This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
They do if they're giving evidence in court, as an expert, that a system is entirely reliable. And when the law says that it is to be regarded as such, in the absence of anyone providing evidence to the contrary.
The law also, of course, places a duty of disclosure on the prosecution.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
Mr. Selebian, not someone I always watch (more into history than science) but Kyle Hill* had an interesting video months ago about AI swamping the internet and people retreating to places like Discord where there's a better quality of communication. He also suggested the near future might see people register in person to confirm their identity for certain things to avoid the risk of AI impersonation.
No, it's not that cringe. He doesn't claim to be an expert or a big fan - it's quite plausible that he took his daughter to a concert (and easily checked, so he'd better not be lying!). The 'favourite song is change' thing is actually kinda funny. The weirdest bit, apart from the usual wooden delivery, is referring to his 13.5 year old daughter - I mean, who counts half years when your children are teenagers? We stopped doing divisions of age in casual conversation when ours got to two, at the oldest.
I’m close to where I thought I’d be, a little bit further right economically than expected.
Different quadrants for Scotland. I'm actually more Unionist than this:
I'm half a block toward the nationalist side, and a smidge to the right of you. It's completely unsurprising that the Lib Dems are my closest on the compass. It's a big surprise to me that Alba are really not far behind. Not that it matters, I wouldn't vote for Salmond even if I had the choice, which I don't.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
Indeed, but as I understand it, the court assumes that reliable does mean just that. Always right unless proven otherwise.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
No, it doesn't depend "on what you mean". Any prosecution has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defence. The discussion is in that context, and the context of the law on computer evidence - not some general semantic debate over the manning of "reliable".
That political barometer, it should be remembered, will be highly subjective to the bias of whoever made it. Not saying that's deliberate, but anything like that should be considered subjective rather than objectively accurate.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Farage as a sole Reform MP having to deal with constituency issues in Clacton is very much my preferred outcome even though I have a fair bit on Reform getting zero seats...
I do think after today the Tories will be lucky to get 150 seats.
You can get 7-1 on them reaching 150 seats now. So the odds say unlikely.
The area of Tory result not being taken seriously enough is the + or - 50 seats - say 35-80. Too many analyses of too many polls point this way to ignore the chance. It's 1997 speeded up - the outcome then was not believed until it happened, and then it did. I think the same again is a respectable chance.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
This is definitely going down the 'I didn't really know what was going on' route.
Yep. Also, "I don't recall".
..Now we're hearing about the case of Lee Castleton, a sub-postmaster who was wrongly pursued in the civil courts by the Post Office for supposed losses at his branch. He always argued the Horizon system was to blame. The inquiry is shown a request from Post Office lawyers to Jenkins for evidence rebutting Castleton's claims about Horizon, setting out what was required of him and his duties to be truthful in court. Jenkins says he can't remember receiving the letter and only became aware of it when the police investigation into him began in 2020. Beer pauses to "help" Jenkins and warns him that discussing his conversations with solicitors could be read as him waiving privilege in those matters, meaning the inquiry would be entitled to ask about those conversations more broadly. The lawyers tells him he can waive that privilege if he wants to "but doesn't want him to do it by accident". "I don't want to do that either," Jenkins says, to some laughter from former sub-postmasters listening to the evidence...,/I>
In a remarkable coincidence people who might face criminal issues if they recall something often suffer memory problems.
Likewise, many top athletes suffer from obscure conditions which don't impact performance but require unconventional treatments that coincidentally might boost performance. Or are very uncurious about what they eat or injest.
And people facing HR investigations inevitably and coincidentally need to be signed off sick.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Mr. Selebian, not someone I always watch (more into history than science) but Kyle Hill* had an interesting video months ago about AI swamping the internet and people retreating to places like Discord where there's a better quality of communication. He also suggested the near future might see people register in person to confirm their identity for certain things to avoid the risk of AI impersonation.
*think I got the name right.
"Register in person" sounds good in theory but how does it work? Cross check with electoral register? Merely e.g. verifying by video is no good given deepfakes.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Only perverts like Donald Trump talk about rigged elections.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
No, it doesn't depend "on what you mean". Any prosecution has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defence. The discussion is in that context, and the context of the law on computer evidence - not some general semantic debate over the manning of "reliable".
People try to engage in philosophical quibbling in court, I don't think it generally works.
The top left quadrant is definitely where the cool kids are.
Suppose I could vote Green - shouldn’t make a difference to Yvette Cooper despite Reform - but not sure if I’m ready to make that leap. Am I really that sickeningly right-on and, dare I say it, woke? It seems I am…
It's a difficult thing for me to tell you but on that diagram the party you are marginally the closest to is the Liberal Democrats.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
That political barometer, it should be remembered, will be highly subjective to the bias of whoever made it. Not saying that's deliberate, but anything like that should be considered subjective rather than objectively accurate.
Having skimmed the methodology, I don't quite see how they set the centre points. If this was in something like BES then they could collect a load of data and make the centre point the average (so that the number x distance on each side is balanced - in physics it would be balancing the moments). The centre would then change over time as opinions changed. It would be fascinating if a representative study such as BES or one of the ONS surveys would do this as you'd then also be able to track how the 'centre' moves over time - e.g. you could have a chart for now that also had a point showing the centre every year over the past 20 years.
You're right that there's no objective, fixed, centre, but there is a centre of UK public opinion at any given time.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
No, it doesn't depend "on what you mean". Any prosecution has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defence. The discussion is in that context, and the context of the law on computer evidence - not some general semantic debate over the manning of "reliable".
Of course it depends what is meant by "reliable". If "reliable" in a legal context means "never makes a mistake", then it would be absurd to describe any computer system as "reliable". Any such claim should be immediately challenged by a defendant.
If, on the other hand, "reliable" means "is usually correct, but not always", then that would probably be a reasonable description of the system. Then, of course, you'd need to define how frequently mistakes can occur before a system is deemed to be "unreliable".
I’m close to where I thought I’d be, a little bit further right economically than expected.
I was precisely on the midpoint economic l line, but unfortunately missed out on being dead centre due to vaguely right of centre socially.
I'd have thought it the other way around
I was dead centre, but the real problem with these positioning questions is that the answer most thoughtful people want to give to most of the questions involve nuance, contingencies and qualifications for which there is no space.
The simplest might be: I support more X for Y (but only if done competently and in conjunction with Z.
I’m close to where I thought I’d be, a little bit further right economically than expected.
I was precisely on the midpoint economic l line, but unfortunately missed out on being dead centre due to vaguely right of centre socially.
I'd have thought it the other way around
I'm pretty close to TimS. It's not a bad questionnaire - but it shares the problems of the various parties' manifestos (around which it is based) in ignoring any deeper analysis of what policies might actually make a significant difference to (for example) economic outcomes.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
It struck me that Farage's comments about Ukraine were aimed at a US audience. Maybe he's looking for a job because he already knows that the people of Clacton aren't giving him one.
Lots of wondering for the motivation behind Farage's Putinist commentary. It seems fairly obvious to me that it is simply what he believes and that his brand would quickly fall apart if he tried to spin it. The raison d'etre for voting for him is he speaks his mind and will take on the failed establishment.
It seems that for reasons unknown he speaks Putin's mind. Anyone that votes Reform is voting for a man that is a Putin lickspittle.
He's fully paid up and suckling at the teet of MAGA loons in the USA - and they're team Putin.
Nasty, vile man.
Indeed.
@Nigel_Foremain is right to make the comparison with Oswald Mosley, someone else from a posh background who tried to whip up support amongst the workers with tub thumping rhetoric.
The British did NOT succumb to fascism then, unlike at least three of our European neighbours. And I am confident we will not do so again whatever @Leon claims otherwise.
We are and always have been an outward-facing, seafaring, internationalist nation. And that is why I love Britain.
You may love it but you don't understand it if you think Farage is "posh."
Educated at Dulwich College so yeah
Compared to the likes of Cameron he might as well be the help.
That of course is true. And indeed Mosley himself.
Nevertheless I’ll stick with it, thanks. He went to Dulwich College and is no working class bloke. It’s all a national front.
Cameron isn’t posh either. His wife is
Cameron is a cadet of the Locheil branch. Rees Mogg is minor squirearchy married to the Wentworth Woodhouse heiress.
Lochiel not Locheil presumably? And see also PUSS for Scotland at present:
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Mr. Dee, the example (from memory) was going in person to a location, say an office of a firm set up for this specific thing, presenting yourself and some form of ID to prove you're not an AI and you really want the thing you applied for online.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
If I was cynical in nature, I'd suggest that Sunak/CCHQ have some heavy bets on a Tory ELE and are trying their best to rig the result in that direction
I’m close to where I thought I’d be, a little bit further right economically than expected.
I was precisely on the midpoint economic l line, but unfortunately missed out on being dead centre due to vaguely right of centre socially.
I'd have thought it the other way around
I'm pretty close to TimS. It's not a bad questionnaire - but it shares the problems of the various parties' manifestos (around which it is based) in ignoring any deeper analysis of what policies might actually make a significant difference to (for example) economic outcomes.
I just never trust where they decide to place parties, because even analysing their plans you don't get a neat placement on a line like that, a judgement call is made at some point its not a really much more than throwing a dart at the general area.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
This is definitely going down the 'I didn't really know what was going on' route.
Yep. Also, "I don't recall".
..Now we're hearing about the case of Lee Castleton, a sub-postmaster who was wrongly pursued in the civil courts by the Post Office for supposed losses at his branch. He always argued the Horizon system was to blame. The inquiry is shown a request from Post Office lawyers to Jenkins for evidence rebutting Castleton's claims about Horizon, setting out what was required of him and his duties to be truthful in court. Jenkins says he can't remember receiving the letter and only became aware of it when the police investigation into him began in 2020. Beer pauses to "help" Jenkins and warns him that discussing his conversations with solicitors could be read as him waiving privilege in those matters, meaning the inquiry would be entitled to ask about those conversations more broadly. The lawyers tells him he can waive that privilege if he wants to "but doesn't want him to do it by accident". "I don't want to do that either," Jenkins says, to some laughter from former sub-postmasters listening to the evidence...,/I>
In a remarkable coincidence people who might face criminal issues if they recall something often suffer memory problems.
Likewise, many top athletes suffer from obscure conditions which don't impact performance but require unconventional treatments that coincidentally might boost performance. Or are very uncurious about what they eat or injest.
And people facing HR investigations inevitably and coincidentally need to be signed off sick.
It's remarkable that someone with apparently such a poor memory, and so little apparent knowledge of the actual workings of the system, should think himself qualified to be an expert witness in the first place.
I’m close to where I thought I’d be, a little bit further right economically than expected.
I was precisely on the midpoint economic l line, but unfortunately missed out on being dead centre due to vaguely right of centre socially.
I'd have thought it the other way around
I'm pretty close to TimS. It's not a bad questionnaire - but it shares the problems of the various parties' manifestos (around which it is based) in ignoring any deeper analysis of what policies might actually make a significant difference to (for example) economic outcomes.
"I (also, almost) agree with Tim"
Like any such survey, some questions are hard to answer and may give a result different to intended. For example, for the the question on whether all rail should be publicly owned - I said no, as I'd prefer to see a mix of public and private ownership, with real competition (public not taking the piss on profiteering; private ensuring innovation to compete). So I guess I count as against public ownership. Reverse the question (all private) and I'd also have said no, and looked against private ownership and maybe ended up left of centre rather than dead centre.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
Exactly. And since it is not weeks or months if certification steps its much harder to challenge as the winner is already in office and the routes to be serious about challenging more immediate. I don't think you could replicate dozens of spurious legal cases like in the US.
They might moan, but it's over and done, too late for storming parliament.
On computer programs and bugs, a colleague of mine many years ago used to have a policy of leaving one small bug unfixed - highlighted to users and well-documented for coders, with information on how to avoid or fix the problem - on the theory that once you fixed the *last* bug, you'd *always* find another one.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Only perverts like Donald Trump talk about rigged elections.
And Russian disinfo operatives. Speaking of which..
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Farage as a sole Reform MP having to deal with constituency issues in Clacton is very much my preferred outcome even though I have a fair bit on Reform getting zero seats...
My prefered outcome would be Reform winning one or two seats and Farage still losing Clacton. How long would it be before Farage tired of the Reform project and set up something new that was all about him?
Anyhow I trust Heathener clocks that Newton Abbot is clearly accepted as a LD prospect and that, per that map, Labour is directing activists away from there
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
No, it doesn't depend "on what you mean". Any prosecution has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defence. The discussion is in that context, and the context of the law on computer evidence - not some general semantic debate over the manning of "reliable".
Of course it depends what is meant by "reliable". If "reliable" in a legal context means "never makes a mistake", then it would be absurd to describe any computer system as "reliable". Any such claim should be immediately challenged by a defendant.
If, on the other hand, "reliable" means "is usually correct, but not always", then that would probably be a reasonable description of the system. Then, of course, you'd need to define how frequently mistakes can occur before a system is deemed to be "unreliable".
We don't have to argue about what is meant by reliable. Here it is in his own words.
...Beer is going into Castleton's case in detail. The inquiry is shown a 2005 document where Jenkins provided notes on how the Post Office could rebut his evidence of Horizon failings. He was asked by lawyers if they could argue there was "nothing wrong with Horizon because it simply reflected the information entered onto it". Jenkins says he believed that to be true at the time and "I stand by that today as well". In the same document, Jenkins said the most likely explanation in Castleton's case would be "misoperation or fraud" rather than bugs - but says the underlying data would need to be investigated to come to a full conclusion. He accepts that without that, his assessment would be speculation. The inquiry is then shown a later document where that reference to needing to see the full data - which Castleton's lawyers had already requested - has been removed. Jenkins says he does not know why that was changed, adding: "Perhaps I didn't realise at the time how important that qualifier was."..
Anyhow I trust Heathener clocks that Newton Abbot is clearly accepted as a LD prospect and that, per that map, Labour is directing activists away from there
No. Stopping trolling me with LibDem propaganda Ian. You are normally a lot better than this.
I posted a very thoughtful analysis earlier. You’re welcome to reply to it.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
Exactly. And since it is not weeks or months if certification steps its much harder to challenge as the winner is already in office and the routes to be serious about challenging more immediate. I don't think you could replicate dozens of spurious legal cases like in the US.
They might moan, but it's over and done, too late for storming parliament.
Grandcanyon, for whatever reason, is evidently a provocateur.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
This is definitely going down the 'I didn't really know what was going on' route.
Yep. Also, "I don't recall".
..Now we're hearing about the case of Lee Castleton, a sub-postmaster who was wrongly pursued in the civil courts by the Post Office for supposed losses at his branch. He always argued the Horizon system was to blame. The inquiry is shown a request from Post Office lawyers to Jenkins for evidence rebutting Castleton's claims about Horizon, setting out what was required of him and his duties to be truthful in court. Jenkins says he can't remember receiving the letter and only became aware of it when the police investigation into him began in 2020. Beer pauses to "help" Jenkins and warns him that discussing his conversations with solicitors could be read as him waiving privilege in those matters, meaning the inquiry would be entitled to ask about those conversations more broadly. The lawyers tells him he can waive that privilege if he wants to "but doesn't want him to do it by accident". "I don't want to do that either," Jenkins says, to some laughter from former sub-postmasters listening to the evidence...,/I>
In a remarkable coincidence people who might face criminal issues if they recall something often suffer memory problems.
Likewise, many top athletes suffer from obscure conditions which don't impact performance but require unconventional treatments that coincidentally might boost performance. Or are very uncurious about what they eat or injest.
And people facing HR investigations inevitably and coincidentally need to be signed off sick.
It's remarkable that someone with apparently such a poor memory, and so little apparent knowledge of the actual workings of the system, should think himself qualified to be an expert witness in the first place.
The question I think is whether he did he think himself qualified, or whether he was pushed into it.
He doesn't seem like a good person to be in charge of a big project, though. Someone technically competent at some things who got landed with a bit too much management?
Anyhow I trust Heathener clocks that Newton Abbot is clearly accepted as a LD prospect and that, per that map, Labour is directing activists away from there
No. Stopping trolling me with LibDem propaganda Ian. You are normally a lot better than this.
I posted a very thoughtful analysis earlier. You’re welcome to reply to it.
As @Taz and I discussed, I think Newton Abbot will be a Cons HOLD but it’s a very confusing picture at the moment. 3 different tactical voting sites all have different answers (1 = LibDem; 1 = Labour; 1 = Unsure).
The MRPs also presented a conflicted and conflicting picture.
Survation: Labour GAIN IPSOS-MORI: Leaning Con: Con 36% Lab 29% LibDem 19%, Reform 12% MiC: Con HOLD: Con 36%, Lab 21%, LibDem 30%, Reform 9% Savanta: Too Close to Call: Con-Lab battle YouGov: Con HOLD: Con 29%, Lab 16%, LibDem 23%, Reform 23%
Does anyone have the constituency MRP for Focaldata?
Anecdotally I would also add that Labour are now campaigning hard in Newton Abbot and the LibDems seem to have scaled back to focus elsewhere. If Reform are on the rise it adds to the complexity of what is looking like a 4-way marginal.
Hey, Labour are the ones begging for the meeting. If they want that then I see no issue with her making conditions. They can easily say no and she is no worse off.
The article makes it clear these are products we did receive but never used, and now it's out of date.
Realistically there's no alternative when demand surges then collapses. We were using 10 years worth of PPE in each week, then we weren't again, so when the music stops there's either going to be a case of running out of PPE and putting people's lives in greater jeopardy, or getting too much then never using it.
How does this stuff go out of date so quickly?
Is is just a paperwork thing or is there actual degradation of the material?
I'd have taken a few gowns for painting the ceiling etc etc.
Most of it is plastic surely? Lasts years and years as the world's oceans can testify!
Exactly. Perhaps it is just the sterility?
It seems so wasteful.
My guess is it'll be a very conservative estimate from the manufacturer (Why guarantee for longer than you absolutely must) which has no basis in science and is taken as a statement of manufacturing fact by the NHS because noone higher up the chain has the stones to say "Lets take a thousand gowns and gloves out every year from the stockpile and test for degradation instead of going on manufacturer's overcautious estimates". Obviously if something goes wrong we have no recourse to the manufacturer since it's all out of warranty but the NHS is big enough to internalise the lack of warranty for the sake of not destroying perfectly good PPE.
My experience of NHS "use by" dates on things I have seen regularly is that they very by type of products. Medications seem to be 12 months, as do things like test strips.
A quick inspection of my medical shelf is that the longest use by date I have is 2/28, which is on sterile single use needles. Things like that and lancets (metal things used to ping your finger to get a drop of blood) seem to be about 5 years. I have a packet of the latter dated 2015 which will expire in 2020 !
I think those are conservative, and defaulted to a "known safe to eg 99.9% likelihood" value.
There are certain products where this causes 'waste', for example 2nd line backup items in case eg my automated glucose monitoring goes phut, or for more detailed diagnostics (eg different type of blood test if glucose goes high for an extended period and a further check required.) In these cases I have technically to get one packet of tests once per annum to replace the one that has just gone out of date.
One that often surprises me is use by dates on sterile dressings eg gauze or honey impregnated things. Occasionally I have been prescribed lots of these eg after a burn, and they can't take them back so it is either throwaway, giveaway or stock up the first aid box. But they expire in a couple of years.
Presumably use by dates are partly there to manage liability for the manufacturer.
...while I have problems with the Con position on dozens of issues (e.g. HS2), on a macro scale the Conservatives are roughly in the right place...
If the Conservatives are "roughly in the right place", then the question arises as to why it has taken a position on dozens of issues that displease you. I would suggest two reasons
Mission creep and various bits from Malmesbury. Government has spread out into areas where Conservative thought can't really cope/agree with, and is therefore having to take positions on things it needn't
Divorce of principle from policy. Policies should derive from principle but do not, leading to a jumble
This is why I think the Conservatives should go into opposition so they can reset, so to speak.
Hm - I think this relates to my other point, which is that it is unreasonable to expect a party to match my views on everything, or even the vast majority of things. There are dozens and dozens of highly specific things a government has to do which aren't really to do with principle, and there are bound to be areas where even someone who is in principle in the same sort of ballpark will disagree. There is no poster (out of dozens) on pb.com I agree with 100% of the time, there is certainly not going to be a party (out of about 5) I agree with 100% of the time. Oppositions can get around this through vagary and triangulation, but the longer a party is in government the longer the list of specific things it has had to do so the greater the number of people whose red lines it will have crossed.
The top left quadrant is definitely where the cool kids are.
Suppose I could vote Green - shouldn’t make a difference to Yvette Cooper despite Reform - but not sure if I’m ready to make that leap. Am I really that sickeningly right-on and, dare I say it, woke? It seems I am…
It's a difficult thing for me to tell you but on that diagram the party you are marginally the closest to is the Liberal Democrats.
Labour has sunk so far, it no longer qualifies as progressive? Sunk with respect to the Y axis, obvs
No, it's not that cringe. He doesn't claim to be an expert or a big fan - it's quite plausible that he took his daughter to a concert (and easily checked, so he'd better not be lying!). The 'favourite song is change' thing is actually kinda funny. The weirdest bit, apart from the usual wooden delivery, is referring to his 13.5 year old daughter - I mean, who counts half years when your children are teenagers? We stopped doing divisions of age in casual conversation when ours got to two, at the oldest.
I wish we knew more about his own family. I wonder what his father did for a living. Shame he never mentions it.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
Remember it was an assumption put into law to stop those lawyers forever challenging speed camera fines
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
Not true. The Tories have spent the last 5 years rigging it against themselves...
Some of these constituency odds really are quite astonishing.
Pity I quit gambling quite some time ago.
Are the bookies accepting decent stakes?
Last time I looked on Betfair Exchange there was hardly any liquidity wrt most constituencies, which was disappointing. I wanted to place a bet on the Greens in Isle of Wight East which I think they might unexpectedly win, but there wasn't anything on offer.
Mr. Selebian, not someone I always watch (more into history than science) but Kyle Hill* had an interesting video months ago about AI swamping the internet and people retreating to places like Discord where there's a better quality of communication. He also suggested the near future might see people register in person to confirm their identity for certain things to avoid the risk of AI impersonation.
*think I got the name right.
"Register in person" sounds good in theory but how does it work? Cross check with electoral register? Merely e.g. verifying by video is no good given deepfakes.
Sounds like the old key signing party* idea, requiring a web of trust of people who have met in meatspace. Probably no more practical than that was outside of geek circles.
*not to be confused with a key party! I was once invited to a key exchange party, which I took to be a key party but turned out to be a key signing party (I had declined thinking it was the first, but also had no interest in the second!)
Hey, Labour are the ones begging for the meeting. If they want that then I see no issue with her making conditions. They can easily say no and she is no worse off.
Richard, point of order they are not begging. Please don’t enflame an already toxic topic with further misinformation.
They have offered to meet her. Maybe watch the Wes Streeting interview on Peston last night if you haven’t already? It was very sensible and measured.
No, it's not that cringe. He doesn't claim to be an expert or a big fan - it's quite plausible that he took his daughter to a concert (and easily checked, so he'd better not be lying!). The 'favourite song is change' thing is actually kinda funny. The weirdest bit, apart from the usual wooden delivery, is referring to his 13.5 year old daughter - I mean, who counts half years when your children are teenagers? We stopped doing divisions of age in casual conversation when ours got to two, at the oldest.
I wish we knew more about his own family. I wonder what his father did for a living. Shame he never mentions it.
Just go back to wondering about whether Leon gets any money for writing about travel ?
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
I would think the way to do it would be to delay the counts in key seats who knows maybe a water pipe burst or something and then ship in new ballot papers in the early morning hours. So if for example the Farage result is delayed for several hours and he loses he may try to claim rigged election.
I’m close to where I thought I’d be, a little bit further right economically than expected.
Different quadrants for Scotland. I'm actually more Unionist than this:
I'm half a block toward the nationalist side, and a smidge to the right of you. It's completely unsurprising that the Lib Dems are my closest on the compass. It's a big surprise to me that Alba are really not far behind. Not that it matters, I wouldn't vote for Salmond even if I had the choice, which I don't.
In my case the survey fails to pick up what I think is a clear distinction between defending decisions made in Scotland about things that are entirely Scottish and valuing a strong and formal relationship with other nations in the British Isles.
I was quite annoyed the Gender Recognition Bill was canned on spurious grounds by another government whose business it wasn't. Separately from whether you agree with the intention of the Bill, it was legitimately and carefully agreed by the competent authority.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
No, it doesn't depend "on what you mean". Any prosecution has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defence. The discussion is in that context, and the context of the law on computer evidence - not some general semantic debate over the manning of "reliable".
Of course it depends what is meant by "reliable". If "reliable" in a legal context means "never makes a mistake", then it would be absurd to describe any computer system as "reliable". Any such claim should be immediately challenged by a defendant.
If, on the other hand, "reliable" means "is usually correct, but not always", then that would probably be a reasonable description of the system. Then, of course, you'd need to define how frequently mistakes can occur before a system is deemed to be "unreliable".
We don't have to argue about what is meant by reliable. Here it is in his own words.
...Beer is going into Castleton's case in detail. The inquiry is shown a 2005 document where Jenkins provided notes on how the Post Office could rebut his evidence of Horizon failings. He was asked by lawyers if they could argue there was "nothing wrong with Horizon because it simply reflected the information entered onto it". Jenkins says he believed that to be true at the time and "I stand by that today as well". In the same document, Jenkins said the most likely explanation in Castleton's case would be "misoperation or fraud" rather than bugs - but says the underlying data would need to be investigated to come to a full conclusion. He accepts that without that, his assessment would be speculation. The inquiry is then shown a later document where that reference to needing to see the full data - which Castleton's lawyers had already requested - has been removed. Jenkins says he does not know why that was changed, adding: "Perhaps I didn't realise at the time how important that qualifier was."..
Going for a combined 'I'm an idiot' and 'I remember nothing' and 'I stand by what I said' defence.
Hey, Labour are the ones begging for the meeting. If they want that then I see no issue with her making conditions. They can easily say no and she is no worse off.
Richard, point of order they are not begging. Please don’t enflame an already toxic topic with further misinformation.
They have offered to meet her. Maybe watch the Wes Streeting interview on Peston last night if you haven’t already? It was very sensible and measured.
x
It was also inaccurate about what the Equality Act actually says. That is an odd definition of "measured" though Streeting at least is trying to find a way forward.
Odd how the repeated inaccurate statements about this law by all Labour politicians from Starmer down does not seem to worry people.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
I would think the way to do it would be to delay the counts in key seats who knows maybe a water pipe burst or something and then ship in new ballot papers in the early morning hours. So if for example the Farage result is delayed for several hours and he loses he may try to claim rigged election.
You'd have to have the council van crew onside, and switch the boxes for ones you prepared earlier, in a layby on the way to the leisure centre. And have enough van crews working to change the result
Which would still be exceptionally difficult as you would need the paperwork from the polling station from inside the actual box, and substitute enough papers to balance with the number issued.
Hey, Labour are the ones begging for the meeting. If they want that then I see no issue with her making conditions. They can easily say no and she is no worse off.
Richard, point of order they are not begging. Please don’t enflame an already toxic topic with further misinformation.
They have offered to meet her. Maybe watch the Wes Streeting interview on Peston last night if you haven’t already? It was very sensible and measured.
x
Be realistic. They think they have something to gain by getting her onside electorally, and something to lose if she keeps on talking about their extremist nonsense. She has nothing to gain or lose either way. As such if they want to meet her then she is perfectly within her rights to make condistions.
Bear in mind I ws answering TUD's idiotic comment that she was 'issuing ultimatums'. If you have problems with enflaming language then talk to him.
No, it's not that cringe. He doesn't claim to be an expert or a big fan - it's quite plausible that he took his daughter to a concert (and easily checked, so he'd better not be lying!). The 'favourite song is change' thing is actually kinda funny. The weirdest bit, apart from the usual wooden delivery, is referring to his 13.5 year old daughter - I mean, who counts half years when your children are teenagers? We stopped doing divisions of age in casual conversation when ours got to two, at the oldest.
I wish we knew more about his own family. I wonder what his father did for a living. Shame he never mentions it.
Given the exactitude on daughter's age, he's suspiciously vague about his father's trade. Which tools?
The article makes it clear these are products we did receive but never used, and now it's out of date.
Realistically there's no alternative when demand surges then collapses. We were using 10 years worth of PPE in each week, then we weren't again, so when the music stops there's either going to be a case of running out of PPE and putting people's lives in greater jeopardy, or getting too much then never using it.
How does this stuff go out of date so quickly?
Is is just a paperwork thing or is there actual degradation of the material?
I'd have taken a few gowns for painting the ceiling etc etc.
Most of it is plastic surely? Lasts years and years as the world's oceans can testify!
Exactly. Perhaps it is just the sterility?
It seems so wasteful.
My guess is it'll be a very conservative estimate from the manufacturer (Why guarantee for longer than you absolutely must) which has no basis in science and is taken as a statement of manufacturing fact by the NHS because noone higher up the chain has the stones to say "Lets take a thousand gowns and gloves out every year from the stockpile and test for degradation instead of going on manufacturer's overcautious estimates". Obviously if something goes wrong we have no recourse to the manufacturer since it's all out of warranty but the NHS is big enough to internalise the lack of warranty for the sake of not destroying perfectly good PPE.
My experience of NHS "use by" dates on things I have seen regularly is that they very by type of products. Medications seem to be 12 months, as do things like test strips.
A quick inspection of my medical shelf is that the longest use by date I have is 2/28, which is on sterile single use needles. Things like that and lancets (metal things used to ping your finger to get a drop of blood) seem to be about 5 years. I have a packet of the latter dated 2015 which will expire in 2020 !
I think those are conservative, and defaulted to a "known safe to eg 99.9% likelihood" value.
There are certain products where this causes 'waste', for example 2nd line backup items in case eg my automated glucose monitoring goes phut, or for more detailed diagnostics (eg different type of blood test if glucose goes high for an extended period and a further check required.) In these cases I have technically to get one packet of tests once per annum to replace the one that has just gone out of date.
One that often surprises me is use by dates on sterile dressings eg gauze or honey impregnated things. Occasionally I have been prescribed lots of these eg after a burn, and they can't take them back so it is either throwaway, giveaway or stock up the first aid box. But they expire in a couple of years.
Presumably use by dates are partly there to manage liability for the manufacturer.
Use by for drugs is backed up by testing. Some drugs will definitely degrade over time - typically solutions, things kept in fridges etc. Others much less so. We recently tested some 50 year old paracetamol tablets - would still pass tests today. So if you have the evidence that a medication is still good after three years (assuming average storage) then it can have that as a 'usage'. It could be longer, but not tested for and thus not certified.
Other issues are that once out of the NHS supply chain, we can have no idea of how things have been stored and or tampered with, so thats why they cannot be re-issued.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
You are right of course but this all stems from the fact that some idiot passed a law saying that, in effect, they are 100% reliable.
Hey, Labour are the ones begging for the meeting. If they want that then I see no issue with her making conditions. They can easily say no and she is no worse off.
My point is why is a noisy, unelected 'activist' who keeps themselves away from any public challenge making conditions. After the hilarious collapse of her Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the CPGB I'd like to think that the future government of the UK would tell her to fck off, but cowardice is the default move for Labour.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
The problem is they brought in a law in about 1999 saying that courts had to assume computer evidence was correct, because they didn't like the way in which defendants were questioning computer evidence before that.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
Remember it was an assumption put into law to stop those lawyers forever challenging speed camera fines
Surely it's possible for the law to reflect the likelihood of mistakes and the penalties involved. There's a big difference between 3 points or a fine resulting from a system that is 99.999% reliable and a fraud conviction and imprisonment resulting from a system that is 75% reliable.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
All systems have bugs. You do testing to find and eradicate enough to get the system operating within requirements, with processes to assess and fix errors that arise once operational if necessary. The level of acceptable error depends upon the impact of bad outcomes - there is obviously less tolerance for error in mission critical systems such as air traffic control than for a shop point of sale system.
What seems to have happened with Fujitsu and the Post Office was that Fujitsu didn't appreciate that the PO had no interest in system issues because they would recover 'losses' by pursuing the Sub Postmasters rather than spending money investigating and fixing bugs. The fact that the PO brought their own prosecutions with nobody asking sensible questions about the power imbalance against sub postmasters just makes it so much worse.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
Well 10-15% of people will im afraid.
Im already seeing chatter on x from reform people talking about rigged polls and the like. From that its one step to talking about a rigged election.
Got to ask how do you rig an election in the UK?
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
I would think the way to do it would be to delay the counts in key seats who knows maybe a water pipe burst or something and then ship in new ballot papers in the early morning hours. So if for example the Farage result is delayed for several hours and he loses he may try to claim rigged election.
You'd have to have the council van crew onside, and switch the boxes for ones you prepared earlier, in a layby on the way to the leisure centre. And have enough van crews working to change the result
Which would still be exceptionally difficult as you would need the paperwork from the polling station from inside the actual box, and substitute enough papers to balance with the number issued.
And rely on the fact that all of the local government officials (and it would need to be all of them) who care enough about elections to volunteer to count votes don’t care enough to ensure the process is fair by keeping their eyes and ears open.
I hope "Reform" do badly in all seats including Clacton. Farage is the Oswald Mosely of the modern age. An absolute disgrace who provides succour to our enemies. How anyone who claims to be in the slightest bit patriotic could vote for him and his odious crew of weirdos, racists and misfits staggers me.
It struck me that Farage's comments about Ukraine were aimed at a US audience. Maybe he's looking for a job because he already knows that the people of Clacton aren't giving him one.
Lots of wondering for the motivation behind Farage's Putinist commentary. It seems fairly obvious to me that it is simply what he believes and that his brand would quickly fall apart if he tried to spin it. The raison d'etre for voting for him is he speaks his mind and will take on the failed establishment.
It seems that for reasons unknown he speaks Putin's mind. Anyone that votes Reform is voting for a man that is a Putin lickspittle.
He's fully paid up and suckling at the teet of MAGA loons in the USA - and they're team Putin.
Nasty, vile man.
Indeed.
@Nigel_Foremain is right to make the comparison with Oswald Mosley, someone else from a posh background who tried to whip up support amongst the workers with tub thumping rhetoric.
The British did NOT succumb to fascism then, unlike at least three of our European neighbours. And I am confident we will not do so again whatever @Leon claims otherwise.
We are and always have been an outward-facing, seafaring, internationalist nation. And that is why I love Britain.
You may love it but you don't understand it if you think Farage is "posh."
Educated at Dulwich College so yeah
Compared to the likes of Cameron he might as well be the help.
That of course is true. And indeed Mosley himself.
Nevertheless I’ll stick with it, thanks. He went to Dulwich College and is no working class bloke. It’s all a national front.
Cameron isn’t posh either. His wife is
Cameron is a cadet of the Locheil branch. Rees Mogg is minor squirearchy married to the Wentworth Woodhouse heiress.
Lochiel not Locheil presumably? And see also PUSS for Scotland at present:
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
Remember it was an assumption put into law to stop those lawyers forever challenging speed camera fines
I am not convinced this problem has a rational or just solution. Everything in the modern world depends on assumptions about the reliability of systems.
Keep the example simple: If the prosecution had to prove in every case that the words spoken in a telephone call were the same as the words heard at the other end of this complex electronic operation, the entire system would collapse.
And the example I have given is, compared with computer technology etc, dead simple.
Yes there is a problem. No, I have not seen the outline of a workable and just solution which can be put into statutory language.
Edit: one way might be to learn from the Scots and require corroboration in particular cases.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
This is definitely going down the 'I didn't really know what was going on' route.
Yep. Also, "I don't recall".
..Now we're hearing about the case of Lee Castleton, a sub-postmaster who was wrongly pursued in the civil courts by the Post Office for supposed losses at his branch. He always argued the Horizon system was to blame. The inquiry is shown a request from Post Office lawyers to Jenkins for evidence rebutting Castleton's claims about Horizon, setting out what was required of him and his duties to be truthful in court. Jenkins says he can't remember receiving the letter and only became aware of it when the police investigation into him began in 2020. Beer pauses to "help" Jenkins and warns him that discussing his conversations with solicitors could be read as him waiving privilege in those matters, meaning the inquiry would be entitled to ask about those conversations more broadly. The lawyers tells him he can waive that privilege if he wants to "but doesn't want him to do it by accident". "I don't want to do that either," Jenkins says, to some laughter from former sub-postmasters listening to the evidence...,/I>
In a remarkable coincidence people who might face criminal issues if they recall something often suffer memory problems.
Likewise, many top athletes suffer from obscure conditions which don't impact performance but require unconventional treatments that coincidentally might boost performance. Or are very uncurious about what they eat or injest.
And people facing HR investigations inevitably and coincidentally need to be signed off sick.
It's remarkable that someone with apparently such a poor memory, and so little apparent knowledge of the actual workings of the system, should think himself qualified to be an expert witness in the first place.
The question I think is whether he did he think himself qualified, or whether he was pushed into it.
He doesn't seem like a good person to be in charge of a big project, though. Someone technically competent at some things who got landed with a bit too much management?
I watched a bit and the way he tells it he wasn't a manager and wasn't at all in charge of the system. I think they must have sent him to testify because he was the only engineer who could talk about the enterprise database foisted on them by the client without swearing.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
Remember it was an assumption put into law to stop those lawyers forever challenging speed camera fines
Surely it's possible for the law to reflect the likelihood of mistakes and the penalties involved. There's a big difference between 3 points or a fine resulting from a system that is 99.999% reliable and a fraud conviction and imprisonment resulting from a system that is 75% reliable.
Computer systems are 100% robust if you read UK law...
Reality and that law are entirely completely separate issues...
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
The problem is they brought in a law in about 1999 saying that courts had to assume computer evidence was correct, because they didn't like the way in which defendants were questioning computer evidence before that.
Surprised that has survived without challenge in domestic or EHRC for so long.
I’m close to where I thought I’d be, a little bit further right economically than expected.
Different quadrants for Scotland. I'm actually more Unionist than this:
I'm half a block toward the nationalist side, and a smidge to the right of you. It's completely unsurprising that the Lib Dems are my closest on the compass. It's a big surprise to me that Alba are really not far behind. Not that it matters, I wouldn't vote for Salmond even if I had the choice, which I don't.
In my case the survey fails to pick up what I think is a clear distinction between defending decisions made in Scotland about things that are entirely Scottish and valuing a strong and formal relationship with other nations in the British Isles.
I was quite annoyed the Gender Recognition Bill was canned on spurious grounds by another government whose business it wasn't. Separately from whether you agree with the intention of the Bill, it was legitimately and carefully agreed by the competent authority.
I agree, the questions can often be thought of in more than one way. A typical one is "how big an issue for you is immigration?" and the truthful answer is, well, it's fairly important. But also, I'm in strongly favour of it. So if I tick "fairly important" will your survey put me down as anti-immigration? These things aren't perfect. The good ones will have lots of questions and each topic will have a number of different angles.
Still, it's a bit of fun and it'll get you kinda in the right place ish. It's put me in the centre, slightly left which is fine given the question they actually asked and slightly nationalist which is also fine.
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
Remember it was an assumption put into law to stop those lawyers forever challenging speed camera fines
Surely it's possible for the law to reflect the likelihood of mistakes and the penalties involved. There's a big difference between 3 points or a fine resulting from a system that is 99.999% reliable and a fraud conviction and imprisonment resulting from a system that is 75% reliable.
God no. Never trust a humanities graduate with probability calculations. They always get the wrong end of the stick.
I am not sure what my answer would, but it wouldn’t be about numerical probabilities.
Anyhow I trust Heathener clocks that Newton Abbot is clearly accepted as a LD prospect and that, per that map, Labour is directing activists away from there
No. Stopping trolling me with LibDem propaganda Ian. You are normally a lot better than this.
I posted a very thoughtful analysis earlier. You’re welcome to reply to it.
How is a story from the FT based on data from Labour HQ, LibDem propaganda?
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
Legally you probably do, there are a great many things that must be evidenced or stipulated to formally otherwise my understanding is juries and courts may not consider them.
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
Yes, I'm certainly not trying to defend the Post Office or Fujitsu. Their behaviour has clearly been appalling. I'm just surprised that something so self-evident as "computers are not 100% reliable" needs to be disclosed, or that the contrary is to be assumed.
Remember it was an assumption put into law to stop those lawyers forever challenging speed camera fines
I am not convinced this problem has a rational or just solution. Everything in the modern world depends on assumptions about the reliability of systems.
Keep the example simple: If the prosecution had to prove in every case that the words spoken in a telephone call were the same as the words heard at the other end of this complex electronic operation, the entire system would collapse.
And the example I have given is, compared with computer technology etc, dead simple.
Yes there is a problem. No, I have not seen the outline of a workable and just solution which can be put into statutory language.
One way this seems to have gone badly wrong is that the computer system was seen as sufficient evidence of "missing" money on its own.
There was no lifestyle evidence. If the postmaster had nicked £100k, what were they spending it on? Where was the evidence that they had squirreled money away somewhere or blown it on flash cars?
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
This is definitely going down the 'I didn't really know what was going on' route.
Yep. Also, "I don't recall".
..Now we're hearing about the case of Lee Castleton, a sub-postmaster who was wrongly pursued in the civil courts by the Post Office for supposed losses at his branch. He always argued the Horizon system was to blame. The inquiry is shown a request from Post Office lawyers to Jenkins for evidence rebutting Castleton's claims about Horizon, setting out what was required of him and his duties to be truthful in court. Jenkins says he can't remember receiving the letter and only became aware of it when the police investigation into him began in 2020. Beer pauses to "help" Jenkins and warns him that discussing his conversations with solicitors could be read as him waiving privilege in those matters, meaning the inquiry would be entitled to ask about those conversations more broadly. The lawyers tells him he can waive that privilege if he wants to "but doesn't want him to do it by accident". "I don't want to do that either," Jenkins says, to some laughter from former sub-postmasters listening to the evidence...,/I>
In a remarkable coincidence people who might face criminal issues if they recall something often suffer memory problems.
Likewise, many top athletes suffer from obscure conditions which don't impact performance but require unconventional treatments that coincidentally might boost performance. Or are very uncurious about what they eat or injest.
And people facing HR investigations inevitably and coincidentally need to be signed off sick.
It's remarkable that someone with apparently such a poor memory, and so little apparent knowledge of the actual workings of the system, should think himself qualified to be an expert witness in the first place.
The question I think is whether he did he think himself qualified, or whether he was pushed into it.
He doesn't seem like a good person to be in charge of a big project, though. Someone technically competent at some things who got landed with a bit too much management?
I'd like to see a lot more of the evidence to get an impression of what the likely answer is to that.
Hey, Labour are the ones begging for the meeting. If they want that then I see no issue with her making conditions. They can easily say no and she is no worse off.
My point is why is a noisy, unelected 'activist' who keeps themselves away from any public challenge making conditions. After the hilarious collapse of her Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the CPGB I'd like to think that the future government of the UK would tell her to fck off, but cowardice is the default move for Labour.
It is Labour who asked for the meeting not Rowling. Clearly they see some electoral advantage. In which case she is perfectly entitled to make conditions if she feels they are not taking the issue seriously. Just as they are entitled to say no.
Gareth Jenkins evidence is very well worth listening to.
It would be interesting to get the views of any IT experts on here with time to hear it.
My friend lasted 5 minutes before walking away (she does Service Transition).
I lasted about the same as I listened to a solution architect say he didn't care about the details of suspense accounts but seemed to have been in a lot of meeting about them..
Basically he's full of crap but hey he was employed by Fujitsu so clearly wasn't any good because anyone good in the late 90s was a contractor and would be well retired by now.
I hope that’s not eating my words but I might come in at 140-1 as a throwaway bet. 14-1? No.
Labour are certainly not campaigning very well this business end of the election campaign. The Last weeks of any campaign are about energy are about attack, if labour keep up this timid mode they will lose momentum going into the vote and it will soon start to show in the polling over the coming week. 🙂
This is a remarkable claim from Jenkins. Quite possibly testable at some point, though.
..He says he never knew about the so-called Clarke advice until 2020, seven years after barrister Simon Clarke warned the Post Office that Jenkin’s role as an expert witness had been “fatally undermined” because he didn’t reveal the existence of bugs...
I doubt that a piece of useful, non-trivial software that is completely devoid of bugs has ever been written. Bugs are just part of software. Nobody needs to "reveal" the existence of them.
The law (wrongly) says that computers are reliable unless shown otherwise.
So unless someone talked about bugs the court could only assume that there weren't any.
It depends what you mean by reliable, I suppose. Most cars can be considered to be reliable these days, but that doesn't mean they never break down. Similarly, a computer system may be regarded as reliable, but that doesn't mean it's always right.
The problem is they brought in a law in about 1999 saying that courts had to assume computer evidence was correct, because they didn't like the way in which defendants were questioning computer evidence before that.
Surprised that has survived without challenge in domestic or EHRC for so long.
Basically reverses the burden of proof.
The 1999 law related to things such as speed cameras where it's reasonable to assume they are valid and calibrated - the world has moved on since then but the nuances of the law haven't....
Gareth Jenkins evidence is very well worth listening to.
It would be interesting to get the views of any IT experts on here with time to hear it.
I think his testimony is about avoiding admitting guilt, like you are wise to do at a road traffic accident.
I don't know who is 'guilty' of crimes, although its pretty clear that crimes have been committed (perjury seems likely from the evidence presented). However even if anyone from the PO does get convicted I think the tortuous skewering by Jason Beer KC is likely to be worse than the actual criminal trials. Its been brilliant. And so much material to work with.
Comments
And when the law says that it is to be regarded as such, in the absence of anyone providing evidence to the contrary.
The law also, of course, places a duty of disclosure on the prosecution.
*think I got the name right.
It's completely unsurprising that the Lib Dems are my closest on the compass. It's a big surprise to me that Alba are really not far behind. Not that it matters, I wouldn't vote for Salmond even if I had the choice, which I don't.
The law needs changing.
Any prosecution has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defence.
The discussion is in that context, and the context of the law on computer evidence - not some general semantic debate over the manning of "reliable".
I'd have thought it the other way around
Likewise, many top athletes suffer from obscure conditions which don't impact performance but require unconventional treatments that coincidentally might boost performance. Or are very uncurious about what they eat or injest.
And people facing HR investigations inevitably and coincidentally need to be signed off sick.
'I hold in my hands a copy of Harry Potter and the Women Without Penes'
https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1805526653201699126
Please note I want all the details no matter how insignificant.
Because the reality is that you can't do it in the UK...
You're right that there's no objective, fixed, centre, but there is a centre of UK public opinion at any given time.
If, on the other hand, "reliable" means "is usually correct, but not always", then that would probably be a reasonable description of the system. Then, of course, you'd need to define how frequently mistakes can occur before a system is deemed to be "unreliable".
qualifications for which there is no space.
The simplest might be: I support more X for Y (but only if done competently and in conjunction with Z.
It's not a bad questionnaire - but it shares the problems of the various parties' manifestos (around which it is based) in ignoring any deeper analysis of what policies might actually make a significant difference to (for example) economic outcomes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Cameron,_Baron_Cameron_of_Lochiel
That might be frustrating at times but seems for the best by being thorough.
It's like the arseholes who post "Huge if true...." knowing what they've posted isn't true.
"I've just heard that the Soviet Union has come back and has launched 300 ICBMs at the UK!!! Huge if true....."
I hope that’s not eating my words but I might come in at 140-1 as a throwaway bet. 14-1? No.
On the ballot paper he will still be down as the Conservative Party candidate.
So he might still win, suspended?
Like any such survey, some questions are hard to answer and may give a result different to intended. For example, for the the question on whether all rail should be publicly owned - I said no, as I'd prefer to see a mix of public and private ownership, with real competition (public not taking the piss on profiteering; private ensuring innovation to compete). So I guess I count as against public ownership. Reverse the question (all private) and I'd also have said no, and looked against private ownership and maybe ended up left of centre rather than dead centre.
They might moan, but it's over and done, too late for storming parliament.
Pity I quit gambling quite some time ago.
Are the bookies accepting decent stakes?
Anyhow I trust Heathener clocks that Newton Abbot is clearly accepted as a LD prospect and that, per that map, Labour is directing activists away from there
Here it is in his own words.
...Beer is going into Castleton's case in detail. The inquiry is shown a 2005 document where Jenkins provided notes on how the Post Office could rebut his evidence of Horizon failings.
He was asked by lawyers if they could argue there was "nothing wrong with Horizon because it simply reflected the information entered onto it".
Jenkins says he believed that to be true at the time and "I stand by that today as well".
In the same document, Jenkins said the most likely explanation in Castleton's case would be "misoperation or fraud" rather than bugs - but says the underlying data would need to be investigated to come to a full conclusion.
He accepts that without that, his assessment would be speculation.
The inquiry is then shown a later document where that reference to needing to see the full data - which Castleton's lawyers had already requested - has been removed.
Jenkins says he does not know why that was changed, adding: "Perhaps I didn't realise at the time how important that qualifier was."..
I posted a very thoughtful analysis earlier. You’re welcome to reply to it.
He doesn't seem like a good person to be in charge of a big project, though. Someone technically competent at some things who got landed with a bit too much management?
As @Taz and I discussed, I think Newton Abbot will be a Cons HOLD but it’s a very confusing picture at the moment. 3 different tactical voting sites all have different answers (1 = LibDem; 1 = Labour; 1 = Unsure).
The MRPs also presented a conflicted and conflicting picture.
Survation: Labour GAIN
IPSOS-MORI: Leaning Con: Con 36% Lab 29% LibDem 19%, Reform 12%
MiC: Con HOLD: Con 36%, Lab 21%, LibDem 30%, Reform 9%
Savanta: Too Close to Call: Con-Lab battle
YouGov: Con HOLD: Con 29%, Lab 16%, LibDem 23%, Reform 23%
Does anyone have the constituency MRP for Focaldata?
Anecdotally I would also add that Labour are now campaigning hard in Newton Abbot and the LibDems seem to have scaled back to focus elsewhere.
If Reform are on the rise it adds to the complexity of what is looking like a 4-way marginal.
A quick inspection of my medical shelf is that the longest use by date I have is 2/28, which is on sterile single use needles. Things like that and lancets (metal things used to ping your finger to get a drop of blood) seem to be about 5 years. I have a packet of the latter dated 2015 which will expire in 2020 !
I think those are conservative, and defaulted to a "known safe to eg 99.9% likelihood" value.
There are certain products where this causes 'waste', for example 2nd line backup items in case eg my automated glucose monitoring goes phut, or for more detailed diagnostics (eg different type of blood test if glucose goes high for an extended period and a further check required.) In these cases I have technically to get one packet of tests once per annum to replace the one that has just gone out of date.
One that often surprises me is use by dates on sterile dressings eg gauze or honey impregnated things. Occasionally I have been prescribed lots of these eg after a burn, and they can't take them back so it is either throwaway, giveaway or stock up the first aid box. But they expire in a couple of years.
Presumably use by dates are partly there to manage liability for the manufacturer.
Oppositions can get around this through vagary and triangulation, but the longer a party is in government the longer the list of specific things it has had to do so the greater the number of people whose red lines it will have crossed.
*not to be confused with a key party! I was once invited to a key exchange party, which I took to be a key party but turned out to be a key signing party
They have offered to meet her. Maybe watch the Wes Streeting interview on Peston last night if you haven’t already? It was very sensible and measured.
x
I was quite annoyed the Gender Recognition Bill was canned on spurious grounds by another government whose business it wasn't. Separately from whether you agree with the intention of the Bill, it was legitimately and carefully agreed by the competent authority.
Bold.
Odd how the repeated inaccurate statements about this law by all Labour politicians from Starmer down does not seem to worry people.
Which would still be exceptionally difficult as you would need the paperwork from the polling station from inside the actual box, and substitute enough papers to balance with the number issued.
Bear in mind I ws answering TUD's idiotic comment that she was 'issuing ultimatums'. If you have problems with enflaming language then talk to him.
It would be interesting to get the views of any IT experts on here with time to hear it.
Other issues are that once out of the NHS supply chain, we can have no idea of how things have been stored and or tampered with, so thats why they cannot be re-issued.
What seems to have happened with Fujitsu and the Post Office was that Fujitsu didn't appreciate that the PO had no interest in system issues because they would recover 'losses' by pursuing the Sub Postmasters rather than spending money investigating and fixing bugs. The fact that the PO brought their own prosecutions with nobody asking sensible questions about the power imbalance against sub postmasters just makes it so much worse.
Keep the example simple: If the prosecution had to prove in every case that the words spoken in a telephone call were the same as the words heard at the other end of this complex electronic operation, the entire system would collapse.
And the example I have given is, compared with computer technology etc, dead simple.
Yes there is a problem. No, I have not seen the outline of a workable and just solution which can be put into statutory language.
Edit: one way might be to learn from the Scots and require corroboration in particular cases.
We go now live to the Emergency meeting of the 1922 Committee
Reality and that law are entirely completely separate issues...
Basically reverses the burden of proof.
A typical one is "how big an issue for you is immigration?" and the truthful answer is, well, it's fairly important. But also, I'm in strongly favour of it. So if I tick "fairly important" will your survey put me down as anti-immigration?
These things aren't perfect. The good ones will have lots of questions and each topic will have a number of different angles.
Still, it's a bit of fun and it'll get you kinda in the right place ish. It's put me in the centre, slightly left which is fine given the question they actually asked and slightly nationalist which is also fine.
I am not sure what my answer would, but it wouldn’t be about numerical probabilities.
The evidence is all pretty clear
There was no lifestyle evidence. If the postmaster had nicked £100k, what were they spending it on? Where was the evidence that they had squirreled money away somewhere or blown it on flash cars?
I lasted about the same as I listened to a solution architect say he didn't care about the details of suspense accounts but seemed to have been in a lot of meeting about them..
Basically he's full of crap but hey he was employed by Fujitsu so clearly wasn't any good because anyone good in the late 90s was a contractor and would be well retired by now.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cll476qzm85o
Everyday news flags up something Labour to attack with, help rebutt Tory attack line on Labours taxes, but Labour refuse to use it in this campaign.
suspicious.
HashtagLabourCampaignActingVerySuspicious. Won’t go on offensive about billions of Tory tax payer waste. What have Labour got to hide? 🧐