My gas central heating combi boiler installed in 2006 was replaced yesterday with a brand new A rated gas combi boiler with 12 year guarantee and the transformation in our water heat and house heating is extraordinary
Not sure I am keeping apace with net zero with a new gas ch boiler and in the last few weeks a new petrol driven car
Peston ( I know) suggesting Hunt is to abolish non dom status
Given that Labour has spent that money several times over and it props up some of the few remaining promises of significance in its intended manifesto, that would be political genius from the Tories, even if they do it in a way that ensures nothing changes until after the election
🙂
But Labour no longer have a policy to scrap non dom status. See my previous post.
Under their new flag “fiscal prudence or death” Labour realise they cannot get scrapping nom dom bringing in assured promise of money past the OBR and City as confirmed extra money every year, and realise the damage it will cause scrapping it, so Labour are now keeping it, only calling it another name to pretend they scrapped it as promised.
Rather than “political genius” from Tories, is the truth here a sign of their struggle and desperation to cobble together legitimate funding for the tax cuts?
Much more that than 4D chess. The reality is that with borrowing as high as it currently is, tax cuts are a joke anyway.
Unfortunately, they are the lucky rabbit's foot for the Conservatives. (Sorry for bringing it up, Moon), so they have to happen, whatever the effect on the rabbit (sorry again).
But you do finally agree with me about the 4D chess at play over timing of the next general election?
Those who want Tories to get the worst possible result, perhaps wipe out, trying to influence it to much later in year - talk up and tempt, like siren ferrets sitting on rocks and hiding their teeth, wait till later in the year where you can meet your pledges - and those who care about the party and wish to give the Conservatives the best possible result to recover from, suggesting this is May 2nd before sailing into choppy waters through summer and autumn.
Halcyon birds nest in summer, just like humans attracted by calm look of the weather and water. But however you delve into this and analyse it, this summer offers our sitting government no respite at all.
We are 47 weeks exactly from the general election on Thursday, 23rd January. Your analysis rests on an earlier election being better for the government than a later one, which I think is wrong. First, not even Liz Truss thinks it would be better to have Kier Starmer rather than Rishi in Number 10 for the rest of this year. Second, by negating the Opposition parties' ground war advantage, a holiday campaign is best for the Conservatives. Third, something might turn up.
You think an election over Christmas with Rishi waiting to the last second is going to get the Tory party votes.
I can see the Tory party returning as the 3rd or even 4th party is Rishi was that stupid
No way are we having a Christmas GE. I just don't see that ever happening as a premeditated event. The only exception would be in some kind of extreme constitutional crisis.
I was talking to an acquaintance about this the other day. He and his wife both work (he claimed joint salary of around £70k), and have two young kids. He said a quote for an all-inclusive two-week foreign holiday this summer was between six and eight grand - far more than they can afford. He said that his parents were not well off, but managed at least one foreign holiday a year.
I have heard similar complaints from other parents. A very quick 'win' for any government would be to allow children one week off school term-time. Yes, I know that has consequences, but I also think it will be popular with everyone except teachers and price-gouging travel firms.
Oh God no. Those of us without kids quite like knowing exactly when to avoid booking! Expensive foreign holidays aren’t a human right, and education is much more important than a cheap week on a beach.
Hey, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do: just that it'd be popular.
I think that chap probably has a very particular kind of foreign holiday.
I think the minimum viable spend for a 2 week family summer holiday abroad is something like £3k. Similar for the UK unless you go very basic given accommodation here is more expensive.
Take a holiday in a reasonable but not fancy self catering cottage with a garden but no pool, somewhere in central France. Ferry 200, fuel and tolls around 250, accommodation say 1,800, 5-6 meals out 500, shopping for self catering another 200, museum & attraction tickets maybe another 100, that’s just over 3 grand.
The accommodation cost would be similar if you went Eurocamp.
That sort of holiday doesn’t vary in price quite so much around school holidays though.
For years I've advocated staggering the school holidays regionally.
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
Labour got 52% at the 2019 general election and Labour are riding much higher in the polls. A large majority of Rochdales voters are going to be in favour of Labour. Voters will be handed a ballot paper that says, right at the top, Azhar Ali - Labour Party. Many of them will have minimal awareness or comprehension of Ali being disowned by the party, or will presume someone else was disowned and this is now the new candidate because he has Labour by his name, or will think a defrocked Labour candidate is close enough to a real Labour candidate.
The closest parallel is Neale Hanvey, who stood for the SNP but was disowned over antisemitic comments, albeit at a general election rather than a by-election. Hanvey saw a mere 1.1pp drop in the SNP vote, in a general where the average SNP change was +0.8pp. That suggests about a 2pp penalty against Hanvey. If Ali suffers a 2pp decrease in the Labour vote share, he wins by a huge majority.
Peston ( I know) suggesting Hunt is to abolish non dom status
Given that Labour has spent that money several times over and it props up some of the few remaining promises of significance in its intended manifesto, that would be political genius from the Tories, even if they do it in a way that ensures nothing changes until after the election
🙂
But Labour no longer have a policy to scrap non dom status. See my previous post.
Under their new flag “fiscal prudence or death” Labour realise they cannot get scrapping nom dom bringing in assured promise of money past the OBR and City as confirmed extra money every year, and realise the damage it will cause scrapping it, so Labour are now keeping it, only calling it another name to pretend they scrapped it as promised.
Rather than “political genius” from Tories, is the truth here a sign of their struggle and desperation to cobble together legitimate funding for the tax cuts?
Much more that than 4D chess. The reality is that with borrowing as high as it currently is, tax cuts are a joke anyway.
Unfortunately, they are the lucky rabbit's foot for the Conservatives. (Sorry for bringing it up, Moon), so they have to happen, whatever the effect on the rabbit (sorry again).
But you do finally agree with me about the 4D chess at play over timing of the next general election?
Those who want Tories to get the worst possible result, perhaps wipe out, trying to influence it to much later in year - talk up and tempt, like siren ferrets sitting on rocks and hiding their teeth, wait till later in the year where you can meet your pledges - and those who care about the party and wish to give the Conservatives the best possible result to recover from, suggesting this is May 2nd before sailing into choppy waters through summer and autumn.
Halcyon birds nest in summer, just like humans attracted by calm look of the weather and water. But however you delve into this and analyse it, this summer offers our sitting government no respite at all.
We are 47 weeks exactly from the general election on Thursday, 23rd January. Your analysis rests on an earlier election being better for the government than a later one, which I think is wrong. First, not even Liz Truss thinks it would be better to have Kier Starmer rather than Rishi in Number 10 for the rest of this year. Second, by negating the Opposition parties' ground war advantage, a holiday campaign is best for the Conservatives. Third, something might turn up.
You think an election over Christmas with Rishi waiting to the last second is going to get the Tory party votes.
I can see the Tory party returning as the 3rd or even 4th party is Rishi was that stupid
Not quite. I think an election over the holiday period will cost the Opposition parties more votes than it costs the government. And more importantly, I think some in CCHQ think that.
You keep saying this. Yet have provided no evidence for it. There is not going to be an election over Christmas - it would look utterly desperate. Yet you and Mexican keep saying it, perhaps to gain attention, who knows?
Peston ( I know) suggesting Hunt is to abolish non dom status
Given that Labour has spent that money several times over and it props up some of the few remaining promises of significance in its intended manifesto, that would be political genius from the Tories, even if they do it in a way that ensures nothing changes until after the election
🙂
But Labour no longer have a policy to scrap non dom status. See my previous post.
Under their new flag “fiscal prudence or death” Labour realise they cannot get scrapping nom dom bringing in assured promise of money past the OBR and City as confirmed extra money every year, and realise the damage it will cause scrapping it, so Labour are now keeping it, only calling it another name to pretend they scrapped it as promised.
Rather than “political genius” from Tories, is the truth here a sign of their struggle and desperation to cobble together legitimate funding for the tax cuts?
Much more that than 4D chess. The reality is that with borrowing as high as it currently is, tax cuts are a joke anyway.
Unfortunately, they are the lucky rabbit's foot for the Conservatives. (Sorry for bringing it up, Moon), so they have to happen, whatever the effect on the rabbit (sorry again).
But you do finally agree with me about the 4D chess at play over timing of the next general election?
Those who want Tories to get the worst possible result, perhaps wipe out, trying to influence it to much later in year - talk up and tempt, like siren ferrets sitting on rocks and hiding their teeth, wait till later in the year where you can meet your pledges - and those who care about the party and wish to give the Conservatives the best possible result to recover from, suggesting this is May 2nd before sailing into choppy waters through summer and autumn.
Halcyon birds nest in summer, just like humans attracted by calm look of the weather and water. But however you delve into this and analyse it, this summer offers our sitting government no respite at all.
We are 47 weeks exactly from the general election on Thursday, 23rd January. Your analysis rests on an earlier election being better for the government than a later one, which I think is wrong. First, not even Liz Truss thinks it would be better to have Kier Starmer rather than Rishi in Number 10 for the rest of this year. Second, by negating the Opposition parties' ground war advantage, a holiday campaign is best for the Conservatives. Third, something might turn up.
You think an election over Christmas with Rishi waiting to the last second is going to get the Tory party votes.
I can see the Tory party returning as the 3rd or even 4th party is Rishi was that stupid
“Something will turn up!” Until it doesn’t. So I think, while we will go on until the last minute….. like 1997 ….. nothing will turn up. In addition Rishi and the Conservatives will get some blame for ‘polling Christmas’!
This fucking climate. Still February. Cold dismal rain
I quite like late February. Largely for the contrast with January. Light in the morning when I wake up, light in the evening when I leave work. First signs of growth in the gardens and parks. A bit of warmth on the face.
All true, but according to my solar panel stats, we had about as much actual sunshine in February as in January. This simply isn't on.
Really? I've had about 30% more in Feb, with 10% fewer days.
It's been mild (central heating off) but grey.
Yes, it's grim down south.
This is still my first year with solar. I'm still fascinated by the stats. It sounds obvious, but I'm surprised how much more you produce on a sunny day; and how much more you produce on a sunny day in June than a sunny day in Jan. On a cloudless day in June I was producing nearly 40kwh; on an equally cloudless day in January I produced barely 5.
Feb in the NW has been - okish. Sunnier than Jan, anyway. Cloudy but bright presently.
It has been the warmest winter I can remember though we are still off to Madeira next week
I was talking to an acquaintance about this the other day. He and his wife both work (he claimed joint salary of around £70k), and have two young kids. He said a quote for an all-inclusive two-week foreign holiday this summer was between six and eight grand - far more than they can afford. He said that his parents were not well off, but managed at least one foreign holiday a year.
I have heard similar complaints from other parents. A very quick 'win' for any government would be to allow children one week off school term-time. Yes, I know that has consequences, but I also think it will be popular with everyone except teachers and price-gouging travel firms.
Oh God no. Those of us without kids quite like knowing exactly when to avoid booking! Expensive foreign holidays aren’t a human right, and education is much more important than a cheap week on a beach.
Hey, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do: just that it'd be popular.
I think that chap probably has a very particular kind of foreign holiday.
I think the minimum viable spend for a 2 week family summer holiday abroad is something like £3k. Similar for the UK unless you go very basic given accommodation here is more expensive.
Take a holiday in a reasonable but not fancy self catering cottage with a garden but no pool, somewhere in central France. Ferry 200, fuel and tolls around 250, accommodation say 1,800, 5-6 meals out 500, shopping for self catering another 200, museum & attraction tickets maybe another 100, that’s just over 3 grand.
The accommodation cost would be similar if you went Eurocamp.
That sort of holiday doesn’t vary in price quite so much around school holidays though.
For years I've advocated staggering the school holidays regionally.
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
There'd be problems at regional borders now that families often have children in different schools instead of all going to the nearest one. In any case, it is just tinkering at the edges given there's a limit to how much terms can be staggered.
Labour got 52% at the 2019 general election and Labour are riding much higher in the polls. A large majority of Rochdales voters are going to be in favour of Labour. Voters will be handed a ballot paper that says, right at the top, Azhar Ali - Labour Party. Many of them will have minimal awareness or comprehension of Ali being disowned by the party, or will presume someone else was disowned and this is now the new candidate because he has Labour by his name, or will think a defrocked Labour candidate is close enough to a real Labour candidate.
The closest parallel is Neale Hanvey, who stood for the SNP but was disowned over antisemitic comments, albeit at a general election rather than a by-election. Hanvey saw a mere 1.1pp drop in the SNP vote, in a general where the average SNP change was +0.8pp. That suggests about a 2pp penalty against Hanvey. If Ali suffers a 2pp decrease in the Labour vote share, he wins by a huge majority.
Remind me of the nature of our small charity bet - was it whether Lab gets 40% in Rochdale?
I do agree with much of your analysis - my view is that there will be enough sharing of the votes around the parties that the winning percentage will be relatively small. But still comfortably clear of second place.
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
My elderly and slightly gaga mother would totally buy this scam. The Royal Mail! Everyone trusts the Royal Mail
Sad times
I get three or four of these a day. The giveaway is the greeting: "Hi". No name, and not the sort of casual greeting the Royal Mail would usually use. I don't know why the scammers don't fix this - it can't be that hard to do so.
Does the actual Royal Mail ever ask for the email address of the recipient?
We did a tour of Eton last autumn and Mogg minor's name was on the list of Common Entrance passes on the noticeboard.
Of course to him, with a family fortune in 9 figures, his mother from an aristocratic family, his father a former Cabinet minister and grandfather editor of the Times and studying at Eton, King's Chester educated Hancock is a relative oik even before considering his private life
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
It's easily done - just copy the html from a genuine Royal Mail email and adjust as required. But yes, easy to do and fairly convincing. Need people to check where the links are actually going before clicking, which is not helped by legit companies using relays or URL shorteners or odd sounding subdomains/different domains*
On the ease of this, I once - on April 1, after she'd got me earlier in the morning - sent my now wife an email from one of her friends (faked email address, easy at the time as clients didn't do any checks) to the bbc news webste (actually bbc.co.uk/news/some-storyandalongstingofstuffsoyougetboredreadingitat@mydomain.com/bbc - before browsers flagged up that kind of thing) with a completely nonsense story about something dear to her heart - absolutely authentic looking as a copied a BBC website story page, changed only the main story text so all the links elsewhere on the page worked perfectly. I had great trouble convincing her that it was indeed an April fool joke, given she'd got the email from her friend and it was on the BBC website!
On the flip side, AI can also help defeat this shit - scan the email, check what it seems to be saying and what the company is, look up (e.g. via google) the website address of the company and flag in big flashing letters to the user if the links don't seem to go where they should. In my above example GMail at least would flag that the sending email seemed to be fake as not validated by the outgoing server and all modern browsers would flag up that the website being visited was mydomain.com, not bbc.co.uk
*for some years, Nationwide's online banking website was olb2.nationet.com or similar which is exactly the kind of thing people should be wary about when the main website is nationwide.co.uk or whatever.
My favourite was when Harold Wilson asked his audience “Why do I emphasise the role of the Royal Navy?”. And a voice from the audience came “Because you’re in Chatham!” Which was at the time a Naval base.
I was talking to an acquaintance about this the other day. He and his wife both work (he claimed joint salary of around £70k), and have two young kids. He said a quote for an all-inclusive two-week foreign holiday this summer was between six and eight grand - far more than they can afford. He said that his parents were not well off, but managed at least one foreign holiday a year.
I have heard similar complaints from other parents. A very quick 'win' for any government would be to allow children one week off school term-time. Yes, I know that has consequences, but I also think it will be popular with everyone except teachers and price-gouging travel firms.
Oh God no. Those of us without kids quite like knowing exactly when to avoid booking! Expensive foreign holidays aren’t a human right, and education is much more important than a cheap week on a beach.
Hey, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do: just that it'd be popular.
I think that chap probably has a very particular kind of foreign holiday.
I think the minimum viable spend for a 2 week family summer holiday abroad is something like £3k. Similar for the UK unless you go very basic given accommodation here is more expensive.
Take a holiday in a reasonable but not fancy self catering cottage with a garden but no pool, somewhere in central France. Ferry 200, fuel and tolls around 250, accommodation say 1,800, 5-6 meals out 500, shopping for self catering another 200, museum & attraction tickets maybe another 100, that’s just over 3 grand.
The accommodation cost would be similar if you went Eurocamp.
That sort of holiday doesn’t vary in price quite so much around school holidays though.
For years I've advocated staggering the school holidays regionally.
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
I'd certainly go for staggering school holidays.
That 3k sounds approximately right to me - my quick look at a couple of sites revealed 2 week all-ins bookable for July from £1k per person for 2+2 in places like Turkey - which is quite a lot less than £8-10k.
The Supreme Court decision to grant review of Trump's immunity claim, and in a few months at that, means that none of the criminal trials will be concluded by November. It is a truly shocking decision given the baseless arguments which were unanimously and contemptuously dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
There will come a time when this Court and its members will be held to account for its destruction of democracy. Or there won't be any democracy left to save.
Taken all in all, the Roberts Court is IMO as bad as that of Chief Justice Taney.
The definition of a 'bad court' is one whose decisions I don't like.
My gas central heating combi boiler installed in 2006 was replaced yesterday with a brand new A rated gas combi boiler with 12 year guarantee and the transformation in our water heat and house heating is extraordinary
Not sure I am keeping apace with net zero with a new gas ch boiler and in the last few weeks a new petrol driven car
I was talking to an acquaintance about this the other day. He and his wife both work (he claimed joint salary of around £70k), and have two young kids. He said a quote for an all-inclusive two-week foreign holiday this summer was between six and eight grand - far more than they can afford. He said that his parents were not well off, but managed at least one foreign holiday a year.
I have heard similar complaints from other parents. A very quick 'win' for any government would be to allow children one week off school term-time. Yes, I know that has consequences, but I also think it will be popular with everyone except teachers and price-gouging travel firms.
Oh God no. Those of us without kids quite like knowing exactly when to avoid booking! Expensive foreign holidays aren’t a human right, and education is much more important than a cheap week on a beach.
Hey, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do: just that it'd be popular.
I think that chap probably has a very particular kind of foreign holiday.
I think the minimum viable spend for a 2 week family summer holiday abroad is something like £3k. Similar for the UK unless you go very basic given accommodation here is more expensive.
Take a holiday in a reasonable but not fancy self catering cottage with a garden but no pool, somewhere in central France. Ferry 200, fuel and tolls around 250, accommodation say 1,800, 5-6 meals out 500, shopping for self catering another 200, museum & attraction tickets maybe another 100, that’s just over 3 grand.
The accommodation cost would be similar if you went Eurocamp.
That sort of holiday doesn’t vary in price quite so much around school holidays though.
For years I've advocated staggering the school holidays regionally.
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
I'd certainly go for staggering school holidays.
That 3k sounds approximately right to me - my quick look at a couple of sites revealed 2 week all-ins bookable for July from £1k per person for 2+2 in places like Turkey - which is quite a lot less than £8-10k.
I chatted to him about this (well, he talked at me...), and he doesn't want self-catering, and wants somewhere with decent food as he once lost a week of a holiday to stomach problems. Not my sort of holiday really.
Peston ( I know) suggesting Hunt is to abolish non dom status
Given that Labour has spent that money several times over and it props up some of the few remaining promises of significance in its intended manifesto, that would be political genius from the Tories, even if they do it in a way that ensures nothing changes until after the election
🙂
But Labour no longer have a policy to scrap non dom status. See my previous post.
Under their new flag “fiscal prudence or death” Labour realise they cannot get scrapping nom dom bringing in assured promise of money past the OBR and City as confirmed extra money every year, and realise the damage it will cause scrapping it, so Labour are now keeping it, only calling it another name to pretend they scrapped it as promised.
Rather than “political genius” from Tories, is the truth here a sign of their struggle and desperation to cobble together legitimate funding for the tax cuts?
Much more that than 4D chess. The reality is that with borrowing as high as it currently is, tax cuts are a joke anyway.
Unfortunately, they are the lucky rabbit's foot for the Conservatives. (Sorry for bringing it up, Moon), so they have to happen, whatever the effect on the rabbit (sorry again).
But you do finally agree with me about the 4D chess at play over timing of the next general election?
Those who want Tories to get the worst possible result, perhaps wipe out, trying to influence it to much later in year - talk up and tempt, like siren ferrets sitting on rocks and hiding their teeth, wait till later in the year where you can meet your pledges - and those who care about the party and wish to give the Conservatives the best possible result to recover from, suggesting this is May 2nd before sailing into choppy waters through summer and autumn.
Halcyon birds nest in summer, just like humans attracted by calm look of the weather and water. But however you delve into this and analyse it, this summer offers our sitting government no respite at all.
We are 47 weeks exactly from the general election on Thursday, 23rd January. Your analysis rests on an earlier election being better for the government than a later one, which I think is wrong. First, not even Liz Truss thinks it would be better to have Kier Starmer rather than Rishi in Number 10 for the rest of this year. Second, by negating the Opposition parties' ground war advantage, a holiday campaign is best for the Conservatives. Third, something might turn up.
You think an election over Christmas with Rishi waiting to the last second is going to get the Tory party votes.
I can see the Tory party returning as the 3rd or even 4th party is Rishi was that stupid
Not quite. I think an election over the holiday period will cost the Opposition parties more votes than it costs the government. And more importantly, I think some in CCHQ think that.
You keep saying this. Yet have provided no evidence for it. There is not going to be an election over Christmas - it would look utterly desperate. Yet you and Mexican keep saying it, perhaps to gain attention, who knows?
Which part? The rationale is that an election over the holiday period, when voters will not want to be bothered, will mean no canvassing or leafletting (or very little). These ground war activities favour the Opposition parties. In other words, it is not that a holiday election directly boosts Conservatives but that it removes an Opposition advantage.
In addition, a bad weather election (it will be cold and dark, even if dry, in January) means less committed voters such as former Tory voters with no great love of Labour are more likely to stay indoors and not vote.
This fucking climate. Still February. Cold dismal rain
I quite like late February. Largely for the contrast with January. Light in the morning when I wake up, light in the evening when I leave work. First signs of growth in the gardens and parks. A bit of warmth on the face.
All true, but according to my solar panel stats, we had about as much actual sunshine in February as in January. This simply isn't on.
Really? I've had about 30% more in Feb, with 10% fewer days.
It's been mild (central heating off) but grey.
Yes, it's grim down south.
This is still my first year with solar. I'm still fascinated by the stats. It sounds obvious, but I'm surprised how much more you produce on a sunny day; and how much more you produce on a sunny day in June than a sunny day in Jan. On a cloudless day in June I was producing nearly 40kwh; on an equally cloudless day in January I produced barely 5.
Feb in the NW has been - okish. Sunnier than Jan, anyway. Cloudy but bright presently.
Yes. You produce electricity when it is least required.
Solar makes sense where peak demand is for air con. Not here.
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
It's easily done - just copy the html from a genuine Royal Mail email and adjust as required. But yes, easy to do and fairly convincing. Need people to check where the links are actually going before clicking, which is not helped by legit companies using relays or URL shorteners or odd sounding subdomains/different domains*
On the ease of this, I once - on April 1, after she'd got me earlier in the morning - sent my now wife an email from one of her friends (faked email address, easy at the time as clients didn't do any checks) to the bbc news webste (actually bbc.co.uk/news/some-storyandalongstingofstuffsoyougetboredreadingitat@mydomain.com/bbc - before browsers flagged up that kind of thing) with a completely nonsense story about something dear to her heart - absolutely authentic looking as a copied a BBC website story page, changed only the main story text so all the links elsewhere on the page worked perfectly. I had great trouble convincing her that it was indeed an April fool joke, given she'd got the email from her friend and it was on the BBC website!
On the flip side, AI can also help defeat this shit - scan the email, check what it seems to be saying and what the company is, look up (e.g. via google) the website address of the company and flag in big flashing letters to the user if the links don't seem to go where they should. In my above example GMail at least would flag that the sending email seemed to be fake as not validated by the outgoing server and all modern browsers would flag up that the website being visited was mydomain.com, not bbc.co.uk
*for some years, Nationwide's online banking website was olb2.nationet.com or similar which is exactly the kind of thing people should be wary about when the main website is nationwide.co.uk or whatever.
A few months ago we all got an email at work urging us to complete online data security training. Linking to a new, non-organisation domain and requiring log in details (uni log in within an iframe). Many, including me, flagged it up to IT, prompting them to send out an email saying it was legit, this was the new provider, this website was ok etc but they appreciated the irony of an email on data security looking like a phishing email and were please that so many had reported it.
They've since changed the pathway so you get sent to a uni web page, log in and then get redirected to the provider as an authenticated user.
So, water supply question, tagging @MattW as he seems to know about many things housing, but others may know too:
We're on a shared water supply with Yorkshire Water. Eight houses on the pipe from the main that runs along the road. At times pressure is fine (when no one else is using) but at other times it's terrible, low flow downstairs and you can get absolutely nothing at times from upstairs taps, particularly shower (for extra height). At least one neighbour has installed a pump at the water main into property, but this apparently hasn't solved all issues (and if we all do it I suspect we'll be back to square one, assuming there's a limit to water flow through the shared pipe), pumped or not - as noted, there's no pressure issue when others are not using water.
I know water companies have an obligation to deliver minimal flow in most cases on single supplies, but does anyone know how this applies to shared supplies - is it per house or the water company just has to show sufficient flow at the start of the shared pipe? Yorkshire Water are a pain t get hold of and I'd like to be able to tell the person I speak to what the regulatory situation is, rather than be fobbed off.
Also, if we all get a pump, is that likely to help? Sections of the pipe have been replaced, but some is ancient pipe so there may also be flow constriction issues within the old parts of the shared pipe.
Peston ( I know) suggesting Hunt is to abolish non dom status
Given that Labour has spent that money several times over and it props up some of the few remaining promises of significance in its intended manifesto, that would be political genius from the Tories, even if they do it in a way that ensures nothing changes until after the election
🙂
But Labour no longer have a policy to scrap non dom status. See my previous post.
Under their new flag “fiscal prudence or death” Labour realise they cannot get scrapping nom dom bringing in assured promise of money past the OBR and City as confirmed extra money every year, and realise the damage it will cause scrapping it, so Labour are now keeping it, only calling it another name to pretend they scrapped it as promised.
Rather than “political genius” from Tories, is the truth here a sign of their struggle and desperation to cobble together legitimate funding for the tax cuts?
Much more that than 4D chess. The reality is that with borrowing as high as it currently is, tax cuts are a joke anyway.
Unfortunately, they are the lucky rabbit's foot for the Conservatives. (Sorry for bringing it up, Moon), so they have to happen, whatever the effect on the rabbit (sorry again).
But you do finally agree with me about the 4D chess at play over timing of the next general election?
Those who want Tories to get the worst possible result, perhaps wipe out, trying to influence it to much later in year - talk up and tempt, like siren ferrets sitting on rocks and hiding their teeth, wait till later in the year where you can meet your pledges - and those who care about the party and wish to give the Conservatives the best possible result to recover from, suggesting this is May 2nd before sailing into choppy waters through summer and autumn.
Halcyon birds nest in summer, just like humans attracted by calm look of the weather and water. But however you delve into this and analyse it, this summer offers our sitting government no respite at all.
We are 47 weeks exactly from the general election on Thursday, 23rd January. Your analysis rests on an earlier election being better for the government than a later one, which I think is wrong. First, not even Liz Truss thinks it would be better to have Kier Starmer rather than Rishi in Number 10 for the rest of this year. Second, by negating the Opposition parties' ground war advantage, a holiday campaign is best for the Conservatives. Third, something might turn up.
You think an election over Christmas with Rishi waiting to the last second is going to get the Tory party votes.
I can see the Tory party returning as the 3rd or even 4th party is Rishi was that stupid
Not quite. I think an election over the holiday period will cost the Opposition parties more votes than it costs the government. And more importantly, I think some in CCHQ think that.
You keep saying this. Yet have provided no evidence for it. There is not going to be an election over Christmas - it would look utterly desperate. Yet you and Mexican keep saying it, perhaps to gain attention, who knows?
Which part? The rationale is that an election over the holiday period, when voters will not want to be bothered, will mean no canvassing or leafletting (or very little). These ground war activities favour the Opposition parties. In other words, it is not that a holiday election directly boosts Conservatives but that it removes an Opposition advantage.
In addition, a bad weather election (it will be cold and dark, even if dry, in January) means less committed voters such as former Tory voters with no great love of Labour are more likely to stay indoors and not vote.
An election campaign when all the lefty teachers have a long holiday suggests more of a ground game for Labour and LDs.
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
It's easily done - just copy the html from a genuine Royal Mail email and adjust as required. But yes, easy to do and fairly convincing. Need people to check where the links are actually going before clicking, which is not helped by legit companies using relays or URL shorteners or odd sounding subdomains/different domains*
On the ease of this, I once - on April 1, after she'd got me earlier in the morning - sent my now wife an email from one of her friends (faked email address, easy at the time as clients didn't do any checks) to the bbc news webste (actually bbc.co.uk/news/some-storyandalongstingofstuffsoyougetboredreadingitat@mydomain.com/bbc - before browsers flagged up that kind of thing) with a completely nonsense story about something dear to her heart - absolutely authentic looking as a copied a BBC website story page, changed only the main story text so all the links elsewhere on the page worked perfectly. I had great trouble convincing her that it was indeed an April fool joke, given she'd got the email from her friend and it was on the BBC website!
On the flip side, AI can also help defeat this shit - scan the email, check what it seems to be saying and what the company is, look up (e.g. via google) the website address of the company and flag in big flashing letters to the user if the links don't seem to go where they should. In my above example GMail at least would flag that the sending email seemed to be fake as not validated by the outgoing server and all modern browsers would flag up that the website being visited was mydomain.com, not bbc.co.uk
*for some years, Nationwide's online banking website was olb2.nationet.com or similar which is exactly the kind of thing people should be wary about when the main website is nationwide.co.uk or whatever.
A few months ago we all got an email at work urging us to complete online data security training. Linking to a new, non-organisation domain and requiring log in details (uni log in within an iframe). Many, including me, flagged it up to IT, prompting them to send out an email saying it was legit, this was the new provider, this website was ok etc but they appreciated the irony of an email on data security looking like a phishing email and were please that so many had reported it.
They've since changed the pathway so you get sent to a uni web page, log in and then get redirected to the provider as an authenticated user.
LOL, either they’re a bunch of idiots, or they were testing how security-aware the organisation was at the start of the exercise!
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
You think an election over Christmas with Rishi waiting to the last second is going to get the Tory party votes.
I can see the Tory party returning as the 3rd or even 4th party is Rishi was that stupid
Two LibDem friends are convinced it will be May, but only on the basis of "people will just have found Hunt's tax cuts in their wage slips", plus Sunak has apparently postponed two important meetings in April. My guess is that they are keeping options open and they'll look at a post-Budget poll and decide on the basis of that. If Labour is mangled in the by-election, even by Galloway, that might help too.
Historically, Budgets haven't tended to do much to the polls IIRC. People tend to say "on balance good for the country, doesn't affect me much". This is supposedly a giveaway Budget so m,ight be different, but I think the public is in a sceptical frame of mind.
Labour got 52% at the 2019 general election and Labour are riding much higher in the polls. A large majority of Rochdales voters are going to be in favour of Labour. Voters will be handed a ballot paper that says, right at the top, Azhar Ali - Labour Party. Many of them will have minimal awareness or comprehension of Ali being disowned by the party, or will presume someone else was disowned and this is now the new candidate because he has Labour by his name, or will think a defrocked Labour candidate is close enough to a real Labour candidate.
The closest parallel is Neale Hanvey, who stood for the SNP but was disowned over antisemitic comments, albeit at a general election rather than a by-election. Hanvey saw a mere 1.1pp drop in the SNP vote, in a general where the average SNP change was +0.8pp. That suggests about a 2pp penalty against Hanvey. If Ali suffers a 2pp decrease in the Labour vote share, he wins by a huge majority.
I tend to agree Lab are a good price now. I have equalised my position on GG and Lab so both are now equally green
The Supreme Court decision to grant review of Trump's immunity claim, and in a few months at that, means that none of the criminal trials will be concluded by November. It is a truly shocking decision given the baseless arguments which were unanimously and contemptuously dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
There will come a time when this Court and its members will be held to account for its destruction of democracy. Or there won't be any democracy left to save.
Taken all in all, the Roberts Court is IMO as bad as that of Chief Justice Taney.
The definition of a 'bad court' is one whose decisions I don't like.
I'm sure there's an element of that but when you can predict the outcomes of judicial decisions based on the political leanings of the judges, ruling against precedent, in order to engineer and outcome, then I think the Court does have a problem and could be considered 'bad' fairly objectively.
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
I was talking to an acquaintance about this the other day. He and his wife both work (he claimed joint salary of around £70k), and have two young kids. He said a quote for an all-inclusive two-week foreign holiday this summer was between six and eight grand - far more than they can afford. He said that his parents were not well off, but managed at least one foreign holiday a year.
I have heard similar complaints from other parents. A very quick 'win' for any government would be to allow children one week off school term-time. Yes, I know that has consequences, but I also think it will be popular with everyone except teachers and price-gouging travel firms.
Oh God no. Those of us without kids quite like knowing exactly when to avoid booking! Expensive foreign holidays aren’t a human right, and education is much more important than a cheap week on a beach.
Hey, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do: just that it'd be popular.
I think that chap probably has a very particular kind of foreign holiday.
I think the minimum viable spend for a 2 week family summer holiday abroad is something like £3k. Similar for the UK unless you go very basic given accommodation here is more expensive.
Take a holiday in a reasonable but not fancy self catering cottage with a garden but no pool, somewhere in central France. Ferry 200, fuel and tolls around 250, accommodation say 1,800, 5-6 meals out 500, shopping for self catering another 200, museum & attraction tickets maybe another 100, that’s just over 3 grand.
The accommodation cost would be similar if you went Eurocamp.
That sort of holiday doesn’t vary in price quite so much around school holidays though.
For years I've advocated staggering the school holidays regionally.
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
Hence the number of Scots flying from Manchester and Newcastle for summer holidays in the first fortnight of July when Scottish school holidays have started and airlines charge a hefty supplement from Glasgow and Edinburgh.
You think an election over Christmas with Rishi waiting to the last second is going to get the Tory party votes.
I can see the Tory party returning as the 3rd or even 4th party is Rishi was that stupid
Two LibDem friends are convinced it will be May, but only on the basis of "people will just have found Hunt's tax cuts in their wage slips", plus Sunak has apparently postponed two important meetings in April. My guess is that they are keeping options open and they'll look at a post-Budget poll and decide on the basis of that. If Labour is mangled in the by-election, even by Galloway, that might help too.
Historically, Budgets haven't tended to do much to the polls IIRC. People tend to say "on balance good for the country, doesn't affect me much". This is supposedly a giveaway Budget so m,ight be different, but I think the public is in a sceptical frame of mind.
A Tory PPC I was speaking to said she’s been told to keep things ready for a “worst case scenario” May election which implies it’s still plan B.
I was talking to an acquaintance about this the other day. He and his wife both work (he claimed joint salary of around £70k), and have two young kids. He said a quote for an all-inclusive two-week foreign holiday this summer was between six and eight grand - far more than they can afford. He said that his parents were not well off, but managed at least one foreign holiday a year.
I have heard similar complaints from other parents. A very quick 'win' for any government would be to allow children one week off school term-time. Yes, I know that has consequences, but I also think it will be popular with everyone except teachers and price-gouging travel firms.
Oh God no. Those of us without kids quite like knowing exactly when to avoid booking! Expensive foreign holidays aren’t a human right, and education is much more important than a cheap week on a beach.
Hey, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do: just that it'd be popular.
I think that chap probably has a very particular kind of foreign holiday.
I think the minimum viable spend for a 2 week family summer holiday abroad is something like £3k. Similar for the UK unless you go very basic given accommodation here is more expensive.
Take a holiday in a reasonable but not fancy self catering cottage with a garden but no pool, somewhere in central France. Ferry 200, fuel and tolls around 250, accommodation say 1,800, 5-6 meals out 500, shopping for self catering another 200, museum & attraction tickets maybe another 100, that’s just over 3 grand.
The accommodation cost would be similar if you went Eurocamp.
That sort of holiday doesn’t vary in price quite so much around school holidays though.
For years I've advocated staggering the school holidays regionally.
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
I'd certainly go for staggering school holidays.
That 3k sounds approximately right to me - my quick look at a couple of sites revealed 2 week all-ins bookable for July from £1k per person for 2+2 in places like Turkey - which is quite a lot less than £8-10k.
I chatted to him about this (well, he talked at me...), and he doesn't want self-catering, and wants somewhere with decent food as he once lost a week of a holiday to stomach problems. Not my sort of holiday really.
The cheapest self catering holidays have pretty poor food, often. They also tend to try and push you into buying better.
I much prefer renting an actual property to hotels for family holidays - outside the US and Canada, connecting rooms seem rare. When you have young kids, you want that combination of a bit of privacy *and* they need to be in a room next to you.
Labour got 52% at the 2019 general election and Labour are riding much higher in the polls. A large majority of Rochdales voters are going to be in favour of Labour. Voters will be handed a ballot paper that says, right at the top, Azhar Ali - Labour Party. Many of them will have minimal awareness or comprehension of Ali being disowned by the party, or will presume someone else was disowned and this is now the new candidate because he has Labour by his name, or will think a defrocked Labour candidate is close enough to a real Labour candidate.
The closest parallel is Neale Hanvey, who stood for the SNP but was disowned over antisemitic comments, albeit at a general election rather than a by-election. Hanvey saw a mere 1.1pp drop in the SNP vote, in a general where the average SNP change was +0.8pp. That suggests about a 2pp penalty against Hanvey. If Ali suffers a 2pp decrease in the Labour vote share, he wins by a huge majority.
In Batley and Spen people like NPXMP reported people actively supporting Labour as a vote against Galloway. Galloway is very polarising. There are plenty of people who are actively against him as well as being for him.
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
Comments would be welcome.
This sounds like something that the basic video editing toolkit inside YouTube can do?
Just rough cut the beginning & end of your video in your phone, upload it to youtube & do the rest there from a laptop or something? It doesn’t sound like you need the full power of a professional-grade program.
Labour got 52% at the 2019 general election and Labour are riding much higher in the polls. A large majority of Rochdales voters are going to be in favour of Labour. Voters will be handed a ballot paper that says, right at the top, Azhar Ali - Labour Party. Many of them will have minimal awareness or comprehension of Ali being disowned by the party, or will presume someone else was disowned and this is now the new candidate because he has Labour by his name, or will think a defrocked Labour candidate is close enough to a real Labour candidate.
The closest parallel is Neale Hanvey, who stood for the SNP but was disowned over antisemitic comments, albeit at a general election rather than a by-election. Hanvey saw a mere 1.1pp drop in the SNP vote, in a general where the average SNP change was +0.8pp. That suggests about a 2pp penalty against Hanvey. If Ali suffers a 2pp decrease in the Labour vote share, he wins by a huge majority.
Remind me of the nature of our small charity bet - was it whether Lab gets 40% in Rochdale?
I do agree with much of your analysis - my view is that there will be enough sharing of the votes around the parties that the winning percentage will be relatively small. But still comfortably clear of second place.
Yes, Labour above or below 40%. There's a lot riding on it: loser donates £5 to Alzheimer's Research UK.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
The court can, as I pointed out, rule without hearing the case. It could have done so this week. They could have ruled as did the federal appeals court.That would be a SC ruling in the matter, and binding precedent.
The court cannot, by their own rules, hear arguments in a case unless they accept their potential validity. By hearing the case they are taking seriously the argument that a President is immune to charges for any crimes committed while in office; that is the basis of Trump's appeal.
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
Comments would be welcome.
I'm on Mac - iMovie does the job.
Please include in your video some examples of doing gates etc. right.
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
Comments would be welcome.
This sounds like something that the basic video editing toolkit inside YouTube can do?
Just rough cut the beginning & end of your video in your phone, upload it to youtube & do the rest there from a laptop or something? It doesn’t sound like you need the full power of a professional-grade program.
If it is more complicated, then Kdenlive is good (and free) although there's a fair learning curve. Not sure how well it works on Windows; I've only used on Linux.
If you don't mind the command line then something like ffmpeg will easily cut and join videos together, without fancy transitions. The learning curve there is basically googling how to do it and then copying.
ETA: but neither of those really come under basic!
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Blaming the Supreme Court is easier than explaining why its taken 38 months to bring Trump to trial in a federal court.
It's fairly easy to explain why the cases have taken so long. Ever stage of gathering evidence has been fought through the courts - which is why Trump's legal bills are in the tens of millions.
The Supreme Court decision to grant review of Trump's immunity claim, and in a few months at that, means that none of the criminal trials will be concluded by November. It is a truly shocking decision given the baseless arguments which were unanimously and contemptuously dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
There will come a time when this Court and its members will be held to account for its destruction of democracy. Or there won't be any democracy left to save.
Taken all in all, the Roberts Court is IMO as bad as that of Chief Justice Taney.
The definition of a 'bad court' is one whose decisions I don't like.
Has the Guardian got bored with poverty porn or is accepting that vast amounts of taxpayers money is spent on social security ?
You lead a bizarre life, trawling leftwing websites to see what they are not talking about in a weird stalky way of trying to prove some sort of point. Have you and 30p Lee ever been seen in the same room? Do you still think Mansfield is the vision for Britain?
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
It's easily done - just copy the html from a genuine Royal Mail email and adjust as required. But yes, easy to do and fairly convincing. Need people to check where the links are actually going before clicking, which is not helped by legit companies using relays or URL shorteners or odd sounding subdomains/different domains*
On the ease of this, I once - on April 1, after she'd got me earlier in the morning - sent my now wife an email from one of her friends (faked email address, easy at the time as clients didn't do any checks) to the bbc news webste (actually bbc.co.uk/news/some-storyandalongstingofstuffsoyougetboredreadingitat@mydomain.com/bbc - before browsers flagged up that kind of thing) with a completely nonsense story about something dear to her heart - absolutely authentic looking as a copied a BBC website story page, changed only the main story text so all the links elsewhere on the page worked perfectly. I had great trouble convincing her that it was indeed an April fool joke, given she'd got the email from her friend and it was on the BBC website!
On the flip side, AI can also help defeat this shit - scan the email, check what it seems to be saying and what the company is, look up (e.g. via google) the website address of the company and flag in big flashing letters to the user if the links don't seem to go where they should. In my above example GMail at least would flag that the sending email seemed to be fake as not validated by the outgoing server and all modern browsers would flag up that the website being visited was mydomain.com, not bbc.co.uk
*for some years, Nationwide's online banking website was olb2.nationet.com or similar which is exactly the kind of thing people should be wary about when the main website is nationwide.co.uk or whatever.
A few months ago we all got an email at work urging us to complete online data security training. Linking to a new, non-organisation domain and requiring log in details (uni log in within an iframe). Many, including me, flagged it up to IT, prompting them to send out an email saying it was legit, this was the new provider, this website was ok etc but they appreciated the irony of an email on data security looking like a phishing email and were please that so many had reported it.
They've since changed the pathway so you get sent to a uni web page, log in and then get redirected to the provider as an authenticated user.
LOL, either they’re a bunch of idiots, or they were testing how security-aware the organisation was at the start of the exercise!
I suspect the former! We have a weird IT set up where my department, which deals with sensitive healthcare data, has its own IT department in addition to the uni one (and ours is somewhat better, with better skilled people who actually understand technical questions; we're on a separate network for many things). Our IT head was not very impressed at whoever had sent out the email/set up the new provider and it was our IT that confirmed legitimacy and noted the irony.
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
Comments would be welcome.
This sounds like something that the basic video editing toolkit inside YouTube can do?
Just rough cut the beginning & end of your video in your phone, upload it to youtube & do the rest there from a laptop or something? It doesn’t sound like you need the full power of a professional-grade program.
If Galloway wins, he will want to use parliament as a platform for his (ahem) rather interesting views. I can imagine him saying some stuff that will knowingly get himself in trouble with parliamentary authorities, in order to play the victim card. "I was telling the truth to power!" and that sort of rubbish.
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
They appear to be getting better at sniffing out and targeting the gullible, too...
The Supreme Court decision to grant review of Trump's immunity claim, and in a few months at that, means that none of the criminal trials will be concluded by November. It is a truly shocking decision given the baseless arguments which were unanimously and contemptuously dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
There will come a time when this Court and its members will be held to account for its destruction of democracy. Or there won't be any democracy left to save.
Taken all in all, the Roberts Court is IMO as bad as that of Chief Justice Taney.
The definition of a 'bad court' is one whose decisions I don't like.
I'm sure there's an element of that but when you can predict the outcomes of judicial decisions based on the political leanings of the judges, ruling against precedent, in order to engineer and outcome, then I think the Court does have a problem and could be considered 'bad' fairly objectively.
Given that there were no dissents on the SC ruling we don't even know how many SC justices have decided to take up the appeal:
Unfortunately people are always too willing to believe in grand conspiracies when a ruling goes against them and all too quick to forget when a ruling goes for them.
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
Comments would be welcome.
I'm on Mac - iMovie does the job.
Please include in your video some examples of doing gates etc. right.
Sorry I see you got there first. As ever, Apple makes things easy. Why does anyone bother with anything else?
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
It's easily done - just copy the html from a genuine Royal Mail email and adjust as required. But yes, easy to do and fairly convincing. Need people to check where the links are actually going before clicking, which is not helped by legit companies using relays or URL shorteners or odd sounding subdomains/different domains*
On the ease of this, I once - on April 1, after she'd got me earlier in the morning - sent my now wife an email from one of her friends (faked email address, easy at the time as clients didn't do any checks) to the bbc news webste (actually bbc.co.uk/news/some-storyandalongstingofstuffsoyougetboredreadingitat@mydomain.com/bbc - before browsers flagged up that kind of thing) with a completely nonsense story about something dear to her heart - absolutely authentic looking as a copied a BBC website story page, changed only the main story text so all the links elsewhere on the page worked perfectly. I had great trouble convincing her that it was indeed an April fool joke, given she'd got the email from her friend and it was on the BBC website!
On the flip side, AI can also help defeat this shit - scan the email, check what it seems to be saying and what the company is, look up (e.g. via google) the website address of the company and flag in big flashing letters to the user if the links don't seem to go where they should. In my above example GMail at least would flag that the sending email seemed to be fake as not validated by the outgoing server and all modern browsers would flag up that the website being visited was mydomain.com, not bbc.co.uk
*for some years, Nationwide's online banking website was olb2.nationet.com or similar which is exactly the kind of thing people should be wary about when the main website is nationwide.co.uk or whatever.
Security is only as good as the people who implement it and carry it out. I'm sure I have told this story before and it is a non internet security issue but shows the stupidity of having a set of rules that staff obey blindly without engaging their brains.
I took over a business. I had been given all their office material. The balance on their bank account needed to be transferred to me. The transfer wasn't happening and I was getting suspicious particularly as there was an upcoming window of 6 weeks where I would be out of contact with the person transferring the money and I was wary of hassling too much as that wouldn't bode well for the future as his organisation and organisations he was close to would be my future customers. I decided to contact the bank to see if any transfer had been attempted. I expected this to fail because I didn't have any authority to do so. I made this very clear upfront that I was the transferee not the transferor so had no authority. The person on the other end of the phone just ignored all of this, they just wanted to ask me security questions all of which I could answer because I had all the bank details. Each time I answered a question I made it quite clear who I was. They didn't care. No transfer had been initiated, but they would let me do so if I wished or do anything I wanted. I declined and chased the transferor again now I knew he was dithering. The transfer happened and all was well, but I was shocked that the bank was willing to do whatever I wanted just because I could answer the security questions even though I was upfront that I wasn't the customer.
Lee Cain admitted on Sky News that it was Jeremy Corbyn's unpopularity as opposed to Johnson's being popular than won them the 2019 election.
I would consider this when the Tories intend to understand how to win again. I am not sure 2019 is the model to follow as Labour is unlikely anytime soon to elect a nutjob.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Blaming the Supreme Court is easier than explaining why its taken 38 months to bring Trump to trial in a federal court.
Because he only announced he was running again 14 months ago?
He should have been up on charges for insurrection - even with the US system, 18 months should have been possible.
It took up to 18months to be granted subpoenas for simple matters like mobile phone records at the beginning of the investigation. Under the U.S. system, a case involving so many witnesses - members of the Trump administration, for example - who are both reluctant to be interviewed, and have well funded legal representation, can't possibly be brought in so short a time.
That's not even taking into account the holdovers from the Trump administration in the FBI and Justice Dept, and the time it took for Biden's appointment to receive Congressional approval.
People blaming Merrick Garland for the pace of the investigation don't know what they're talking about.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Blaming the Supreme Court is easier than explaining why its taken 38 months to bring Trump to trial in a federal court.
Because he only announced he was running again 14 months ago?
He should have been up on charges for insurrection - even with the US system, 18 months should have been possible.
It took up to 18months to be granted subpoenas for simple matters like mobile phone records at the beginning of the investigation. Under the U.S. system, a case involving so many witnesses - members of the Trump administration, for example - who are both reluctant to be interviewed, and have well funded legal representation, can't possibly be brought in so short a time.
That's not even taking into account the holdovers from the Trump administration in the FBI and Justice Dept, and the time it took for Biden's appointment to receive Congressional approval.
People blaming Merrick Garland for the pace of the investigation don't know what they're talking about.
For comparison, this is from a Guardian article about the UK: "In the final quarter of 2022, there were 447 fraud cases, which took on average a record 497 days to complete from charge."
If Galloway wins, he will want to use parliament as a platform for his (ahem) rather interesting views. I can imagine him saying some stuff that will knowingly get himself in trouble with parliamentary authorities, in order to play the victim card. "I was telling the truth to power!" and that sort of rubbish.
Will he?
I'd think he'd only turn up one or twice a month to make some rant he can post to social media, while carrying on with whatever other grifts he's currently pursuing, while pocketing the MP's salary and expenses.
Even if it's only for 9 months it's a fair wodge of extra money.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
The court can, as I pointed out, rule without hearing the case. It could have done so this week. They could have ruled as did the federal appeals court.That would be a SC ruling in the matter, and binding precedent.
The court cannot, by their own rules, hear arguments in a case unless they accept their potential validity. By hearing the case they are taking seriously the argument that a President is immune to charges for any crimes committed while in office; that is the basis of Trump's appeal.
Yes, it's ridiculous. This court has made summary judgments on a whole raft of contentious issues, and this isn't a complicated one.
I'm just watching a Channel 5 documentary on Anne Boleyn, where Owen Jones is interviewed about Cromwell.
I'm just waiting for a call to be interviewed about Hereward the Wake's influence on early Norman times...
It’s good that they found Owen Jones to consult on Cromwell as there are absolutely no actual experts on him and the period and so clearly better to speak to someone who studied history a couple of decades ago and writes about modern class issues.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Blaming the Supreme Court is easier than explaining why its taken 38 months to bring Trump to trial in a federal court.
It's fairly easy to explain why the cases have taken so long. Ever stage of gathering evidence has been fought through the courts - which is why Trump's legal bills are in the tens of millions.
Trump's wealth is fairly nebulous, but lawyers tend to prefer actual cash rather than IOUs. How's he generated the free cash flow to pay all his bills - Deutsche, donors, asset (Pfnarr) sales ?
Peston ( I know) suggesting Hunt is to abolish non dom status
Given that Labour has spent that money several times over and it props up some of the few remaining promises of significance in its intended manifesto, that would be political genius from the Tories, even if they do it in a way that ensures nothing changes until after the election
🙂
But Labour no longer have a policy to scrap non dom status. See my previous post.
Under their new flag “fiscal prudence or death” Labour realise they cannot get scrapping nom dom bringing in assured promise of money past the OBR and City as confirmed extra money every year, and realise the damage it will cause scrapping it, so Labour are now keeping it, only calling it another name to pretend they scrapped it as promised.
Rather than “political genius” from Tories, is the truth here a sign of their struggle and desperation to cobble together legitimate funding for the tax cuts?
Much more that than 4D chess. The reality is that with borrowing as high as it currently is, tax cuts are a joke anyway.
Unfortunately, they are the lucky rabbit's foot for the Conservatives. (Sorry for bringing it up, Moon), so they have to happen, whatever the effect on the rabbit (sorry again).
But you do finally agree with me about the 4D chess at play over timing of the next general election?
Those who want Tories to get the worst possible result, perhaps wipe out, trying to influence it to much later in year - talk up and tempt, like siren ferrets sitting on rocks and hiding their teeth, wait till later in the year where you can meet your pledges - and those who care about the party and wish to give the Conservatives the best possible result to recover from, suggesting this is May 2nd before sailing into choppy waters through summer and autumn.
Halcyon birds nest in summer, just like humans attracted by calm look of the weather and water. But however you delve into this and analyse it, this summer offers our sitting government no respite at all.
We are 47 weeks exactly from the general election on Thursday, 23rd January. Your analysis rests on an earlier election being better for the government than a later one, which I think is wrong. First, not even Liz Truss thinks it would be better to have Kier Starmer rather than Rishi in Number 10 for the rest of this year. Second, by negating the Opposition parties' ground war advantage, a holiday campaign is best for the Conservatives. Third, something might turn up.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Blaming the Supreme Court is easier than explaining why its taken 38 months to bring Trump to trial in a federal court.
Because he only announced he was running again 14 months ago?
He should have been up on charges for insurrection - even with the US system, 18 months should have been possible.
It took up to 18months to be granted subpoenas for simple matters like mobile phone records at the beginning of the investigation. Under the U.S. system, a case involving so many witnesses - members of the Trump administration, for example - who are both reluctant to be interviewed, and have well funded legal representation, can't possibly be brought in so short a time.
That's not even taking into account the holdovers from the Trump administration in the FBI and Justice Dept, and the time it took for Biden's appointment to receive Congressional approval.
People blaming Merrick Garland for the pace of the investigation don't know what they're talking about.
I am copying this from elsewhere but it is of interest:
Garland actions PRIOR Jack Smith appointment:
Seized John Eastman's phone Seized Jeffrey Clark's phone Seized Scott Perry's emails Seized Eastman's emails Seized Epshteyn's phone Seized Mike Lindell's phone Seized Mike Roman's phone Seized Scott Perry's phone Got Kash Patel's testimony Appointed Windom Appointed Cooney Subpoenaed the fraudulent electors Subpoenaed 7 state's election officials Subpoenaed Sidney's PAC Subpoenaed Rudy Opened IG probe into Clark Opened IG probe into DoJ response to 1/6 Negotiated subpoena for Meadows Battled the 11th circuit for classified docs Subpoenaed trump for classified docs Subpoenaed trump for surveillance video Executed a search warrant on trump Convicted Bannon of contempt Indicted Navarro for contempt Subpoenaed the speakers from 1/6 Subpoenaed the organizers of 1/6 Secured seditious conspiracy convictions Subpoenaed records for congress members involved in 1/6 Subpoenaed info on Jenna Ellis Secured testimony from Mark Short Secured testimony from Jacob Engel Secured testimony from Philbin Secured testimony from Cippollone Subpoenaed info on trump's PACs Won privilege battles for Short, Engel, and the Pats Negotiated for Pence's subpoena Seized the phone records of Meadows Secured the 1/6 committee transcripts Subpoenaed 7 secretaries of state
Is it possible some of this could have been done a little faster? Sure, but when you are dealing with reluctant witnesses who are well lawyered up its not the worst effort.
It looks like the Da Vinci package is the place to start, as I have had a couple of offline recommendations on that, too, and to play with Clip Champ (which is free from Microsoft) and the Youtube facility.
I'm just watching a Channel 5 documentary on Anne Boleyn, where Owen Jones is interviewed about Cromwell.
I'm just waiting for a call to be interviewed about Hereward the Wake's influence on early Norman times...
I know, he read History at the dump.
I had rather assumed from his attitude he'd been somewhere more redbrick (no insult intended btw).
Once again I note an Oxbridge graduate, who must therefore be at least in theory a bit more intelligent than me, gives the impression much of the time of being a bit of an idiot. It is a reminder to me that the chances are, if I had any kind of prominent public role the likelihood is I'd be even worse.
I'm glad I've spent my working life mostly in obscurity as an IT Project Manager where I can make my mistakes in private.
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
It's easily done - just copy the html from a genuine Royal Mail email and adjust as required. But yes, easy to do and fairly convincing. Need people to check where the links are actually going before clicking, which is not helped by legit companies using relays or URL shorteners or odd sounding subdomains/different domains*
On the ease of this, I once - on April 1, after she'd got me earlier in the morning - sent my now wife an email from one of her friends (faked email address, easy at the time as clients didn't do any checks) to the bbc news webste (actually bbc.co.uk/news/some-storyandalongstingofstuffsoyougetboredreadingitat@mydomain.com/bbc - before browsers flagged up that kind of thing) with a completely nonsense story about something dear to her heart - absolutely authentic looking as a copied a BBC website story page, changed only the main story text so all the links elsewhere on the page worked perfectly. I had great trouble convincing her that it was indeed an April fool joke, given she'd got the email from her friend and it was on the BBC website!
On the flip side, AI can also help defeat this shit - scan the email, check what it seems to be saying and what the company is, look up (e.g. via google) the website address of the company and flag in big flashing letters to the user if the links don't seem to go where they should. In my above example GMail at least would flag that the sending email seemed to be fake as not validated by the outgoing server and all modern browsers would flag up that the website being visited was mydomain.com, not bbc.co.uk
*for some years, Nationwide's online banking website was olb2.nationet.com or similar which is exactly the kind of thing people should be wary about when the main website is nationwide.co.uk or whatever.
Security is only as good as the people who implement it and carry it out. I'm sure I have told this story before and it is a non internet security issue but shows the stupidity of having a set of rules that staff obey blindly without engaging their brains.
I took over a business. I had been given all their office material. The balance on their bank account needed to be transferred to me. The transfer wasn't happening and I was getting suspicious particularly as there was an upcoming window of 6 weeks where I would be out of contact with the person transferring the money and I was wary of hassling too much as that wouldn't bode well for the future as his organisation and organisations he was close to would be my future customers. I decided to contact the bank to see if any transfer had been attempted. I expected this to fail because I didn't have any authority to do so. I made this very clear upfront that I was the transferee not the transferor so had no authority. The person on the other end of the phone just ignored all of this, they just wanted to ask me security questions all of which I could answer because I had all the bank details. Each time I answered a question I made it quite clear who I was. They didn't care. No transfer had been initiated, but they would let me do so if I wished or do anything I wanted. I declined and chased the transferor again now I knew he was dithering. The transfer happened and all was well, but I was shocked that the bank was willing to do whatever I wanted just because I could answer the security questions even though I was upfront that I wasn't the customer.
Most of us are probably more easily gulled than we think. When I ran an IT department in Novartis (big Swiss pharma firm) I came back from holiday to find an email from the CEO saying he'd heard I was away and hoped it would be a long trip. I thought WTF - it appeared to be definitely from his email address - and emailed back to say that I was still getting accustomed to the Swiss sense of humour. He replied sharply that it wasn't from him, kindly investigate.
A member of my team confessed, and said he never dreamed I wouldn't spot the spoof. Might have been a career-ending event for him in some companies, but I just told the CEO that it was a joke gone wrong, and he cheerfully shrugged it off. But I was startled how easily I'd been taken in by what on reflection was a very unlikely email.
Has the Guardian got bored with poverty porn or is accepting that vast amounts of taxpayers money is spent on social security ?
You lead a bizarre life, trawling leftwing websites to see what they are not talking about in a weird stalky way of trying to prove some sort of point. Have you and 30p Lee ever been seen in the same room? Do you still think Mansfield is the vision for Britain?
Nothing so exciting.
I merely look at the Guardian website when I've nothing to do at work.
And I noticed that the 'heat or eat' diaries, which had been becoming steadily rarer over the last year, have now disappeared altogether.
Why ? I don't know but suggested two possible reasons.
As to Mansfield, well each to their own desires of course, but I note that Mansfield has lower unemployment than any constituency in Ealing or Enfield or Brent or Harrow or Haringay or Hounslow for example.
An official report has revealed new and damning failures by police who missed Wayne Couzens’ prolific sexual offending, leaving him armed with police powers which he used to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard.
The failures laid out in the report by Dame Elish Angiolini are worse than previously thought, and she concludes Couzens should never have been a police officer. She highlighted a series of chances to spot his danger to women and his unsuitability be an officer that were missed by repeated bungling in three forces.
He was a Metropolitan police officer and entrusted with a gun as part of the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command.
I'm just watching a Channel 5 documentary on Anne Boleyn, where Owen Jones is interviewed about Cromwell.
I'm just waiting for a call to be interviewed about Hereward the Wake's influence on early Norman times...
I know, he read History at the dump.
I had rather assumed from his attitude he'd been somewhere more redbrick (no insult intended btw).
Once again I note an Oxbridge graduate, who must therefore be at least in theory a bit more intelligent than me, gives the impression much of the time of being a bit of an idiot. It is a reminder to me that the chances are, if I had any kind of prominent public role the likelihood is I'd be even worse.
I'm glad I've spent my working life mostly in obscurity as an IT Project Manager where I can make my mistakes in private.
I got an incredibly plausible scam email from “Royal Mail”
Here it is
It asks you to click through, then pay for a new delivery. Just £1.35 or something
However the demand for money got me suspicious, so I started checking the “links” and none of them really works - they all click through to the same cash demand
But wow. They absolutely nailed the font, the styling, the imagery - at first glance it is entirely plausible. No obvious typos or weird phrases
These will only get better with AI. Beware!
They appear to be getting better at sniffing out and targeting the gullible, too...
What the scammers really need to do is start focusing on scams that will hook the conspiracy theorists, since these people are by definition very gullible. Maybe something like:
- "Worried about 5G? Install our anti-5G control software protection. Allows us to recover you device in the event of 5G damage." - "Register here to opt out of government Diversity rules for a one-off payment of £5.99." - "Protect your voting rights - register your details with prevent_voter_fraud.co.uk for just £4.99 per month." - "Boat refugees to be placed in UK homes! Opt out now! Just £19.99 per year."
An official report has revealed new and damning failures by police who missed Wayne Couzens’ prolific sexual offending, leaving him armed with police powers which he used to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard.
The failures laid out in the report by Dame Elish Angiolini are worse than previously thought, and she concludes Couzens should never have been a police officer. She highlighted a series of chances to spot his danger to women and his unsuitability be an officer that were missed by repeated bungling in three forces.
He was a Metropolitan police officer and entrusted with a gun as part of the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command.
On the one hand, it is terrible and of course Couzens should never have been a police officer. It is vital that similar cases are screened out. On the other hand, Couzens would probably still be a rapist and murderer; it is not as if he used his police-issued firearm to kill and anyone can claim to be an officer.
When the TalkTalk data hack occurred I, as a customer of TalkTalk at the time, called my bank. Am I at risk from the hackers knowing my details, I asked. Well, came the reply, with that information they could if they really wanted to transfer money into your account.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Blaming the Supreme Court is easier than explaining why its taken 38 months to bring Trump to trial in a federal court.
It's fairly easy to explain why the cases have taken so long. Ever stage of gathering evidence has been fought through the courts - which is why Trump's legal bills are in the tens of millions.
Trump's wealth is fairly nebulous, but lawyers tend to prefer actual cash rather than IOUs. How's he generated the free cash flow to pay all his bills - Deutsche, donors, asset (Pfnarr) sales ?
Trump's PACs - Save America, and Make America Great Again - have paid tens of millions between them.
An official report has revealed new and damning failures by police who missed Wayne Couzens’ prolific sexual offending, leaving him armed with police powers which he used to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard.
The failures laid out in the report by Dame Elish Angiolini are worse than previously thought, and she concludes Couzens should never have been a police officer. She highlighted a series of chances to spot his danger to women and his unsuitability be an officer that were missed by repeated bungling in three forces.
He was a Metropolitan police officer and entrusted with a gun as part of the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command.
On the previous thread, someone suggested that the Trump immunity claim is "a crazy claim, but one that should be ruled on by the Supreme Court".
The court could indeed already have ruled, as did the federal appeals court, by summarily dismissing the appeal without a hearing.
They chose to hear arguments in the case - something they can only do if they believe the case has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
It is an abysmal lack of judgment.
Where is there any rule saying what the Supreme Court can and can’t do?
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Blaming the Supreme Court is easier than explaining why its taken 38 months to bring Trump to trial in a federal court.
It's fairly easy to explain why the cases have taken so long. Ever stage of gathering evidence has been fought through the courts - which is why Trump's legal bills are in the tens of millions.
Trump's wealth is fairly nebulous, but lawyers tend to prefer actual cash rather than IOUs. How's he generated the free cash flow to pay all his bills - Deutsche, donors, asset (Pfnarr) sales ?
Trump's PACs - Save America, and Make America Great Again - have paid tens of millions between them.
I was talking to an acquaintance about this the other day. He and his wife both work (he claimed joint salary of around £70k), and have two young kids. He said a quote for an all-inclusive two-week foreign holiday this summer was between six and eight grand - far more than they can afford. He said that his parents were not well off, but managed at least one foreign holiday a year.
I have heard similar complaints from other parents. A very quick 'win' for any government would be to allow children one week off school term-time. Yes, I know that has consequences, but I also think it will be popular with everyone except teachers and price-gouging travel firms.
Oh God no. Those of us without kids quite like knowing exactly when to avoid booking! Expensive foreign holidays aren’t a human right, and education is much more important than a cheap week on a beach.
Hey, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do: just that it'd be popular.
I think that chap probably has a very particular kind of foreign holiday.
I think the minimum viable spend for a 2 week family summer holiday abroad is something like £3k. Similar for the UK unless you go very basic given accommodation here is more expensive.
Take a holiday in a reasonable but not fancy self catering cottage with a garden but no pool, somewhere in central France. Ferry 200, fuel and tolls around 250, accommodation say 1,800, 5-6 meals out 500, shopping for self catering another 200, museum & attraction tickets maybe another 100, that’s just over 3 grand.
The accommodation cost would be similar if you went Eurocamp.
That sort of holiday doesn’t vary in price quite so much around school holidays though.
For years I've advocated staggering the school holidays regionally.
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
Extinction level events in 3 generations. South Korea birthrate, now 0.7 per woman.
Is this maths approx correct (rounding upwards)?
A group of 200 South Koreans, 100 female, 100 male, will have 70 babies.
That group of 70, 35 male 35 female, will have 25 babies.
That group of 25, 13 f and 13 m, will have 10 babies.
That group of 10, 5f and 5 m, will have 4 babies....and so on.
Now that the UK has joined the race to get below replacement levels (now about 1.5) should we be worried?
True, but. The net difference between birth and death rate is more than compensated by net migration (most of whom will be of baby producing age) - though that too is falling.
An official report has revealed new and damning failures by police who missed Wayne Couzens’ prolific sexual offending, leaving him armed with police powers which he used to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard.
The failures laid out in the report by Dame Elish Angiolini are worse than previously thought, and she concludes Couzens should never have been a police officer. She highlighted a series of chances to spot his danger to women and his unsuitability be an officer that were missed by repeated bungling in three forces.
He was a Metropolitan police officer and entrusted with a gun as part of the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command.
When the TalkTalk data hack occurred I, as a customer of TalkTalk at the time, called my bank. Am I at risk from the hackers knowing my details, I asked. Well, came the reply, with that information they could if they really wanted to transfer money into your account.
I remember Jeremy Clarkson made a similar comment in one of his columns. Someone then set up a charity donation in his name. "Contrary to what I said at the time, we must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy."
An official report has revealed new and damning failures by police who missed Wayne Couzens’ prolific sexual offending, leaving him armed with police powers which he used to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard.
The failures laid out in the report by Dame Elish Angiolini are worse than previously thought, and she concludes Couzens should never have been a police officer. She highlighted a series of chances to spot his danger to women and his unsuitability be an officer that were missed by repeated bungling in three forces.
He was a Metropolitan police officer and entrusted with a gun as part of the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command.
On the one hand, it is terrible and of course Couzens should never have been a police officer. It is vital that similar cases are screened out. On the other hand, Couzens would probably still be a rapist and murderer; it is not as if he used his police-issued firearm to kill and anyone can claim to be an officer.
He used his police warrant to persuade Sarah Everard to get into his car.
I'm watching the report being delivered on BBC News. It is damning of the Police.
I'm just watching a Channel 5 documentary on Anne Boleyn, where Owen Jones is interviewed about Cromwell.
I'm just waiting for a call to be interviewed about Hereward the Wake's influence on early Norman times...
It’s good that they found Owen Jones to consult on Cromwell as there are absolutely no actual experts on him and the period and so clearly better to speak to someone who studied history a couple of decades ago and writes about modern class issues.
In its heyday BBC would have sent an outside broadcast unit complete with outriders up to Christ Church for 10 seconds of wisdom from Hugh Trevor-Roper because he was far too busy to go to London. It's a telling indication of how far they've fallen.
Peston ( I know) suggesting Hunt is to abolish non dom status
Given that Labour has spent that money several times over and it props up some of the few remaining promises of significance in its intended manifesto, that would be political genius from the Tories, even if they do it in a way that ensures nothing changes until after the election
🙂
But Labour no longer have a policy to scrap non dom status. See my previous post.
Under their new flag “fiscal prudence or death” Labour realise they cannot get scrapping nom dom bringing in assured promise of money past the OBR and City as confirmed extra money every year, and realise the damage it will cause scrapping it, so Labour are now keeping it, only calling it another name to pretend they scrapped it as promised.
Rather than “political genius” from Tories, is the truth here a sign of their struggle and desperation to cobble together legitimate funding for the tax cuts?
Much more that than 4D chess. The reality is that with borrowing as high as it currently is, tax cuts are a joke anyway.
Unfortunately, they are the lucky rabbit's foot for the Conservatives. (Sorry for bringing it up, Moon), so they have to happen, whatever the effect on the rabbit (sorry again).
But you do finally agree with me about the 4D chess at play over timing of the next general election?
Those who want Tories to get the worst possible result, perhaps wipe out, trying to influence it to much later in year - talk up and tempt, like siren ferrets sitting on rocks and hiding their teeth, wait till later in the year where you can meet your pledges - and those who care about the party and wish to give the Conservatives the best possible result to recover from, suggesting this is May 2nd before sailing into choppy waters through summer and autumn.
Halcyon birds nest in summer, just like humans attracted by calm look of the weather and water. But however you delve into this and analyse it, this summer offers our sitting government no respite at all.
There is only one person who decides when the next general election is, and that's the PM. He will be much less concerned about 'building a base to recover from' than winning or losing. Losing by 200 rather than 175 is much, much less of a concern (and wholly speculative as we can never know the reality of the alternative). He'd be out either way. I also doubt that he will necessarily expect the Tories' rating to get worse over the summer, pointing to inflation falling, energy bills falling and so on. He'll probably also think that he can get a grip on the small-boat immigration, which is more optimistic but PMs are invariably optimistic.
Either way, an election now results in an absolute battering. Maybe the Tories can recover some of that in an election campaign - but again, if they can recover it in a campaign in April, then they can also do so in a campaign in Sept or Oct.
I see no case from No 10's point of view for suffering a landslide defeat now when there's the chance of improvement later.
Comments
My gas central heating combi boiler installed in 2006 was replaced yesterday with a brand new A rated gas combi boiler with 12 year guarantee and the transformation in our water heat and house heating is extraordinary
Not sure I am keeping apace with net zero with a new gas ch boiler and in the last few weeks a new petrol driven car
I've been told that this would cause civilisation to collapse.
Then you point out that in other countries, they do this....
The closest parallel is Neale Hanvey, who stood for the SNP but was disowned over antisemitic comments, albeit at a general election rather than a by-election. Hanvey saw a mere 1.1pp drop in the SNP vote, in a general where the average SNP change was +0.8pp. That suggests about a 2pp penalty against Hanvey. If Ali suffers a 2pp decrease in the Labour vote share, he wins by a huge majority.
Until it doesn’t. So I think, while we will go on until the last minute….. like 1997 ….. nothing will turn up. In addition Rishi and the Conservatives will get some blame for ‘polling Christmas’!
I do agree with much of your analysis - my view is that there will be enough sharing of the votes around the parties that the winning percentage will be relatively small. But still comfortably clear of second place.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/commentisfree
The last one was published over four months ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/19/new-job-anxiety-universal-credit-jeremy-hunt-claimants
Has the Guardian got bored with poverty porn or is accepting that vast amounts of taxpayers money is spent on social security ?
Of course to him, with a family fortune in 9 figures, his mother from an aristocratic family, his father a former Cabinet minister and grandfather editor of the Times and studying at Eton, King's Chester educated Hancock is a relative oik even before considering his private life
On the ease of this, I once - on April 1, after she'd got me earlier in the morning - sent my now wife an email from one of her friends (faked email address, easy at the time as clients didn't do any checks) to the bbc news webste (actually bbc.co.uk/news/some-storyandalongstingofstuffsoyougetboredreadingitat@mydomain.com/bbc - before browsers flagged up that kind of thing) with a completely nonsense story about something dear to her heart - absolutely authentic looking as a copied a BBC website story page, changed only the main story text so all the links elsewhere on the page worked perfectly. I had great trouble convincing her that it was indeed an April fool joke, given she'd got the email from her friend and it was on the BBC website!
On the flip side, AI can also help defeat this shit - scan the email, check what it seems to be saying and what the company is, look up (e.g. via google) the website address of the company and flag in big flashing letters to the user if the links don't seem to go where they should. In my above example GMail at least would flag that the sending email seemed to be fake as not validated by the outgoing server and all modern browsers would flag up that the website being visited was mydomain.com, not bbc.co.uk
*for some years, Nationwide's online banking website was olb2.nationet.com or similar which is exactly the kind of thing people should be wary about when the main website is nationwide.co.uk or whatever.
And a voice from the audience came “Because you’re in Chatham!”
Which was at the time a Naval base.
That 3k sounds approximately right to me - my quick look at a couple of sites revealed 2 week all-ins bookable for July from £1k per person for 2+2 in places like Turkey - which is quite a lot less than £8-10k.
In addition, a bad weather election (it will be cold and dark, even if dry, in January) means less committed voters such as former Tory voters with no great love of Labour are more likely to stay indoors and not vote.
Solar makes sense where peak demand is for air con. Not here.
They've since changed the pathway so you get sent to a uni web page, log in and then get redirected to the provider as an authenticated user.
When something he's doing doesn't work, his only reaction is to do it harder.
We're on a shared water supply with Yorkshire Water. Eight houses on the pipe from the main that runs along the road. At times pressure is fine (when no one else is using) but at other times it's terrible, low flow downstairs and you can get absolutely nothing at times from upstairs taps, particularly shower (for extra height). At least one neighbour has installed a pump at the water main into property, but this apparently hasn't solved all issues (and if we all do it I suspect we'll be back to square one, assuming there's a limit to water flow through the shared pipe), pumped or not - as noted, there's no pressure issue when others are not using water.
I know water companies have an obligation to deliver minimal flow in most cases on single supplies, but does anyone know how this applies to shared supplies - is it per house or the water company just has to show sufficient flow at the start of the shared pipe? Yorkshire Water are a pain t get hold of and I'd like to be able to tell the person I speak to what the regulatory situation is, rather than be fobbed off.
Also, if we all get a pump, is that likely to help? Sections of the pipe have been replaced, but some is ancient pipe so there may also be flow constriction issues within the old parts of the shared pipe.
They can hear what they like.
I think this is important enough it needs the authority of a SC ruling. One would hope that CJ Roberts knows what he is doing
Is there a good basic video-editing program for editing short and simple phone recorded video clips for Youtube?
I mean very simple - it's top and tail and cut a few bits out, with titles both ends, a bit of subtitle, and maybe an embedded link or two.
The particular project is to identify certain unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers and other obstructions on public paths and footpaths around my area, to be supporting material for complaints to the LHA to try and get them removed.
Given that I have, without working too hard, identified something in excess of 350 such barriers in and around my small town, it could be quite a few clips. I suspect this is only a proportion - no one at the County Council even has a record of what exists.
I'm playing with the free version of Power Director 365 and MS Clip Champ.
Comments would be welcome.
Historically, Budgets haven't tended to do much to the polls IIRC. People tend to say "on balance good for the country, doesn't affect me much". This is supposedly a giveaway Budget so m,ight be different, but I think the public is in a sceptical frame of mind.
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-video-editing-software
Best free software was Davinci Resolve. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
If you have access to a Mac, there’s a free program called iMovie included, which does what you’d want as well.
I much prefer renting an actual property to hotels for family holidays - outside the US and Canada, connecting rooms seem rare. When you have young kids, you want that combination of a bit of privacy *and* they need to be in a room next to you.
Just rough cut the beginning & end of your video in your phone, upload it to youtube & do the rest there from a laptop or something? It doesn’t sound like you need the full power of a professional-grade program.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9057455?hl=en-GB
The court cannot, by their own rules, hear arguments in a case unless they accept their potential validity.
By hearing the case they are taking seriously the argument that a President is immune to charges for any crimes committed while in office; that is the basis of Trump's appeal.
Please include in your video some examples of doing gates etc. right.
If you don't mind the command line then something like ffmpeg will easily cut and join videos together, without fancy transitions. The learning curve there is basically googling how to do it and then copying.
ETA: but neither of those really come under basic!
It's not mine.
Is funding for schools in England at a record high ‘whatever way you look at it,’ as Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told BBC Breakfast?
https://twitter.com/BBCMoreOrLess/status/1762887322742231045
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/02/supreme-court-takes-up-trump-immunity-appeal/
It might be that they were all happy to do so.
Unfortunately people are always too willing to believe in grand conspiracies when a ruling goes against them and all too quick to forget when a ruling goes for them.
I took over a business. I had been given all their office material. The balance on their bank account needed to be transferred to me. The transfer wasn't happening and I was getting suspicious particularly as there was an upcoming window of 6 weeks where I would be out of contact with the person transferring the money and I was wary of hassling too much as that wouldn't bode well for the future as his organisation and organisations he was close to would be my future customers. I decided to contact the bank to see if any transfer had been attempted. I expected this to fail because I didn't have any authority to do so. I made this very clear upfront that I was the transferee not the transferor so had no authority. The person on the other end of the phone just ignored all of this, they just wanted to ask me security questions all of which I could answer because I had all the bank details. Each time I answered a question I made it quite clear who I was. They didn't care. No transfer had been initiated, but they would let me do so if I wished or do anything I wanted. I declined and chased the transferor again now I knew he was dithering. The transfer happened and all was well, but I was shocked that the bank was willing to do whatever I wanted just because I could answer the security questions even though I was upfront that I wasn't the customer.
I would consider this when the Tories intend to understand how to win again. I am not sure 2019 is the model to follow as Labour is unlikely anytime soon to elect a nutjob.
7 more months for the initial trial date
But apparently its all the fault of the Supreme Court.
If the USA wants a legal system where the wheels turn s l o w and very expensively it's got it.
But they then have to deal with the consequences.
Under the U.S. system, a case involving so many witnesses - members of the Trump administration, for example - who are both reluctant to be interviewed, and have well funded legal representation, can't possibly be brought in so short a time.
That's not even taking into account the holdovers from the Trump administration in the FBI and Justice Dept, and the time it took for Biden's appointment to receive Congressional approval.
People blaming Merrick Garland for the pace of the investigation don't know what they're talking about.
I'm just waiting for a call to be interviewed about Hereward the Wake's influence on early Norman times...
I'd think he'd only turn up one or twice a month to make some rant he can post to social media, while carrying on with whatever other grifts he's currently pursuing, while pocketing the MP's salary and expenses.
Even if it's only for 9 months it's a fair wodge of extra money.
https://trumpersaretraitors.quora.com/Russian-Trump-Flag-at-CPAC
https://x.com/HairyBikers/status/1763142124768215076?s=20
https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/13083480/fulham-posts-video-poking-fun-at-bruno-fernandes
Garland actions PRIOR Jack Smith appointment:
Seized John Eastman's phone
Seized Jeffrey Clark's phone
Seized Scott Perry's emails
Seized Eastman's emails
Seized Epshteyn's phone
Seized Mike Lindell's phone
Seized Mike Roman's phone
Seized Scott Perry's phone
Got Kash Patel's testimony
Appointed Windom
Appointed Cooney
Subpoenaed the fraudulent electors
Subpoenaed 7 state's election officials
Subpoenaed Sidney's PAC
Subpoenaed Rudy
Opened IG probe into Clark
Opened IG probe into DoJ response to 1/6
Negotiated subpoena for Meadows
Battled the 11th circuit for classified docs
Subpoenaed trump for classified docs
Subpoenaed trump for surveillance video
Executed a search warrant on trump
Convicted Bannon of contempt
Indicted Navarro for contempt
Subpoenaed the speakers from 1/6
Subpoenaed the organizers of 1/6
Secured seditious conspiracy convictions
Subpoenaed records for congress members involved in 1/6
Subpoenaed info on Jenna Ellis
Secured testimony from Mark Short
Secured testimony from Jacob Engel
Secured testimony from Philbin
Secured testimony from Cippollone
Subpoenaed info on trump's PACs
Won privilege battles for Short, Engel, and the Pats
Negotiated for Pence's subpoena
Seized the phone records of Meadows
Secured the 1/6 committee transcripts
Subpoenaed 7 secretaries of state
Is it possible some of this could have been done a little faster? Sure, but when you are dealing with reluctant witnesses who are well lawyered up its not the worst effort.
It looks like the Da Vinci package is the place to start, as I have had a couple of offline recommendations on that, too, and to play with Clip Champ (which is free from Microsoft) and the Youtube facility.
Once again I note an Oxbridge graduate, who must therefore be at least in theory a bit more intelligent than me, gives the impression much of the time of being a bit of an idiot. It is a reminder to me that the chances are, if I had any kind of prominent public role the likelihood is I'd be even worse.
I'm glad I've spent my working life mostly in obscurity as an IT Project Manager where I can make my mistakes in private.
A member of my team confessed, and said he never dreamed I wouldn't spot the spoof. Might have been a career-ending event for him in some companies, but I just told the CEO that it was a joke gone wrong, and he cheerfully shrugged it off. But I was startled how easily I'd been taken in by what on reflection was a very unlikely email.
I merely look at the Guardian website when I've nothing to do at work.
And I noticed that the 'heat or eat' diaries, which had been becoming steadily rarer over the last year, have now disappeared altogether.
Why ? I don't know but suggested two possible reasons.
As to Mansfield, well each to their own desires of course, but I note that Mansfield has lower unemployment than any constituency in Ealing or Enfield or Brent or Harrow or Haringay or Hounslow for example.
Not to mention rather more affordable housing.
The failures laid out in the report by Dame Elish Angiolini are worse than previously thought, and she concludes Couzens should never have been a police officer. She highlighted a series of chances to spot his danger to women and his unsuitability be an officer that were missed by repeated bungling in three forces.
He was a Metropolitan police officer and entrusted with a gun as part of the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/29/met-police-should-never-have-employed-wayne-couzens-report-finds
Maybe @Leon !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s unpossible.
- "Worried about 5G? Install our anti-5G control software protection. Allows us to recover you device in the event of 5G damage."
- "Register here to opt out of government Diversity rules for a one-off payment of £5.99."
- "Protect your voting rights - register your details with prevent_voter_fraud.co.uk for just £4.99 per month."
- "Boat refugees to be placed in UK homes! Opt out now! Just £19.99 per year."
Is this maths approx correct (rounding upwards)?
A group of 200 South Koreans, 100 female, 100 male, will have 70 babies.
That group of 70, 35 male 35 female, will have 25 babies.
That group of 25, 13 f and 13 m, will have 10 babies.
That group of 10, 5f and 5 m, will have 4 babies....and so on.
Now that the UK has joined the race to get below replacement levels (now about 1.5) should we be worried?
Anyone surprised by anything at all in this report?
Someone then set up a charity donation in his name.
"Contrary to what I said at the time, we must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy."
https://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/07/jeremy-clarksons-bank-account-hacked-to-prove-a-point/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAE_vxPXDcaxvcKH6PcJ1WZZ8JLV4Vt9-EfDqk60XdakmpDyDxtC-irq4vQlR8w_JJcF55SSuEAc34seN3sMkKANyQmMnhdGN3Q2ltA3Q0XIo6dTGJeYh_PfDHM93d79QGUIXPL9qX0RQhO6LdpJ9w2Q2jGclXysZ6PbeBbegcP_
I'm watching the report being delivered on BBC News. It is damning of the Police.
Either way, an election now results in an absolute battering. Maybe the Tories can recover some of that in an election campaign - but again, if they can recover it in a campaign in April, then they can also do so in a campaign in Sept or Oct.
I see no case from No 10's point of view for suffering a landslide defeat now when there's the chance of improvement later.