaries and bonuses of Captains of Industry?
Maybe those Captains could steady and control their own ship?
Strange thought I'm sure.
"OK, we made an operating loss of £20m this year so I will award myself a bonus of only £5m. I am sure the shareholders will be fine with that because in the grand scheme of things it's a drop in the ocean. Trebles all-round I think".
Just imagine if you had locked yourself into a 25 year fixed mortgage in late 2006.
Rachel Reeves has pledged that Labour will oversee a “revolution” in home ownership by opening the door to 25-year fixed-rate mortgages for millions of people.
In an interview with The Times before a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the shadow chancellor said that longer fixed-rate deals would enable people to buy houses with smaller deposits and with lower monthly repayments.
She has asked a Labour review of financial services, which is being run by a group of City grandees, to work with the mortgage industry to find ways to remove regulatory barriers and help trigger a broader cultural shift.
You can’t destroy risk in finance - just move it about.
True, but as a society I think we should have preferences about where the risk ends up. In particular I think it's better if we design systems and regulations so that significant risks and especially hard to predict large downside risks largely land on big organisations who have the resources to make a better job of assessing them and to weather the consequences if they do come to pass, rather than on individuals. If individuals want to take on risks, that's fine, but we shouldn't set financial systems up so they are obliged to.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Difficult to see how it would - the Lib Dems are more or less where they have been stuck for the past decade - core vote post-coalition plus the small number of staunch pro-Europeans for whom Labour's need to compromise with the electorate is annoying, and those who are anti-Tory in places where Labour just doesn't really exist.
Their likely problem is that if Davey is still leader and affected by it then it will be difficult to capitalise on the desire to 'get the bastards out' as we move into election mode and create the kind of pincer movement in the so-called 'Blue Wall' that Home Counties One Nation Tories have dreaded.
When they couldn't even capitalise on the Corbyn era, not even regaining second place in much of the rural South, in begs the question if they will be able to restore their early 2000 fortunes for a generation more.
If 2024 is disappointing there's little prospect of that.
The results of the last election bely a pretty good recovery in most of the rural South actually. The Lib Dems had the largest increase in vote share in a large proportion of English seats and are in second place now in a huge number.
The trouble was they were doing that against an incoming tide of conservatives. It’s the mirror of the outrunning the bear analogy. If you’re chasing after prey, you don’t just need to be faster than your quarry, you also need to be faster than your fellow hunter.
The Lib Dems were building sandcastles below the high tide line. The test for the next election is whether they are still standing when the Tory tide goes out.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Reform in Canada is oft cited. But any comparison is inexact. A necessary and vital aspect of their breakthrough was that they were, to a great degree, a regionalist Party, in revolt against the focus on Quebec and the Eastern Canada establishment. Reform here have no such driver. So, they are unable to concentrate any significant support under FPTP.
“When I was a kid, I was so envious of my well off friends who had fridges with ice dispensers. We couldn't afford those nice fridges so I waited overnight for my ice trays to freeze to get ice cubes.
My dumb "made it" dream was to get one of those fridges someday. Now I finally have one and I feel so lucky every time I get ice for my water. It's a simple pleasure and it helps me realize I don't need much to be happy.
What's your dumb "made it" dream that you finally accomplished?”
For me it was getting to Vladivostok. Growing up in tedious provincial England felt like a jail. A nice enough jail - but a jail. I would pore over atlases and dream of exotic escape - and Vladivostok captured all of that. The name alone was so foreign and poetic
Finally made it there around my 30th birthday. Vladivostok!!
You did ask. I still recall where I was when I decided I would leave Rochdale and never come back. In the back of my dad's car dropping off the moors past Owd Betts with the town below and the hills around. Love the hills, hate the claustrophobia. Sheffield for university - enclosed by its own hills - was done to wean me off.
20 years ago on honeymoon on Skye, and we looked at the amazing community we were staying in and the village store and wondered what it would be like to do something like that.
And now here we are. In a village of just over a thousand. Surrounding by rolling (not claustrophobic) hills. The kind of mega scenery I used to do road trips to visit now less than 10 miles away. In a community which has the best cohesion and spirit than any I have ever seen. Running a shop.
As practical matter, probably not many Republics gonna be waiting in line OUTSIDE on Monday night; Iowans are better organized than that; they generally find the counting more problematic than the weather.
And folks may well start turning up, an being checked in, before 7pm. With actual voting not until then.
Essentially the caucuses are meetings. A few people will get up and make speeches, others will comment, most will be there just to fill out a ballot and drop it in the box.
IF turnout at a locality is heavy, could take a while to get past the ID checkers. But again these lines and waiting should be indoors.
Typically caucus meetings are held at schools and churches, normal election polling places. Or in peoples homes.
Also pretty common in some places to hold caucuses for several precincts at same location, say a high school with plenty of classrooms for meetings, or in an auditorium or school gym.
Reckon the REAL turnout issue, will be folks not wanting to drive too far from home that night. May be somewhat more of a factor in rural precincts, where the trip to & from caucus may be longer.
AP are saying it is going to be -45. I presume that is Fahrenheit but it doesn't make much difference at that sort of number. That is seriously cold. Not a night for being out driving. This is madness.
No, this is Sparta.
Being serious, the difference between there and here is they're set up for driving at extreme temperatures where we aren't. A bit of snow and everyone freaks out in this country, but in other countries they're used to it.
I was in Alberta a few years ago and visited my sister-in-law's school when it was -25C, and you could see from where the snow was cleared versus where it was piled up that it was piled up higher than the height of the children. The school was open as normal - if they shut for that, they'd be shut for half the school year!
Later in my trip we went out when it was -40C. Again, people didn't blink an eye about it.
OK Iowa isn't the same as the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, so not quite that used to it, but still more used to and set up for the cold and snow than we are in this country.
Yes, places that always get extremes of weather understand how to deal with it. Airports have snowploughs, cars wear winter tyres and chains etc. At the other end, places like Singapore have massive drains running alongside the roads, and where I live the bus stops have air conditioning.
“When I was a kid, I was so envious of my well off friends who had fridges with ice dispensers. We couldn't afford those nice fridges so I waited overnight for my ice trays to freeze to get ice cubes.
My dumb "made it" dream was to get one of those fridges someday. Now I finally have one and I feel so lucky every time I get ice for my water. It's a simple pleasure and it helps me realize I don't need much to be happy.
What's your dumb "made it" dream that you finally accomplished?”
For me it was getting to Vladivostok. Growing up in tedious provincial England felt like a jail. A nice enough jail - but a jail. I would pore over atlases and dream of exotic escape - and Vladivostok captured all of that. The name alone was so foreign and poetic
Finally made it there around my 30th birthday. Vladivostok!!
You did ask. I still recall where I was when I decided I would leave Rochdale and never come back. In the back of my dad's car dropping off the moors past Owd Betts with the town below and the hills around. Love the hills, hate the claustrophobia. Sheffield for university - enclosed by its own hills - was done to wean me off.
20 years ago on honeymoon on Skye, and we looked at the amazing community we were staying in and the village store and wondered what it would be like to do something like that.
And now here we are. In a village of just over a thousand. Surrounding by rolling (not claustrophobic) hills. The kind of mega scenery I used to do road trips to visit now less than 10 miles away. In a community which has the best cohesion and spirit than any I have ever seen. Running a shop.
Live your dreams people, live your dreams...
Graham Nash was the guest in Desert Island Discs this week, and that's more or less his message. Never allow self-disbelief to overtake your dreams.
Thursday's Question Time departed with the usual practice of an audience divided proportonately between activists from the political parties, and went out and got an audience entirely of undecided voters. And it's worth a listen for a hugely more measured and thoughtful discussion.
They should do that all the time. Have one of the large polling companies send out invites based on location and polling answers over time.
It’s the most tedious of programmes when the majority of the questions and comments come from party activists, which is reflected in the number of people choosing to watch.
I don't really watch telly, so QT is a closed book. Occasionally listen to AQ, R4 on Fridays, but rarely as the predictable sheep like nature of the panel is matched by the sheep like nature of the audience.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Reform in Canada is oft cited. But any comparison is inexact. A necessary and vital aspect of their breakthrough was that they were, to a great degree, a regionalist Party, in revolt against the focus on Quebec and the Eastern Canada establishment. Reform here have no such driver. So, they are unable to concentrate any significant support under FPTP.
Right. Time for a swim. Hopefully it will dispel this weird sense that Something Wicked This Way Comes
Might just be Cambodia. Much as it clutches to hedonism to run away from its recent history, it's still there. Lurking. Some weird primeval evil crawled out the ground and destroyed its society. It was inexplicable; and that makes it so difficult to believe it has really been expunged.
All while we were listening to Wham and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
That’s a REALLY good point
Perhaps it is that. I am slightly obsessed with the Khmer Rouge ....
... because you revel in bad stuff.
Er, what?
I’m fascinated by history and human nature, the good and the bad, utopias and dystopias
Also: everyone is obsessed with the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge are just the thinking man’s Nazis
I'm a great believer in the positive and negative power of corporate culture. Any organisation - especially large and long-established ones - have a corporate culture within them. These are often set by the founder(s), and can take years to change as long-serving staff are understandably resistant to change.
Corporate cultures can be positive for the organisation, or can be negative. Because of the resistance to change, negative cultures (or aspects of culture) can take years to turn around.
The Post Office, at top level, not postmasters, appears to have a rotten corporate culture. I fear it's not just the top bods who need to change, but many people within the organisation.
Yup: culture beats strategy hands down.
You start with change at the top and you keep going until you hit the layer you need, the one that is worthwhile and then you make them feel - through reward and praise - that they are doing the right thing by doing the right thing. It takes time and hard work and persistence. It can be done. But only if you first realise it needs to be done. The PO has not even got to that point yet.
I'm in favour of deferred prosecution agreements to deal with corporations that misbehave. You need a mighty stick to beat them with if they fail to keep up with the remediation programme, but at that point it becomes "these are the steps you will take to sort the problem out" rather than "actually we haven't done anything wrong".
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Reform in Canada is oft cited. But any comparison is inexact. A necessary and vital aspect of their breakthrough was that they were, to a great degree, a regionalist Party, in revolt against the focus on Quebec and the Eastern Canada establishment. Reform here have no such driver. So, they are unable to concentrate any significant support under FPTP.
they sound more like the SNP on that basis.
BQ more like the SNP.
Reform were more like a hypothetical ENP arising revolting against the influence of the SNP.
Right. Time for a swim. Hopefully it will dispel this weird sense that Something Wicked This Way Comes
Might just be Cambodia. Much as it clutches to hedonism to run away from its recent history, it's still there. Lurking. Some weird primeval evil crawled out the ground and destroyed its society. It was inexplicable; and that makes it so difficult to believe it has really been expunged.
All while we were listening to Wham and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
That’s a REALLY good point
Perhaps it is that. I am slightly obsessed with the Khmer Rouge ....
... because you revel in bad stuff.
Er, what?
I’m fascinated by history and human nature, the good and the bad, utopias and dystopias
Also: everyone is obsessed with the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge are just the thinking man’s Nazis
The Khmer Rouge were to thinking men, what the Nazis were to Jews.
It looks as if the Post Office has been claiming the compensation payments made to subpostmasters as tax deductible expenses. HMRC disagrees and is arguing that the PO needs to pony up ca. £100 m in tax.
Of course this is one bit of the government paying money to another bit. But still - delightful to see a body prosecuting others for false accounting not being able to get its tax affairs in order.
'While the Post Office appears to have deducted compensation provisions from their taxable profits, it apparently ignored them when it came to calculating executive pay.'
Their entire accounts for the past 20 years are going to have to be rewritten, aren't they.
The whole thing will probably be worth about £3.16 by the end and the whole shebang can be bought with loose change when going to your local branch to buy some balloons, sellotape and a birthday card for a friend's 3 year old.
Bagsy first in the queue: I will enjoy sacking everyone.
I just read this bit of news and my eyes were out on stalks. It is an absolutely bog standard tax principle that compensation payments of this kind are not a deductible expense. You don't get tax relief for breaking the law. Any High Street accountant could tell you that. What were they thinking? How did the auditors not point it out to them?
As for bonuses based on pre-compensation payents, they're 'aving a larf, surely? The way they've performed,they should be paying us, not the other way round.
I should say the PO must be technically insolvent as of now. There is no way it is going to be able meet its liabilities when they are all totted up. Of course that means the bill will be passed on to me and thee, but hopefully we will get some say in the matter of retribution. I'd go for garotting of those responsible, starting with the Board and working my way down.
Others, Ms Cyclefree, might want something a bit harsher, but I'm a tolerant soul.
The whole problem is they were not thinking. Not capable of it, you see.
The argument they could use is the same one Bates uses - that the payments are (significantly) reimbursement. The original shortfalls were made good by the SPMRs and generated taxable income that added to the bottom line. Hence reversing this out should be deductible.
Of course, this won’t, and shouldn’t, fly. But it’s a way of looking at it.
To the extent that it is returning what was never theirs in the first place I think that is ok. The accounts really ought to be rewritten but then since this is a Government owned company it wouldn't make sense to be too particular about it. The real problem is that the PO doesn't know the figures. It probably lost track of them years ago, if indeed it ever had track. (The whole organisation seems utterly shambolic so that would hardly be surprising.)
The punitive element, which one assumes now will be large, has got no chance of getting past HMRC, public body or not.
Frankly you have to question whether it is still a going concern in the normal sense. Caretaker administration beckons?
I really don't know. The whole bloody mess keeps getting worse.
On your point
"Caretaker administration beckons?"
Surely a magnificent opportunity to reward some deserving Conservative donors.
Why not an actual caretaker? They could hardly do any worse.
I’ve got an idea.
There’s this chap called Bates. Could do with a good job, as I understand it. Some hands on experience in Post Office management….
Arbuthnot himself put up for Chairman last time around, but the government wasn't brave enough
Interesting little snippet from the Post Office Board:
Simon Jeffreys, a non-Executive Director and Chair of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee is also -
"Simon chairs the Board of St James Place International plc, and is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committees of Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust plc, SimCorp A/S, a listed Danish financial services software company, and the Crown Prosecution Service."
BTW this is not some vague attempt to smear Starmer. I just wonder how this can possibly be appropriate given what the Post Office and some of its past and maybe present staff may be facing in the near future.
Interestingly, the CPS website does not reveal in the information it provides about one of its Board members, Simon Jeffreys, that he is doing the same job for the Post Office that he is doing for them.
“When I was a kid, I was so envious of my well off friends who had fridges with ice dispensers. We couldn't afford those nice fridges so I waited overnight for my ice trays to freeze to get ice cubes.
My dumb "made it" dream was to get one of those fridges someday. Now I finally have one and I feel so lucky every time I get ice for my water. It's a simple pleasure and it helps me realize I don't need much to be happy.
What's your dumb "made it" dream that you finally accomplished?”
For me it was getting to Vladivostok. Growing up in tedious provincial England felt like a jail. A nice enough jail - but a jail. I would pore over atlases and dream of exotic escape - and Vladivostok captured all of that. The name alone was so foreign and poetic
Finally made it there around my 30th birthday. Vladivostok!!
You did ask. I still recall where I was when I decided I would leave Rochdale and never come back. In the back of my dad's car dropping off the moors past Owd Betts with the town below and the hills around. Love the hills, hate the claustrophobia. Sheffield for university - enclosed by its own hills - was done to wean me off.
20 years ago on honeymoon on Skye, and we looked at the amazing community we were staying in and the village store and wondered what it would be like to do something like that.
And now here we are. In a village of just over a thousand. Surrounding by rolling (not claustrophobic) hills. The kind of mega scenery I used to do road trips to visit now less than 10 miles away. In a community which has the best cohesion and spirit than any I have ever seen. Running a shop.
Live your dreams people, live your dreams...
I've managed to sustain two long-term romantic relationships, and survived the conclusion of the first with only moderate damage.
This still surprises me sometimes. I can't be as worthless a person as I used to assume.
There is a rail scheme in my area to reopen the old Cambridge to Oxford railway line. This is being done in sections; some has already opened, and it looks as though the next stretch, east to Bedford, will reopen (from a mothballed state) this year.
But it is not going to be electrified, which seems a massive mistake. We were told it was being rebuilt to allow for future electrification, but it really is not.
As an example, the cost of rebuilding five bridges to cater for future electrification on the section that's currently being upgraded would be £34.5m. To do it after it has opened, the work would cost £41.8m - along with the obvious disruption to travelers.
What a penny-pinching, short-sighted government we have.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Difficult to see how it would - the Lib Dems are more or less where they have been stuck for the past decade - core vote post-coalition plus the small number of staunch pro-Europeans for whom Labour's need to compromise with the electorate is annoying, and those who are anti-Tory in places where Labour just doesn't really exist.
Their likely problem is that if Davey is still leader and affected by it then it will be difficult to capitalise on the desire to 'get the bastards out' as we move into election mode and create the kind of pincer movement in the so-called 'Blue Wall' that Home Counties One Nation Tories have dreaded.
The reality is that Davey is a long way down the list of culprits, and although he has some legitimate questions to answer they pale into insignifance in the broader picture.
He should be ok, and it's not as if the other two Parties have a whole lot to be smug about.
Davey must surely be a net drag on the Lib Dems’ numbers. He’s not exactly Mr Charisma is he. Nor is he a new and shiny thing, nor obviously competent. If I were a Lib Dem candidate, a new leader in place for the election would be quite a tempting idea.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Had Remain narrowly won I think UKIP would have got quite a few seats at the following election .They’d have have won a few in 2015 too, had Cameron not pledged the referendum.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Reform in Canada is oft cited. But any comparison is inexact. A necessary and vital aspect of their breakthrough was that they were, to a great degree, a regionalist Party, in revolt against the focus on Quebec and the Eastern Canada establishment. Reform here have no such driver. So, they are unable to concentrate any significant support under FPTP.
they sound more like the SNP on that basis.
Indeed. I almost made that comparison. But reflected that, that, too, was inexact. "The Republic of Western Canada" was an undercurrent long before Reform tapped it.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Reform in Canada is oft cited. But any comparison is inexact. A necessary and vital aspect of their breakthrough was that they were, to a great degree, a regionalist Party, in revolt against the focus on Quebec and the Eastern Canada establishment. Reform here have no such driver. So, they are unable to concentrate any significant support under FPTP.
they sound more like the SNP on that basis.
Cleverer than that, they were a regionalist party without a boundary on their region, so there was no limit on their expansion.
I've got vague memories of "if only the SNP stood everywhere, they'd sweep the board"... the 2019 Alien vs Predator election perhaps? But by definition, that was impossible.
Farage could perhaps have done the same thing- channel the resentment of Kent/Essex/Lincolnshire to build a regional base, then march on Teesside. That was never his style, of course. Besides, he made the mistake that shrewder grifters avoid, of making the thing he demanded happen.
The Director of Communications has been suspended after recordings came out of him saying, after the Court of Appeal had overturned a number of convictions, that the subpostmasters were all crooks etc.,.
The company is still in denial.
Looks more like it's in deep shit rather than in de Nile.
One thought that occurs to me is that the Post Office has been the cornerstone of government efforts to save local banking services as the banks find every excuse to close down local branches. Where's that going to end up now?
We have a very nice and nicely run Post Office here - always busy and the only place we can do any sort of banking transaction - as well as much else besides. I think the basic business can and should survive but the cretins on top need to go (as well as the malicious cretins further down the food chain) and people brought in who can run it well as a proper public service.
I am, of course, assuming that there are such people left in Britain. I do wonder, sometimes.
Sadly my local post office is staffed by people so surly and lethargic that if they go under I suspect the only place they'd be able to find work is answering the phones at a GP's surgery.
PO staff in my neck of the woods all seem pleasant and competent. Which is remarkable, given the dreary and lightless nature of Post Offices nowadays. Also, they are, without exception, South Asian. One of the minor surprises of this debacle is that there are still some white subpostmasters. Every Post Office I've been in since the late 90s has been run and staffed by Asians.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
See also their sitting out of the Kingswood by election. They're not an organic party with actual activists.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Reform in Canada is oft cited. But any comparison is inexact. A necessary and vital aspect of their breakthrough was that they were, to a great degree, a regionalist Party, in revolt against the focus on Quebec and the Eastern Canada establishment. Reform here have no such driver. So, they are unable to concentrate any significant support under FPTP.
they sound more like the SNP on that basis.
Cleverer than that, they were a regionalist party without a boundary on their region, so there was no limit on their expansion.
I've got vague memories of "if only the SNP stood everywhere, they'd sweep the board"... the 2019 Alien vs Predator election perhaps? But by definition, that was impossible.
Farage could perhaps have done the same thing- channel the resentment of Kent/Essex/Lincolnshire to build a regional base, then march on Teesside. That was never his style, of course. Besides, he made the mistake that shrewder grifters avoid, of making the thing he demanded happen.
The UKIP vote was quite regionalised, but they didn’t play much on regional grievances. Difficult perhaps when the leadership was clearly London-based.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Difficult to see how it would - the Lib Dems are more or less where they have been stuck for the past decade - core vote post-coalition plus the small number of staunch pro-Europeans for whom Labour's need to compromise with the electorate is annoying, and those who are anti-Tory in places where Labour just doesn't really exist.
Their likely problem is that if Davey is still leader and affected by it then it will be difficult to capitalise on the desire to 'get the bastards out' as we move into election mode and create the kind of pincer movement in the so-called 'Blue Wall' that Home Counties One Nation Tories have dreaded.
The reality is that Davey is a long way down the list of culprits, and although he has some legitimate questions to answer they pale into insignifance in the broader picture.
He should be ok, and it's not as if the other two Parties have a whole lot to be smug about.
Davey must surely be a net drag on the Lib Dems’ numbers. He’s not exactly Mr Charisma is he. Nor is he a new and shiny thing, nor obviously competent. If I were a Lib Dem candidate, a new leader in place for the election would be quite a tempting idea.
No he's not, but I'd rather see him stood down on those grounds rather than the thin and rather contrived attacks over the Scandal.
I don't think he will be though, and so close to an election it probably isn't a good idea.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That would be astute and probably quite popular politics from SKS.
He can't afford to give the tories Brexit as a wedge issue before the election as there is nothing they would like better in the nuggets of anthracite that pass for their hearts than to re-litigate the 2019 GBD election.
Rejoin is just common sense and inevitable anyway. Just need more gammons to be killed by Carling/Bennie Hedgehogs.
Interesting little snippet from the Post Office Board:
Simon Jeffreys, a non-Executive Director and Chair of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee is also -
"Simon chairs the Board of St James Place International plc, and is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committees of Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust plc, SimCorp A/S, a listed Danish financial services software company, and the Crown Prosecution Service."
BTW this is not some vague attempt to smear Starmer. I just wonder how this can possibly be appropriate given what the Post Office and some of its past and maybe present staff may be facing in the near future.
Interestingly, the CPS website does not reveal in the information it provides about one of its Board members, Simon Jeffreys, that he is doing the same job for the Post Office that he is doing for them.
An oversight I am sure.......
Lol! You are sounding more and more like Ian Hislop each day, Ms Free.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
I think a 22-point lead is stamp enough, honestly, even if it varies a bit. Another 8 months and we're into the election.
Reform UK's outlook depends heavily on Farage, I think. If he takes over as something like leader, they become big box office and should match their current polling. If not, I expect they'll struggle to save any of the 650 deposits. But what we hear of RefUK voters doesn't suggest that many will then vote Con or Lab or LibDem - I think they'll mostly sit the election out.
Do we think the Houthi strikes are going to shift the dial? It gives Sunak the chance to look Prime Ministerial, and even people like me and my most anti-war friends find it difficult to argue to that if someone keeps shooting missiles at you, it's unreasonable to strike their missile bases. I think it's all very worrying but probably a measured and proportionate response, and I'd give Sunak credit for that. That's not making me vote Tory, of course, and I doubt if many people will shift as a result, but maybe I'm wrong?
Just popped my AI cherry. Ebay now provide an AI option to write your description. It produced 2 paras of flowery guff which I cut down to 8 words and added some actual practical & relevant details of my own. Bowels not really liquescing at the oncoming storm about to engulf us.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Difficult to see how it would - the Lib Dems are more or less where they have been stuck for the past decade - core vote post-coalition plus the small number of staunch pro-Europeans for whom Labour's need to compromise with the electorate is annoying, and those who are anti-Tory in places where Labour just doesn't really exist.
Their likely problem is that if Davey is still leader and affected by it then it will be difficult to capitalise on the desire to 'get the bastards out' as we move into election mode and create the kind of pincer movement in the so-called 'Blue Wall' that Home Counties One Nation Tories have dreaded.
The reality is that Davey is a long way down the list of culprits, and although he has some legitimate questions to answer they pale into insignifance in the broader picture.
He should be ok, and it's not as if the other two Parties have a whole lot to be smug about.
Davey must surely be a net drag on the Lib Dems’ numbers. He’s not exactly Mr Charisma is he. Nor is he a new and shiny thing, nor obviously competent. If I were a Lib Dem candidate, a new leader in place for the election would be quite a tempting idea.
I don’t think in normal times he was. He represented reassuring competence, after the overconfidence and hubris of the Swinson years. Reassuring competence is what voters have seemed to want ever since Boris.
The PO scandal does, fairly or not, give Davey the same sort of albatross around the neck that Farron’s religious beliefs did to him. Is that enough come the election to weaken the tactical coalition? Not sure. It would be good to see some polling on this.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
Right. Time for a swim. Hopefully it will dispel this weird sense that Something Wicked This Way Comes
Might just be Cambodia. Much as it clutches to hedonism to run away from its recent history, it's still there. Lurking. Some weird primeval evil crawled out the ground and destroyed its society. It was inexplicable; and that makes it so difficult to believe it has really been expunged.
All while we were listening to Wham and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
That’s a REALLY good point
Perhaps it is that. I am slightly obsessed with the Khmer Rouge ....
... because you revel in bad stuff.
Er, what?
I’m fascinated by history and human nature, the good and the bad, utopias and dystopias
Also: everyone is obsessed with the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge are just the thinking man’s Nazis
Anyone who has visited the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide wouldn't be remotely meh about the Khmer Rouge.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
I think a 22-point lead is stamp enough, honestly, even if it varies a bit. Another 8 months and we're into the election.
Reform UK's outlook depends heavily on Farage, I think. If he takes over as something like leader, they become big box office and should match their current polling. If not, I expect they'll struggle to save any of the 650 deposits. But what we hear of RefUK voters doesn't suggest that many will then vote Con or Lab or LibDem - I think they'll mostly sit the election out.
Do we think the Houthi strikes are going to shift the dial? It gives Sunak the chance to look Prime Ministerial, and even people like me and my most anti-war friends find it difficult to argue to that if someone keeps shooting missiles at you, it's unreasonable to strike their missile bases. I think it's all very worrying but probably a measured and proportionate response, and I'd give Sunak credit for that. That's not making me vote Tory, of course, and I doubt if many people will shift as a result, but maybe I'm wrong?
I think the Houthi strikes are too minor from a UK perspective to have any significant impact on UK political opinion.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That would be astute and probably quite popular politics from SKS.
He can't afford to give the tories Brexit as a wedge issue before the election as there is nothing they would like better in the nuggets of anthracite that pass for their hearts than to re-litigate the 2019 GBD election.
Rejoin is just common sense and inevitable anyway. Just need more gammons to be killed by Carling/Bennie Hedgehogs.
So edgy. The PB Jeremy Clarkson, he says what others won’t dare to
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
I suspect he will salami slice. It's the obvious triangulation between those who want to reverse the whole project in a big bang now and those who think we still have to Brexit properly.
The question of whether that's a process that continues until there's nothing left, or whether the UK will reach an long term equilibrium of "this close and no further", will be ignored as a problem for a future Prime Minister, Parliament and electorate.
(For what it's worth, I'm sticking to my rough schedule of expecting something like the May plan in the 2024-8 Parliament, EEA including FoM in the one after that and Rejoin about two terms after that.)
Just popped my AI cherry. Ebay now provide an AI option to write your description. It produced 2 paras of flowery guff which I cut down to 8 words and added some actual practical & relevant details of my own. Bowels not really liquescing at the oncoming storm about to engulf us.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That would be astute and probably quite popular politics from SKS.
He can't afford to give the tories Brexit as a wedge issue before the election as there is nothing they would like better in the nuggets of anthracite that pass for their hearts than to re-litigate the 2019 GBD election.
Rejoin is just common sense and inevitable anyway. Just need more gammons to be killed by Carling/Bennie Hedgehogs.
This is also what people say about Unionists dying off in Scotland. If it weren't for the general swing in sentiment against Brexit, you'd have some older remain voters changing to Brexit over time.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
Right. Time for a swim. Hopefully it will dispel this weird sense that Something Wicked This Way Comes
Might just be Cambodia. Much as it clutches to hedonism to run away from its recent history, it's still there. Lurking. Some weird primeval evil crawled out the ground and destroyed its society. It was inexplicable; and that makes it so difficult to believe it has really been expunged.
All while we were listening to Wham and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
That’s a REALLY good point
Perhaps it is that. I am slightly obsessed with the Khmer Rouge ....
... because you revel in bad stuff.
Er, what?
I’m fascinated by history and human nature, the good and the bad, utopias and dystopias
Also: everyone is obsessed with the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge are just the thinking man’s Nazis
Anyone who has visited the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide wouldn't be remotely meh about the Khmer Rouge.
And yet 90% of people under 35 have never even heard of Pol Pot
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Difficult to see how it would - the Lib Dems are more or less where they have been stuck for the past decade - core vote post-coalition plus the small number of staunch pro-Europeans for whom Labour's need to compromise with the electorate is annoying, and those who are anti-Tory in places where Labour just doesn't really exist.
Their likely problem is that if Davey is still leader and affected by it then it will be difficult to capitalise on the desire to 'get the bastards out' as we move into election mode and create the kind of pincer movement in the so-called 'Blue Wall' that Home Counties One Nation Tories have dreaded.
The reality is that Davey is a long way down the list of culprits, and although he has some legitimate questions to answer they pale into insignifance in the broader picture.
He should be ok, and it's not as if the other two Parties have a whole lot to be smug about.
Davey must surely be a net drag on the Lib Dems’ numbers. He’s not exactly Mr Charisma is he. Nor is he a new and shiny thing, nor obviously competent. If I were a Lib Dem candidate, a new leader in place for the election would be quite a tempting idea.
No he's not, but I'd rather see him stood down on those grounds rather than the thin and rather contrived attacks over the Scandal.
I don't think he will be though, and so close to an election it probably isn't a good idea.
Also, it's not like there's a massive field of clearly better choices -- the LDs have 15 MPs, and it would probably be a bad idea to pick one of the four who got in via by-election. So I think that weighs also on the "not going to change unless they're obliged to" side of the scales.
Do we think the Houthi strikes are going to shift the dial?
The UK has been bombing the Middle East to build a framework for lasting peace and to improve civic governance more or less constantly since 1991. I highly doubt one vote will move to the tories over it.
Things might change if a Typhoon goes in and the bastards get their hands on One of Our Boys. That has populist tory fervour written all over it. Sunak isn't very good at faking that sort of shit (sat in Thatch's Rover, pretending to watch Ingerland, etc.) but it'd be something.
Just popped my AI cherry. Ebay now provide an AI option to write your description. It produced 2 paras of flowery guff which I cut down to 8 words and added some actual practical & relevant details of my own. Bowels not really liquescing at the oncoming storm about to engulf us.
Phew!
As you were, everyone. AI is all gonne be fine
I have no doubt that your botty in a constant state of ferment about loads of ‘stuff’, but you are not as other men.
Raffles Phnom Penh was used by the Khmer Rouge as one of its main headquarters during the entire regime. it would have been one of the few buildings occupied in a city that was otherwise eerily deserted: deliberately emptied of its two million citizens, all driven into the countryside to farm rice and kill each other
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
It looks as if the Post Office has been claiming the compensation payments made to subpostmasters as tax deductible expenses. HMRC disagrees and is arguing that the PO needs to pony up ca. £100 m in tax.
Of course this is one bit of the government paying money to another bit. But still - delightful to see a body prosecuting others for false accounting not being able to get its tax affairs in order.
'While the Post Office appears to have deducted compensation provisions from their taxable profits, it apparently ignored them when it came to calculating executive pay.'
Their entire accounts for the past 20 years are going to have to be rewritten, aren't they.
The whole thing will probably be worth about £3.16 by the end and the whole shebang can be bought with loose change when going to your local branch to buy some balloons, sellotape and a birthday card for a friend's 3 year old.
Bagsy first in the queue: I will enjoy sacking everyone.
I just read this bit of news and my eyes were out on stalks. It is an absolutely bog standard tax principle that compensation payments of this kind are not a deductible expense. You don't get tax relief for breaking the law. Any High Street accountant could tell you that. What were they thinking? How did the auditors not point it out to them?
As for bonuses based on pre-compensation payents, they're 'aving a larf, surely? The way they've performed,they should be paying us, not the other way round.
I should say the PO must be technically insolvent as of now. There is no way it is going to be able meet its liabilities when they are all totted up. Of course that means the bill will be passed on to me and thee, but hopefully we will get some say in the matter of retribution. I'd go for garotting of those responsible, starting with the Board and working my way down.
Others, Ms Cyclefree, might want something a bit harsher, but I'm a tolerant soul.
The whole problem is they were not thinking. Not capable of it, you see.
The argument they could use is the same one Bates uses - that the payments are (significantly) reimbursement. The original shortfalls were made good by the SPMRs and generated taxable income that added to the bottom line. Hence reversing this out should be deductible.
Of course, this won’t, and shouldn’t, fly. But it’s a way of looking at it.
To the extent that it is returning what was never theirs in the first place I think that is ok. The accounts really ought to be rewritten but then since this is a Government owned company it wouldn't make sense to be too particular about it. The real problem is that the PO doesn't know the figures. It probably lost track of them years ago, if indeed it ever had track. (The whole organisation seems utterly shambolic so that would hardly be surprising.)
The punitive element, which one assumes now will be large, has got no chance of getting past HMRC, public body or not.
Frankly you have to question whether it is still a going concern in the normal sense. Caretaker administration beckons?
I really don't know. The whole bloody mess keeps getting worse.
The difficulty is that I bet the Post Office did not think of these payments or any part of them - or describe them internally as - repayment of monies owed. That would have meant accepting that they were never due, with all the civil and criminal legal consequences that flow from that. Plus I doubt that they kept an accurate record. So they're stuffed.
There would be a certain irony if after all of this, the actual charge brought against the Post Office’s managers was one of false accounting.
At this rate, Rishi is going to have to declare a bank holiday for the day that Paula Vennells gives evidence to the Horizon Inquiry.
Day? It'll be a week long holiday. Possibly even a fortnight.
Hasn't Paula got "my name is Sharon Shoesmith" tattooed on her forehead?
Yes she is completely inept and well out of her depth, nonetheless I fear she is the fall guy for the politicians. After all Ed and Starmer have come out fighting, and Kemi can't even be bothered with what she seems to consider the whole dreary affair.
It is going to be fascinating, Mex.
You may well be right but there are other intriguing possibilities. She might, for example, put into practice some of that bible stuff she likes to preach to others and tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Or she may decide to shaft the Politicos. Whatever she does, it will be fascinating.
How many watched the ITV Series - 9 million or so, was it? Paula is likely to have a bigger audience.
The Beijing-sceptic Government candidate Lai seems comfortably ahead so far, unless there's some issue like early results coming from areas that favour him?
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That reflects where the country is. Cautiously and gradually re-engage with the EU and see where we get to. I doubt that will be full membership fwiw but who knows.
It looks as if the Post Office has been claiming the compensation payments made to subpostmasters as tax deductible expenses. HMRC disagrees and is arguing that the PO needs to pony up ca. £100 m in tax.
Of course this is one bit of the government paying money to another bit. But still - delightful to see a body prosecuting others for false accounting not being able to get its tax affairs in order.
'While the Post Office appears to have deducted compensation provisions from their taxable profits, it apparently ignored them when it came to calculating executive pay.'
Their entire accounts for the past 20 years are going to have to be rewritten, aren't they.
The whole thing will probably be worth about £3.16 by the end and the whole shebang can be bought with loose change when going to your local branch to buy some balloons, sellotape and a birthday card for a friend's 3 year old.
Bagsy first in the queue: I will enjoy sacking everyone.
I just read this bit of news and my eyes were out on stalks. It is an absolutely bog standard tax principle that compensation payments of this kind are not a deductible expense. You don't get tax relief for breaking the law. Any High Street accountant could tell you that. What were they thinking? How did the auditors not point it out to them?
As for bonuses based on pre-compensation payents, they're 'aving a larf, surely? The way they've performed,they should be paying us, not the other way round.
I should say the PO must be technically insolvent as of now. There is no way it is going to be able meet its liabilities when they are all totted up. Of course that means the bill will be passed on to me and thee, but hopefully we will get some say in the matter of retribution. I'd go for garotting of those responsible, starting with the Board and working my way down.
Others, Ms Cyclefree, might want something a bit harsher, but I'm a tolerant soul.
The whole problem is they were not thinking. Not capable of it, you see.
The argument they could use is the same one Bates uses - that the payments are (significantly) reimbursement. The original shortfalls were made good by the SPMRs and generated taxable income that added to the bottom line. Hence reversing this out should be deductible.
Of course, this won’t, and shouldn’t, fly. But it’s a way of looking at it.
To the extent that it is returning what was never theirs in the first place I think that is ok. The accounts really ought to be rewritten but then since this is a Government owned company it wouldn't make sense to be too particular about it. The real problem is that the PO doesn't know the figures. It probably lost track of them years ago, if indeed it ever had track. (The whole organisation seems utterly shambolic so that would hardly be surprising.)
The punitive element, which one assumes now will be large, has got no chance of getting past HMRC, public body or not.
Frankly you have to question whether it is still a going concern in the normal sense. Caretaker administration beckons?
I really don't know. The whole bloody mess keeps getting worse.
The difficulty is that I bet the Post Office did not think of these payments or any part of them - or describe them internally as - repayment of monies owed. That would have meant accepting that they were never due, with all the civil and criminal legal consequences that flow from that. Plus I doubt that they kept an accurate record. So they're stuffed.
There would be a certain irony if after all of this, the actual charge brought against the Post Office’s managers was one of false accounting.
At this rate, Rishi is going to have to declare a bank holiday for the day that Paula Vennells gives evidence to the Horizon Inquiry.
Day? It'll be a week long holiday. Possibly even a fortnight.
Hasn't Paula got "my name is Sharon Shoesmith" tattooed on her forehead?
Yes she is completely inept and well out of her depth, nonetheless I fear she is the fall guy for the politicians. After all Ed and Starmer have come out fighting, and Kemi can't even be bothered with what she seems to consider the whole dreary affair.
It is going to be fascinating, Mex.
You may well be right but there are other intriguing possibilities. She might, for example, put into practice some of that bible stuff she likes to preach to others and tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Or she may decide to shaft the Politicos. Whatever she does, it will be fascinating.
How many watched the ITV Series - 9 million or so, was it? Paula is likely to have a bigger audience.
Or is she likely to do a Simon Case and become too ill to give evidence?
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That reflects where the country is. Cautiously and gradually re-engage with the EU and see where we get to. I doubt that will be full membership fwiw but who knows.
To be fair to Sir Keir , he has acknowledged it was about immigration; if he achieves closer Union without FOM, not many people will complain. Most Leave voters barely knew what the EU was, the only tangible affect it had on their lives was the mass immigration that suppressed their wages & changed their neighbourhoods
It may indeed be this hotel which is vibrating my super sensitive Weirdness Antennae
“By the late 60s, Cambodia’s golden era was souring as the American sponsored war in Vietnam spilled across the border. By the early 70s, desperation set in. The Le Royal [now Raffles] became the Hotel Phnom and was the prime vantage point for journalists and diplomats watching the steady advance of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge across the country.
As the Khmer Rouge made its final assault on Phnom Penh in 1975, the hotel was draped in Red Cross colours and declared a neutral zone. Some of the most heart wrenching scenes of the Khmer Rouge takeover of the city took place here as Khmer Rouge officials demanded senior officials from the fallen Cambodian government be handed over for what everyone knew would be execution. Foreigners were marched to the nearby French Embassy and so began a long and infamous standoff - retold first hand in dramatic accounts in Jon Swain’s River of Time and Francois Bizot’s The Gate.
Read these books before a stay at the Le Royal and you’ll be sure to come away with a deeply moving experience of the city and the hotel.
A small corner area near the lobby serves as a memorial of sorts displaying images donated by some of those involved in the final days at the Hotel Phnom before the Khmer Rouge takeover.”
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
This Brexit isn't working (I don't think that's news, the public agree and only the most determined are pushing back on that.)
He will make it work, albeit he hasn't said how (I don't see how you do that without the salami slicing, which Sunak has already begun. Remember that all EU law was meant to have been shredded by now?)
Hardly anyone is in the mood for an existential debate on the subject right now (I don't think that's controversial. As a proven lawyer, Starmer won't ask an EU question until he already knows the answer. Which isn't yet.)
Raffles Phnom Penh was used by the Khmer Rouge as one of its main headquarters during the entire regime. it would have been one of the few buildings occupied in a city that was otherwise eerily deserted: deliberately emptied of its two million citizens, all driven into the countryside to farm rice and kill each other
What happened in this building??
The Stone Tape was a 1972 Christmas horror story written by Nigel Kneale (who wrote Quatermass). A team of scientists move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion that has a reputation for being haunted. The team investigate the phenomenon, trying to determine if the stones of the building are acting as a recording medium for past events (the "stone tape" of the play's title).
Maybe you are tuned into the building's recording...
Raffles Phnom Penh was used by the Khmer Rouge as one of its main headquarters during the entire regime. it would have been one of the few buildings occupied in a city that was otherwise eerily deserted: deliberately emptied of its two million citizens, all driven into the countryside to farm rice and kill each other
What happened in this building??
The Stone Tape was a 1972 Christmas horror story written by Nigel Kneale (who wrote Quatermass). A team of scientists move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion that has a reputation for being haunted. The team investigate the phenomenon, trying to determine if the stones of the building are acting as a recording medium for past events (the "stone tape" of the play's title).
Maybe you are tuned into the building's recording...
“Behind the elegant colonial facade of Hotel Le Phnom lies some of the grimmest stories of Cambodia’s brutal civil war.”
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That reflects where the country is. Cautiously and gradually re-engage with the EU and see where we get to. I doubt that will be full membership fwiw but who knows.
To be fair to Sir Keir , he has acknowledged it was about immigration; if he achieves closer Union without FOM, not many people will complain. Most Leave voters barely knew what the EU was, the only tangible affect it had on their lives was the mass immigration that suppressed their wages & changed their neighbourhoods
And as amply demonstrated since we left, that really wasn't about the EU anyway.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
I think a 22-point lead is stamp enough, honestly, even if it varies a bit. Another 8 months and we're into the election.
Reform UK's outlook depends heavily on Farage, I think. If he takes over as something like leader, they become big box office and should match their current polling. If not, I expect they'll struggle to save any of the 650 deposits. But what we hear of RefUK voters doesn't suggest that many will then vote Con or Lab or LibDem - I think they'll mostly sit the election out.
Do we think the Houthi strikes are going to shift the dial? It gives Sunak the chance to look Prime Ministerial, and even people like me and my most anti-war friends find it difficult to argue to that if someone keeps shooting missiles at you, it's unreasonable to strike their missile bases. I think it's all very worrying but probably a measured and proportionate response, and I'd give Sunak credit for that. That's not making me vote Tory, of course, and I doubt if many people will shift as a result, but maybe I'm wrong?
I think the Houthi strikes are too minor from a UK perspective to have any significant impact on UK political opinion.
It's an asymmetrical risk politically. If it all goes well then it just business as usual with our brave boys bashing the foreign Johnny's.
If it goes badly it can go very badly. General Mid East war, British personnel or ships captured/sunk, that sort of thing.
It looks as if the Post Office has been claiming the compensation payments made to subpostmasters as tax deductible expenses. HMRC disagrees and is arguing that the PO needs to pony up ca. £100 m in tax.
Of course this is one bit of the government paying money to another bit. But still - delightful to see a body prosecuting others for false accounting not being able to get its tax affairs in order.
'While the Post Office appears to have deducted compensation provisions from their taxable profits, it apparently ignored them when it came to calculating executive pay.'
Their entire accounts for the past 20 years are going to have to be rewritten, aren't they.
The whole thing will probably be worth about £3.16 by the end and the whole shebang can be bought with loose change when going to your local branch to buy some balloons, sellotape and a birthday card for a friend's 3 year old.
Bagsy first in the queue: I will enjoy sacking everyone.
I just read this bit of news and my eyes were out on stalks. It is an absolutely bog standard tax principle that compensation payments of this kind are not a deductible expense. You don't get tax relief for breaking the law. Any High Street accountant could tell you that. What were they thinking? How did the auditors not point it out to them?
As for bonuses based on pre-compensation payents, they're 'aving a larf, surely? The way they've performed,they should be paying us, not the other way round.
I should say the PO must be technically insolvent as of now. There is no way it is going to be able meet its liabilities when they are all totted up. Of course that means the bill will be passed on to me and thee, but hopefully we will get some say in the matter of retribution. I'd go for garotting of those responsible, starting with the Board and working my way down.
Others, Ms Cyclefree, might want something a bit harsher, but I'm a tolerant soul.
The whole problem is they were not thinking. Not capable of it, you see.
The argument they could use is the same one Bates uses - that the payments are (significantly) reimbursement. The original shortfalls were made good by the SPMRs and generated taxable income that added to the bottom line. Hence reversing this out should be deductible.
Of course, this won’t, and shouldn’t, fly. But it’s a way of looking at it.
To the extent that it is returning what was never theirs in the first place I think that is ok. The accounts really ought to be rewritten but then since this is a Government owned company it wouldn't make sense to be too particular about it. The real problem is that the PO doesn't know the figures. It probably lost track of them years ago, if indeed it ever had track. (The whole organisation seems utterly shambolic so that would hardly be surprising.)
The punitive element, which one assumes now will be large, has got no chance of getting past HMRC, public body or not.
Frankly you have to question whether it is still a going concern in the normal sense. Caretaker administration beckons?
I really don't know. The whole bloody mess keeps getting worse.
The difficulty is that I bet the Post Office did not think of these payments or any part of them - or describe them internally as - repayment of monies owed. That would have meant accepting that they were never due, with all the civil and criminal legal consequences that flow from that. Plus I doubt that they kept an accurate record. So they're stuffed.
There would be a certain irony if after all of this, the actual charge brought against the Post Office’s managers was one of false accounting.
At this rate, Rishi is going to have to declare a bank holiday for the day that Paula Vennells gives evidence to the Horizon Inquiry.
Day? It'll be a week long holiday. Possibly even a fortnight.
Hasn't Paula got "my name is Sharon Shoesmith" tattooed on her forehead?
Yes she is completely inept and well out of her depth, nonetheless I fear she is the fall guy for the politicians. After all Ed and Starmer have come out fighting, and Kemi can't even be bothered with what she seems to consider the whole dreary affair.
It is going to be fascinating, Mex.
You may well be right but there are other intriguing possibilities. She might, for example, put into practice some of that bible stuff she likes to preach to others and tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Or she may decide to shaft the Politicos. Whatever she does, it will be fascinating.
How many watched the ITV Series - 9 million or so, was it? Paula is likely to have a bigger audience.
Or is she likely to do a Simon Case and become too ill to give evidence?
Frankly I don't like to contemplate what her state of mind might be. You have to wonder whether she is on suicide watch.
As the dust settles on the Post Office scandal, #Labour appears to have stamped its authority in the #polls – retaining a commanding 22-point lead for the second consecutive week.
🔴 Lab 45% (-2) 🔵 Con 23% (-2) 🟠 LD 11% (+2) ⚪ Ref 11% (+1) 🟢 Green 5% (NC) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
Stamping your authority doesn’t usually mean going down 2 points.
Early 2024 is though showing largely oscillation within the electoral blocs - the Refuk surge seems to have abated, but with them remaining at fairly high levels. This poll is LLG:RefCon 61: 34.
Notable no Refuk appearances in council by-elections recently. This suggests they have practically zero ground game.
I think a 22-point lead is stamp enough, honestly, even if it varies a bit. Another 8 months and we're into the election.
Reform UK's outlook depends heavily on Farage, I think. If he takes over as something like leader, they become big box office and should match their current polling. If not, I expect they'll struggle to save any of the 650 deposits. But what we hear of RefUK voters doesn't suggest that many will then vote Con or Lab or LibDem - I think they'll mostly sit the election out.
Do we think the Houthi strikes are going to shift the dial? It gives Sunak the chance to look Prime Ministerial, and even people like me and my most anti-war friends find it difficult to argue to that if someone keeps shooting missiles at you, it's unreasonable to strike their missile bases. I think it's all very worrying but probably a measured and proportionate response, and I'd give Sunak credit for that. That's not making me vote Tory, of course, and I doubt if many people will shift as a result, but maybe I'm wrong?
I think the Houthi strikes are too minor from a UK perspective to have any significant impact on UK political opinion.
Also they're likely to be ineffectual. Saudi Arabia bombed the crap out of them for seven years, with western aid, and in the end had to start talking.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That reflects where the country is. Cautiously and gradually re-engage with the EU and see where we get to. I doubt that will be full membership fwiw but who knows.
To be fair to Sir Keir , he has acknowledged it was about immigration; if he achieves closer Union without FOM, not many people will complain. Most Leave voters barely knew what the EU was, the only tangible affect it had on their lives was the mass immigration that suppressed their wages & changed their neighbourhoods
And as amply demonstrated since we left, that really wasn't about the EU anyway.
And yet we had people like @RochdalePioneers regularly complaining that firms were struggling to recruit without offering pay rises, thanks to Brexit.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That reflects where the country is. Cautiously and gradually re-engage with the EU and see where we get to. I doubt that will be full membership fwiw but who knows.
To be fair to Sir Keir , he has acknowledged it was about immigration; if he achieves closer Union without FOM, not many people will complain. Most Leave voters barely knew what the EU was, the only tangible affect it had on their lives was the mass immigration that suppressed their wages & changed their neighbourhoods
If Starmer thinks that, he's fallen down the same rabbit hole as Theresa May. The most Brexity areas weren't where the immigrants lived. Brexit was about economic decline that many wrongly blamed on FOM. That was why levelling up was so important. Now abandoned which is why the government is 20 points behind.
Raffles Phnom Penh was used by the Khmer Rouge as one of its main headquarters during the entire regime. it would have been one of the few buildings occupied in a city that was otherwise eerily deserted: deliberately emptied of its two million citizens, all driven into the countryside to farm rice and kill each other
What happened in this building??
The Stone Tape was a 1972 Christmas horror story written by Nigel Kneale (who wrote Quatermass). A team of scientists move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion that has a reputation for being haunted. The team investigate the phenomenon, trying to determine if the stones of the building are acting as a recording medium for past events (the "stone tape" of the play's title).
Maybe you are tuned into the building's recording...
The Stone Tape is one of the best bits of TV ever. A brilliant concept, brilliantly realised.
As practical matter, probably not many Republics gonna be waiting in line OUTSIDE on Monday night; Iowans are better organized than that; they generally find the counting more problematic than the weather.
And folks may well start turning up, an being checked in, before 7pm. With actual voting not until then.
Essentially the caucuses are meetings. A few people will get up and make speeches, others will comment, most will be there just to fill out a ballot and drop it in the box.
IF turnout at a locality is heavy, could take a while to get past the ID checkers. But again these lines and waiting should be indoors.
Typically caucus meetings are held at schools and churches, normal election polling places. Or in peoples homes.
Also pretty common in some places to hold caucuses for several precincts at same location, say a high school with plenty of classrooms for meetings, or in an auditorium or school gym.
Reckon the REAL turnout issue, will be folks not wanting to drive too far from home that night. May be somewhat more of a factor in rural precincts, where the trip to & from caucus may be longer.
AP are saying it is going to be -45. I presume that is Fahrenheit but it doesn't make much difference at that sort of number. That is seriously cold. Not a night for being out driving. This is madness.
When you get down to that point you are close to the parity value
Because of the way the conversion is calculated, -40 F is -40 C. It is the crossover point. Below -40, Fahrenheit values are lower than centigrade for any given temperature.
Raffles Phnom Penh was used by the Khmer Rouge as one of its main headquarters during the entire regime. it would have been one of the few buildings occupied in a city that was otherwise eerily deserted: deliberately emptied of its two million citizens, all driven into the countryside to farm rice and kill each other
What happened in this building??
The Stone Tape was a 1972 Christmas horror story written by Nigel Kneale (who wrote Quatermass). A team of scientists move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion that has a reputation for being haunted. The team investigate the phenomenon, trying to determine if the stones of the building are acting as a recording medium for past events (the "stone tape" of the play's title).
Maybe you are tuned into the building's recording...
The Stone Tape is one of the best bits of TV ever. A brilliant concept, brilliantly realised.
Worth watching even now?
I’m definitely getting a stone tape woo feeling here
Real sense of something dark earlier today. Had no idea why. Now I discover the history of the building. Hmmmmmm
Raffles Phnom Penh was used by the Khmer Rouge as one of its main headquarters during the entire regime. it would have been one of the few buildings occupied in a city that was otherwise eerily deserted: deliberately emptied of its two million citizens, all driven into the countryside to farm rice and kill each other
What happened in this building??
The Stone Tape was a 1972 Christmas horror story written by Nigel Kneale (who wrote Quatermass). A team of scientists move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion that has a reputation for being haunted. The team investigate the phenomenon, trying to determine if the stones of the building are acting as a recording medium for past events (the "stone tape" of the play's title).
Maybe you are tuned into the building's recording...
The Stone Tape is one of the best bits of TV ever. A brilliant concept, brilliantly realised.
Worth watching even now?
I’m definitely getting a stone tape woo feeling here
Real sense of something dark earlier today. Had no idea why. Now I discover the history of the building. Hmmmmmm
I think so but then I might not be the best judge as I still try to rewatch all the 1970s BBC Christmas Ghost stories each year.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
The Beijing-sceptic Government candidate Lai seems comfortably ahead so far, unless there's some issue like early results coming from areas that favour him?
Not really. It's pretty much conceded that the DPP have won the Presidency. The interesting question will be whether they've retained an overall majority in the Legislature. Some hard thought needed for the KMT. It's a third term against a (by Taiwanese standards) dire economic backdrop.
Wondering how to fit this into my review for the Gazette
“The breakfast buffet is highly regarded, and the cocktails around the swimming pool are first class, but you will also be overcome with a tremendous, near suicidal sense of existential despair when you realise the hotel was the scene of awful suffering and death during the cruellest episode in all human history. Room service is excellent”
I'm a great believer in the positive and negative power of corporate culture. Any organisation - especially large and long-established ones - have a corporate culture within them. These are often set by the founder(s), and can take years to change as long-serving staff are understandably resistant to change.
Corporate cultures can be positive for the organisation, or can be negative. Because of the resistance to change, negative cultures (or aspects of culture) can take years to turn around.
The Post Office, at top level, not postmasters, appears to have a rotten corporate culture. I fear it's not just the top bods who need to change, but many people within the organisation.
Yup: culture beats strategy hands down.
You start with change at the top and you keep going until you hit the layer you need, the one that is worthwhile and then you make them feel - through reward and praise - that they are doing the right thing by doing the right thing. It takes time and hard work and persistence. It can be done. But only if you first realise it needs to be done. The PO has not even got to that point yet.
The PO hasn’t got to the “yes, we fucked up” point. Yet.
At this point they might as well never do so, it's far far too late to get any credit or benefit from accepting responsibility. Just commit to being the villains of the piece.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That reflects where the country is. Cautiously and gradually re-engage with the EU and see where we get to. I doubt that will be full membership fwiw but who knows.
To be fair to Sir Keir , he has acknowledged it was about immigration; if he achieves closer Union without FOM, not many people will complain. Most Leave voters barely knew what the EU was, the only tangible affect it had on their lives was the mass immigration that suppressed their wages & changed their neighbourhoods
If Starmer thinks that, he's fallen down the same rabbit hole as Theresa May. The most Brexity areas weren't where the immigrants lived. Brexit was about economic decline that many wrongly blamed on FOM. That was why levelling up was so important. Now abandoned which is why the government is 20 points behind.
One of the less kosher bits of remainerism is the dog whistle on European vs rest of world immigration. It annoys me that commentators who should know better have been holding up migration stats from Africa and Asia in a “careful what you wish for” way. It’s a dog whistle to the mythical red wall. But I expect some politicians will be tempted to blow that dog whistle if single market and FOM comes up in future.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That would be astute and probably quite popular politics from SKS.
He can't afford to give the tories Brexit as a wedge issue before the election as there is nothing they would like better in the nuggets of anthracite that pass for their hearts than to re-litigate the 2019 GBD election.
Rejoin is just common sense and inevitable anyway. Just need more gammons to be killed by Carling/Bennie Hedgehogs.
No, we will never go back to how it was before, or more so.
It's possible we might Rejoin a changed Europe, which has different membership arrangements for different tiers, but not the status quo ante bellum.
Peter Oborne reckons Sir Keir is fibbing about Brexit at the moment, and will slowly take us back into the EU if he becomes PM. Probably right, he u-turns on every other pledge and we know what he really thinks on this one
That would be astute and probably quite popular politics from SKS.
He can't afford to give the tories Brexit as a wedge issue before the election as there is nothing they would like better in the nuggets of anthracite that pass for their hearts than to re-litigate the 2019 GBD election.
Rejoin is just common sense and inevitable anyway. Just need more gammons to be killed by Carling/Bennie Hedgehogs.
No, we will never go back to how it was before, or more so.
It's possible we might Rejoin a changed Europe, which has different membership arrangements for different tiers, but not the status quo ante bellum.
Ironically, with our opt outs that's not far off the status quo ante bellum.
I hope he doesn't try to take us back into Europe though, either openly or covertly. We're out, for good or for ill, and trying to reverse that would waste a lot more time, energy and money that we simply can't spare right now.
An interesting parallel, which fails because we don't really have a metric system in the U.K.
We're inching towards it by there's still a fair way to go.
Ireland and Canada also have various wonderful anomalies, e.g. this sign I once saw in Ireland: "Speed Limit 60 km/h next 3 miles".
Also here, milk is sold in 454 Ml cartons, because we don't want to admit we still think in pints, while juice or squash is sold in litres.
I give my height and weight in Imperial, and order pints of beer but think of petrol in £/l.
It's all bizarre and rather wonderful. You wouldn't design it how it's turned out, but it seems to work. Like the Monarchy.
I think we make up for our lack of multilingualism. The human brain obviously craves being polyglot in some way. Most Brits don’t get to speak fluently in a mixture of languages like our foreign counterparts do, so we opt for being bilingual in weights and measures and driving on different sides of the road.
Europeans and Americans find driving on the left terrifying because they are used to going abroad and sticking to the same side. Brits have to drive on the right just about anywhere they’re likely to drive on holiday so take to it without breaking sweat.
Wondering how to fit this into my review for the Gazette
“The breakfast buffet is highly regarded, and the cocktails around the swimming pool are first class, but you will also be overcome with a tremendous, near suicidal sense of existential despair when you realise the hotel was the scene of awful suffering and death during the cruellest episode in all human history. Room service is excellent”
Perhaps it was some of "the more reasonable members of the Khymer Rouge" that Mrs T was supporting in this 1988 interview.
I'm a great believer in the positive and negative power of corporate culture. Any organisation - especially large and long-established ones - have a corporate culture within them. These are often set by the founder(s), and can take years to change as long-serving staff are understandably resistant to change.
Corporate cultures can be positive for the organisation, or can be negative. Because of the resistance to change, negative cultures (or aspects of culture) can take years to turn around.
The Post Office, at top level, not postmasters, appears to have a rotten corporate culture. I fear it's not just the top bods who need to change, but many people within the organisation.
Yup: culture beats strategy hands down.
You start with change at the top and you keep going until you hit the layer you need, the one that is worthwhile and then you make them feel - through reward and praise - that they are doing the right thing by doing the right thing. It takes time and hard work and persistence. It can be done. But only if you first realise it needs to be done. The PO has not even got to that point yet.
The PO hasn’t got to the “yes, we fucked up” point. Yet.
At this point they might as well never do so, it's far far too late to get any credit or benefit from accepting responsibility. Just commit to being the villains of the piece.
I think mentally they’re still at the Sun headlines on Hillsborough stage.
Right. Time for a swim. Hopefully it will dispel this weird sense that Something Wicked This Way Comes
Might just be Cambodia. Much as it clutches to hedonism to run away from its recent history, it's still there. Lurking. Some weird primeval evil crawled out the ground and destroyed its society. It was inexplicable; and that makes it so difficult to believe it has really been expunged.
All while we were listening to Wham and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
That’s a REALLY good point
Perhaps it is that. I am slightly obsessed with the Khmer Rouge ....
... because you revel in bad stuff.
Er, what?
I’m fascinated by history and human nature, the good and the bad, utopias and dystopias
Also: everyone is obsessed with the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge are just the thinking man’s Nazis
Anyone who has visited the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide wouldn't be remotely meh about the Khmer Rouge.
I find it astonishing anyone could be, without facing immediate ostracism for being unforgivably stupid (at best).
Wondering how to fit this into my review for the Gazette
“The breakfast buffet is highly regarded, and the cocktails around the swimming pool are first class, but you will also be overcome with a tremendous, near suicidal sense of existential despair when you realise the hotel was the scene of awful suffering and death during the cruellest episode in all human history. Room service is excellent”
What are you meant to be an expert on - history, politics & culture or luxury catering?
Comments
It’s the most tedious of programmes when the majority of the questions and comments come from party activists, which is reflected in the number of people choosing to watch.
The same was true of UKIP as well. Enough to nab votes, and probably flip some seats from Con to Lab.
But not enough to win (m)any seats, unlike Reform did in Canada.
Under this "experienced" Chair, the PO sought to get the judge recused, wasted money on more hopeless litigation, cocked up the compensation schemes such that some SPMs have been faced with enormous tax bills, has managed to cock up its own accounts, and has utterly failed to comply properly or expeditiously with the requirements of the Williams Inquiry.
Yes, I can see why he might have been preferred over Arbuthnot, who actually managed to notice that things were going wrong and what those problems were.
Being serious, the difference between there and here is they're set up for driving at extreme temperatures where we aren't. A bit of snow and everyone freaks out in this country, but in other countries they're used to it.
I was in Alberta a few years ago and visited my sister-in-law's school when it was -25C, and you could see from where the snow was cleared versus where it was piled up that it was piled up higher than the height of the children. The school was open as normal - if they shut for that, they'd be shut for half the school year!
Later in my trip we went out when it was -40C. Again, people didn't blink an eye about it.
OK Iowa isn't the same as the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, so not quite that used to it, but still more used to and set up for the cold and snow than we are in this country.
The trouble was they were doing that against an incoming tide of conservatives. It’s the mirror of the outrunning the bear analogy. If you’re chasing after prey, you don’t just need to be faster than your quarry, you also need to be faster than your fellow hunter.
The Lib Dems were building sandcastles below the high tide line. The test for the next election is whether they are still standing when the Tory tide goes out.
A necessary and vital aspect of their breakthrough was that they were, to a great degree, a regionalist Party, in revolt against the focus on Quebec and the Eastern Canada establishment.
Reform here have no such driver.
So, they are unable to concentrate any significant support under FPTP.
20 years ago on honeymoon on Skye, and we looked at the amazing community we were staying in and the village store and wondered what it would be like to do something like that.
And now here we are. In a village of just over a thousand. Surrounding by rolling (not claustrophobic) hills. The kind of mega scenery I used to do road trips to visit now less than 10 miles away. In a community which has the best cohesion and spirit than any I have ever seen. Running a shop.
Live your dreams people, live your dreams...
I’m fascinated by history and human nature, the good and the bad, utopias and dystopias
Also: everyone is obsessed with the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge are just the thinking man’s Nazis
Reform were more like a hypothetical ENP arising revolting against the influence of the SNP.
An oversight I am sure.......
This still surprises me sometimes. I can't be as worthless a person as I used to assume.
There is a rail scheme in my area to reopen the old Cambridge to Oxford railway line. This is being done in sections; some has already opened, and it looks as though the next stretch, east to Bedford, will reopen (from a mothballed state) this year.
But it is not going to be electrified, which seems a massive mistake. We were told it was being rebuilt to allow for future electrification, but it really is not.
As an example, the cost of rebuilding five bridges to cater for future electrification on the section that's currently being upgraded would be £34.5m. To do it after it has opened, the work would cost £41.8m - along with the obvious disruption to travelers.
What a penny-pinching, short-sighted government we have.
But reflected that, that, too, was inexact.
"The Republic of Western Canada" was an undercurrent long before Reform tapped it.
https://x.com/timesradio/status/1746109837195563119?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I've got vague memories of "if only the SNP stood everywhere, they'd sweep the board"... the 2019 Alien vs Predator election perhaps? But by definition, that was impossible.
Farage could perhaps have done the same thing- channel the resentment of Kent/Essex/Lincolnshire to build a regional base, then march on Teesside. That was never his style, of course. Besides, he made the mistake that shrewder grifters avoid, of making the thing he demanded happen.
Also, they are, without exception, South Asian. One of the minor surprises of this debacle is that there are still some white subpostmasters. Every Post Office I've been in since the late 90s has been run and staffed by Asians.
I don't think he will be though, and so close to an election it probably isn't a good idea.
He can't afford to give the tories Brexit as a wedge issue before the election as there is nothing they would like better in the nuggets of anthracite that pass for their hearts than to re-litigate the 2019 GBD election.
Rejoin is just common sense and inevitable anyway. Just need more gammons to be killed by Carling/Bennie Hedgehogs.
In English!!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypa-4xxd0Iw&ved=2ahUKEwi16-PfmNqDAxVoX0EAHYcJAdEQwqsBegQIERAG&usg=AOvVaw1SiRbMgqegO6W_DJmQl-06
Reform UK's outlook depends heavily on Farage, I think. If he takes over as something like leader, they become big box office and should match their current polling. If not, I expect they'll struggle to save any of the 650 deposits. But what we hear of RefUK voters doesn't suggest that many will then vote Con or Lab or LibDem - I think they'll mostly sit the election out.
Do we think the Houthi strikes are going to shift the dial? It gives Sunak the chance to look Prime Ministerial, and even people like me and my most anti-war friends find it difficult to argue to that if someone keeps shooting missiles at you, it's unreasonable to strike their missile bases. I think it's all very worrying but probably a measured and proportionate response, and I'd give Sunak credit for that. That's not making me vote Tory, of course, and I doubt if many people will shift as a result, but maybe I'm wrong?
Ebay now provide an AI option to write your description. It produced 2 paras of flowery guff which I cut down to 8 words and added some actual practical & relevant details of my own.
Bowels not really liquescing at the oncoming storm about to engulf us.
The PO scandal does, fairly or not, give Davey the same sort of albatross around the neck that Farron’s religious beliefs did to him. Is that enough come the election to weaken the tactical coalition? Not sure. It would be good to see some polling on this.
The question of whether that's a process that continues until there's nothing left, or whether the UK will reach an long term equilibrium of "this close and no further", will be ignored as a problem for a future Prime Minister, Parliament and electorate.
(For what it's worth, I'm sticking to my rough schedule of expecting something like the May plan in the 2024-8 Parliament, EEA including FoM in the one after that and Rejoin about two terms after that.)
As you were, everyone. AI is all gonne be fine
All that fake, pompous, high & mighty disgust at Boris’s evil deeds really was just sour grapes
Those who do not learn from history…
Things might change if a Typhoon goes in and the bastards get their hands on One of Our Boys. That has populist tory fervour written all over it. Sunak isn't very good at faking that sort of shit (sat in Thatch's Rover, pretending to watch Ingerland, etc.) but it'd be something.
Raffles Phnom Penh was used by the Khmer Rouge as one of its main headquarters during the entire regime. it would have been one of the few buildings occupied in a city that was otherwise eerily deserted: deliberately emptied of its two million citizens, all driven into the countryside to farm rice and kill each other
What happened in this building??
You may well be right but there are other intriguing possibilities. She might, for example, put into practice some of that bible stuff she likes to preach to others and tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Or she may decide to shaft the Politicos. Whatever she does, it will be fascinating.
How many watched the ITV Series - 9 million or so, was it? Paula is likely to have a bigger audience.
It may indeed be this hotel which is vibrating my super sensitive Weirdness Antennae
“By the late 60s, Cambodia’s golden era was souring as the American sponsored war in Vietnam spilled across the border. By the early 70s, desperation set in. The Le Royal [now Raffles] became the Hotel Phnom and was the prime vantage point for journalists and diplomats watching the steady advance of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge across the country.
As the Khmer Rouge made its final assault on Phnom Penh in 1975, the hotel was draped in Red Cross colours and declared a neutral zone. Some of the most heart wrenching scenes of the Khmer Rouge takeover of the city took place here as Khmer Rouge officials demanded senior officials from the fallen Cambodian government be handed over for what everyone knew would be execution. Foreigners were marched to the nearby French Embassy and so began a long and infamous standoff - retold first hand in dramatic accounts in Jon Swain’s River of Time and Francois Bizot’s The Gate.
Read these books before a stay at the Le Royal and you’ll be sure to come away with a deeply moving experience of the city and the hotel.
A small corner area near the lobby serves as a memorial of sorts displaying images donated by some of those involved in the final days at the Hotel Phnom before the Khmer Rouge takeover.”
Wow
https://www.rustycompass.com/cambodia-travel-guide-37/phnom-penh-7/hotels-15/hotel-le-royal-phnom-penh-152
This is the hotel in The Killing Fields. Fuck
This Brexit isn't working (I don't think that's news, the public agree and only the most determined are pushing back on that.)
He will make it work, albeit he hasn't said how (I don't see how you do that without the salami slicing, which Sunak has already begun. Remember that all EU law was meant to have been shredded by now?)
Hardly anyone is in the mood for an existential debate on the subject right now (I don't think that's controversial. As a proven lawyer, Starmer won't ask an EU question until he already knows the answer. Which isn't yet.)
So, death by a thousand cuts it is.
Maybe you are tuned into the building's recording...
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/war-hotels/2022/3/23/a-haven-from-the-civil-war-cambodias-hotel-le-phnom
If it goes badly it can go very badly. General Mid East war, British personnel or ships captured/sunk, that sort of thing.
Saudi Arabia bombed the crap out of them for seven years, with western aid, and in the end had to start talking.
One man's complaint is another man's ambition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Caldwell
One of Pol Pot's little helpers.
His notoriety deserves a wider audience.
Kempton 1.30 - Chianti Classico
Kempton 2.07 - Pic D'Orhy
Warwick 2.24 - Apple Away
Fairyhouse 3.42 - Romeo Coolio
We're inching towards it by there's still a fair way to go.
Because of the way the conversion is calculated, -40 F is -40 C. It is the crossover point. Below -40, Fahrenheit values are lower than centigrade for any given temperature.
I’m definitely getting a stone tape woo feeling here
Real sense of something dark earlier today. Had no idea why. Now I discover the history of the building. Hmmmmmm
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-city-killers-half-giraffes-scary-asteroids.html
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/36593/20220314/asteroid-half-size-giraffe-hits-iceland-2-hours-astronomers-spotted.htm
https://www.accuweather.com/en/space-news/potentially-hazardous-asteroid-7335-near-earth-may-27/1190523
Also here, milk is sold in 454 Ml cartons, because we don't want to admit we still think in pints, while juice or squash is sold in litres.
I give my height and weight in Imperial, and order pints of beer but think of petrol in £/l.
It's all bizarre and rather wonderful. You wouldn't design it how it's turned out, but it seems to work. Like the Monarchy.
Everything has a political consequence. And those are far greater if you don't have a mandate, and it does eventually catch-up with you.
It's pretty much conceded that the DPP have won the Presidency.
The interesting question will be whether they've retained an overall majority in the Legislature.
Some hard thought needed for the KMT. It's a third term against a (by Taiwanese standards) dire economic backdrop.
“The breakfast buffet is highly regarded, and the cocktails around the swimming pool are first class, but you will also be overcome with a tremendous, near suicidal sense of existential despair when you realise the hotel was the scene of awful suffering and death during the cruellest episode in all human history. Room service is excellent”
It's possible we might Rejoin a changed Europe, which has different membership arrangements for different tiers, but not the status quo ante bellum.
I hope he doesn't try to take us back into Europe though, either openly or covertly. We're out, for good or for ill, and trying to reverse that would waste a lot more time, energy and money that we simply can't spare right now.
Europeans and Americans find driving on the left terrifying because they are used to going abroad and sticking to the same side. Brits have to drive on the right just about anywhere they’re likely to drive on holiday so take to it without breaking sweat.
https://youtu.be/_G4dHRN2Dug?feature=shared