We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
How many died in the time she was there, but not on duty?
Nine deaths occurred when Letby was not present according to the article published in the Telegraph today.
IIRC the prosecution suggested that she might have been responsible for some of these as well by injecting insulin into their feed bags, but no evidence for this suggestion was ever demonstrated and the insulin thesis relies on the test which is disputed as previously discussed.
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
Good grief. I’m not saying that the lawyers were compromised by the government. But how far does £700k in an enormously complex case like this, when it’s paying for enormously expensive KC time? Not very I suspect.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit, I understand that the unit was downgraded & no longer permitted to take the sickest babies who are most likely to die. Which in turn means that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from the pre / post Letby death rate. It would be lovely if we could do so and point to a nice clear statistical difference that decides the case once and for all, but we can’t.
The babies that were suddenly dying (or collapsing, and there were many of these too) when Letby was looking after them were not the sickest or the youngest. They were all expected to survive, so comparable to the ones treated in the subsequent 7 years.
There was a host of other corroborating evidence too. 10 months worth, pored over by expert lawyers and the jurors.
Lawyers and juries are not incapable of error, but surely there is line between believing any jury outcome is unchallengable and essentially giving no weight at all to what was a very long and complex trial and determination and assuming a case falls apart pretty easily.
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
How many died in the time she was there, but not on duty?
Nine deaths occurred when Letby was not present according to the article published in the Telegraph today.
IIRC the prosecution suggested that she might have been responsible for some of these as well by injecting insulin into their feed bags, but no evidence for this suggestion was ever demonstrated and the insulin thesis relies on the test which is disputed as previously discussed.
No, the absence of c peptide proves that it was pharmaceutical insulin.
Letby was also shown to have falsified documentation of the times of the incidents to cover her traces.
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
Good grief. I’m not saying that the lawyers were compromised by the government. But how far does £700k in an enormously complex case like this, when it’s paying for enormously expensive KC time? Not very I suspect.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit, I understand that the unit was downgraded & no longer permitted to take the sickest babies who are most likely to die. Which in turn means that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from the pre / post Letby death rate. It would be lovely if we could do so and point to a nice clear statistical difference that decides the case once and for all, but we can’t.
The babies that were suddenly dying (or collapsing, and there were many of these too) when Letby was looking after them were not the sickest or the youngest. They were all expected to survive, so comparable to the ones treated in the subsequent 7 years.
There was a host of other corroborating evidence too. 10 months worth, pored over by expert lawyers and the jurors.
I note with interest your lack of acknowledgement of the point that the unit had been downgraded & so the drop in the death rate cannot be attributed to the elimination of Letby from the staff.
I don’t know whether Letby is innocent. But the case stinks & is being called out by a wide range of people with very relevant expertise. Are they all wrong?
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
Good grief. I’m not saying that the lawyers were compromised by the government. But how far does £700k in an enormously complex case like this, when it’s paying for enormously expensive KC time? Not very I suspect.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit, I understand that the unit was downgraded & no longer permitted to take the sickest babies who are most likely to die. Which in turn means that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from the pre / post Letby death rate. It would be lovely if we could do so and point to a nice clear statistical difference that decides the case once and for all, but we can’t.
The babies that were suddenly dying (or collapsing, and there were many of these too) when Letby was looking after them were not the sickest or the youngest. They were all expected to survive, so comparable to the ones treated in the subsequent 7 years.
There was a host of other corroborating evidence too. 10 months worth, pored over by expert lawyers and the jurors.
I note with interest your lack of acknowledgement of the point that the unit had been downgraded & so the drop in the death rate cannot be attributed to the elimination of Letby from the staff.
I don’t know whether Letby is innocent. But the case stinks & is being called out by a wide range of people with very relevant expertise. Are they all wrong?
Yes, the unit was downgraded, but hence the importance of the fact that the murdered babies were not unwell. They were the sort of babies that the unit continued to care for.
I have no idea why this has suddenly become a cause celebre. It seems a pretty safe conviction to me.
Very similar to the Beverley Allit case indeed, right down to the causes of death.
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
Good grief. I’m not saying that the lawyers were compromised by the government. But how far does £700k in an enormously complex case like this, when it’s paying for enormously expensive KC time? Not very I suspect.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit, I understand that the unit was downgraded & no longer permitted to take the sickest babies who are most likely to die. Which in turn means that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from the pre / post Letby death rate. It would be lovely if we could do so and point to a nice clear statistical difference that decides the case once and for all, but we can’t.
It was her. The evidence is overwhelming.
The fact she's young, pretty and female and messed up in the head (possibly psychopathic) doesn't change that.
Kemi Badenoch used first meeting of shadow cabinet to criticise Rishi Sunak's election campaign amid concerns colleagues are failing to grasp enormity of defeat
* Badenoch said that Sunak's decision to call an early election without informing his Cabinet was a mistake and bordered on 'unconstitutional'
* Badenoch said that instead of telling Cabinet ministers first Sunak had opted to inform a small group of colleagues, including his PPS Craig Williams who subsequently admitted placing a bet on the election date. She described Williams as a 'buffoon'
* Badenoch said Sunak's decision to return early from D-Day commemorations was "disastrous" and had dominated the election campaign, adding that colleagues like Penny Mordaunt would still be MPs today if he had stayed longer in France.
* She said many Tories were clearly still traumatised. She said Suella Braverman, former home secretary, appears to be having a 'very public' nervous breakdown
* She said Sunak should stay on to ensure an orderly transition to his successor
* She was said to be speaking for colleagues, particularly former ministers who had lost their seats. She spoke of the importance of shadow cabinet discussions not being leaked.
And of course the bit in bold absolutely rules out kemi being the leaker because that would be just too unspeakably subtle for words. I just don't see why anyone else would be arsed to leak it.
She means it's OK for her to leak it, but not other people.
Re: BadEnoch, anyone who makes such a juicy statement full of (well-landed) hits versus the leader of their party THEN concludes by saying, in effect, gee hope this does NOT get leaked . . . the odds that it WILL be leaked is somewhere north of 98.46%.
Kemi Badenoch used first meeting of shadow cabinet to criticise Rishi Sunak's election campaign amid concerns colleagues are failing to grasp enormity of defeat
* Badenoch said that Sunak's decision to call an early election without informing his Cabinet was a mistake and bordered on 'unconstitutional'
* Badenoch said that instead of telling Cabinet ministers first Sunak had opted to inform a small group of colleagues, including his PPS Craig Williams who subsequently admitted placing a bet on the election date. She described Williams as a 'buffoon'
* Badenoch said Sunak's decision to return early from D-Day commemorations was "disastrous" and had dominated the election campaign, adding that colleagues like Penny Mordaunt would still be MPs today if he had stayed longer in France.
* She said many Tories were clearly still traumatised. She said Suella Braverman, former home secretary, appears to be having a 'very public' nervous breakdown
* She said Sunak should stay on to ensure an orderly transition to his successor
* She was said to be speaking for colleagues, particularly former ministers who had lost their seats. She spoke of the importance of shadow cabinet discussions not being leaked.
And of course the bit in bold absolutely rules out kemi being the leaker because that would be just too unspeakably subtle for words. I just don't see why anyone else would be arsed to leak it.
She means it's OK for her to leak it, but not other people.
Re: BadEnoch, anyone who makes such a juicy statement full of (well-landed) hits versus the leader of their party THEN concludes by saying, in effect, gee hope this does NOT get leaked . . . the odds that it WILL be leaked is somewhere north of 98.46%.
Generally, if the word "leak" is in any statement it's because it was leaked by the author.
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
Good grief. I’m not saying that the lawyers were compromised by the government. But how far does £700k in an enormously complex case like this, when it’s paying for enormously expensive KC time? Not very I suspect.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit, I understand that the unit was downgraded & no longer permitted to take the sickest babies who are most likely to die. Which in turn means that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from the pre / post Letby death rate. It would be lovely if we could do so and point to a nice clear statistical difference that decides the case once and for all, but we can’t.
It was her. The evidence is overwhelming.
The fact she's young, pretty and female and messed up in the head (possibly psychopathic) doesn't change that.
We are all suckers for physical beauty: if someone looks perfect... we will tend to assume they are also good.
It is doubtful there would be anything like the groundswell of support for Ms Letby if she was old and male.
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
Good grief. I’m not saying that the lawyers were compromised by the government. But how far does £700k in an enormously complex case like this, when it’s paying for enormously expensive KC time? Not very I suspect.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit, I understand that the unit was downgraded & no longer permitted to take the sickest babies who are most likely to die. Which in turn means that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from the pre / post Letby death rate. It would be lovely if we could do so and point to a nice clear statistical difference that decides the case once and for all, but we can’t.
It was her. The evidence is overwhelming.
The fact she's young, pretty and female and messed up in the head (possibly psychopathic) doesn't change that.
Perhaps so, I find myself swinging back and forth on the issue. The insulin especially seems strongly indicative & the absence of any other explanation makes foul play of some sort likely.
I think one of the answers to Foxy’s question is that the case looks like a stitch up: Even if enough of it is strong enough to make the conviction safe there are so many parts that don’t hold up (the reversed entry / exit data, the terrible use of statistical evidence presented to the jury & so on) you inevitably wonder if the entire case is bullshit through and through & go looking for flaws. And there are so very many egregious flaws...
Kemi Badenoch used first meeting of shadow cabinet to criticise Rishi Sunak's election campaign amid concerns colleagues are failing to grasp enormity of defeat
* Badenoch said that Sunak's decision to call an early election without informing his Cabinet was a mistake and bordered on 'unconstitutional'
* Badenoch said that instead of telling Cabinet ministers first Sunak had opted to inform a small group of colleagues, including his PPS Craig Williams who subsequently admitted placing a bet on the election date. She described Williams as a 'buffoon'
* Badenoch said Sunak's decision to return early from D-Day commemorations was "disastrous" and had dominated the election campaign, adding that colleagues like Penny Mordaunt would still be MPs today if he had stayed longer in France.
* She said many Tories were clearly still traumatised. She said Suella Braverman, former home secretary, appears to be having a 'very public' nervous breakdown
* She said Sunak should stay on to ensure an orderly transition to his successor
* She was said to be speaking for colleagues, particularly former ministers who had lost their seats. She spoke of the importance of shadow cabinet discussions not being leaked.
And of course the bit in bold absolutely rules out kemi being the leaker because that would be just too unspeakably subtle for words. I just don't see why anyone else would be arsed to leak it.
She means it's OK for her to leak it, but not other people.
Re: BadEnoch, anyone who makes such a juicy statement full of (well-landed) hits versus the leader of their party THEN concludes by saying, in effect, gee hope this does NOT get leaked . . . the odds that it WILL be leaked is somewhere north of 98.46%.
Generally, if the word "leak" is in any statement it's because it was leaked by the author.
Source?
Seriously, BadEnoch could surely count on someone leaking her blast at Sun(a)k for her!
On a rather lower swing than they managed to lose Clacton or Mansfield or Bury St Edmunds or Stratford on Avon or Sittingbourne and Sheppey for instance and with Reform getting 15%
We’re talking about key parts of the case. These aren’t things the defence lawyers accidentally overlooked. And they weren’t public defenders: they were chosen by Letby.
Whether she chose them or not, they were still being paid by the UK government I presume? I doubt a nurse could afford to pay for a full time KC plus their team for a 10 month case plus all the required prep time.
They were paid by legal aid, to a total of over £1.3 million, including a top KC.
"According to an FOI request made by The Sun, Letby was handed £777,527.83 to pay for the three barristers, including top silk Ben Myers KC, who defended her during her ten-month trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A similar amount - £727,614.59 – was paid to her solicitors, Chester-based Russell and Russell.
However, the total spend on Letby's case could continue to rise once the Agency receives receipts of all claims associated with her original trial, they said. Because Letby has applied to appeal her convictions, and been ordered to stand trial again on one of the original attempted murder charges, costs will continue to be incurred by the taxpayer"
To suggest that these were inadequate or compromised by the government is an extraordinary allegation.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit only one baby died in 7 years.
Good grief. I’m not saying that the lawyers were compromised by the government. But how far does £700k in an enormously complex case like this, when it’s paying for enormously expensive KC time? Not very I suspect.
Incidentally, since Letby stopped working on the unit, I understand that the unit was downgraded & no longer permitted to take the sickest babies who are most likely to die. Which in turn means that it’s impossible to draw any conclusions from the pre / post Letby death rate. It would be lovely if we could do so and point to a nice clear statistical difference that decides the case once and for all, but we can’t.
The babies that were suddenly dying (or collapsing, and there were many of these too) when Letby was looking after them were not the sickest or the youngest. They were all expected to survive, so comparable to the ones treated in the subsequent 7 years.
There was a host of other corroborating evidence too. 10 months worth, pored over by expert lawyers and the jurors.
NB the Guardian quotes the defence’s expert Dr Mike Hall who had read the case notes & was present for nearly the entire case in court. He is quoted in the article saying the prosecution witnesses “exaggerated how well arguably all the babies who sadly died were”.
I have no idea why the defence failed to call him, given his views, but there it is.
Kemi Badenoch used first meeting of shadow cabinet to criticise Rishi Sunak's election campaign amid concerns colleagues are failing to grasp enormity of defeat
* Badenoch said that Sunak's decision to call an early election without informing his Cabinet was a mistake and bordered on 'unconstitutional'
* Badenoch said that instead of telling Cabinet ministers first Sunak had opted to inform a small group of colleagues, including his PPS Craig Williams who subsequently admitted placing a bet on the election date. She described Williams as a 'buffoon'
* Badenoch said Sunak's decision to return early from D-Day commemorations was "disastrous" and had dominated the election campaign, adding that colleagues like Penny Mordaunt would still be MPs today if he had stayed longer in France.
* She said many Tories were clearly still traumatised. She said Suella Braverman, former home secretary, appears to be having a 'very public' nervous breakdown
* She said Sunak should stay on to ensure an orderly transition to his successor
* She was said to be speaking for colleagues, particularly former ministers who had lost their seats. She spoke of the importance of shadow cabinet discussions not being leaked.
Leaking like sieves. You'd have thought being reduced to the smallest cohort of Tory MPs ever might focus minds a bit. Whether they go towards the right centre or whatever they need to stop spouting off to journalists every 5 seconds.
It is focusing their minds, just in multiple different directions at the moment.
Things are bound to get messier before they can get better, they haven't really decided what the big problems are yet so they obviously cannot agree on a solution.
As for spouting off to journalists, obviously that is good advice, but that's how the game is played now. If they don't do it a rival will, or the space will be taken up by ousider commentary on their election race from Starmer or Farage.
Subtlety (or lack of it) isn’t really an issue when it comes to Tory leadership elections. Whoever is running/advising the Kemi Badenoch campaign will be delighted with this briefing, which:
- sticks the boot into Suella Braverman - distances Badenoch from Rishi Sunak - courts the now-displaced Penny Mordaunt supporters
The only things left on the bingo card were referencing Robert Jenrick’s lockdown adventures (other scandals are available), calling James Cleverly “James Stupidly” and declaring that Tom Tugendhat smells of wee.
As for the source of the briefing, there’s no smoke without fire and in this case, there’s no fire without a certain former fireplace salesman and monoskilled Tory leadership campaign thug-for-hire.
Most interesting news if the day for me was the housing minister interview on R4. Seemed to confirm that they intend to legislate to reform the law around compulsory purchase of land for building. No detail, but promising.
It might be that they actually intend to deliver on housing.
The problem isn't compulsory purchase - it is actually getting things done with the land.
There was an example, mentioned in a previous thread of a requirement to do a study, generating a multi-thousand page report, before allowing a housing association to build social housing. A study on equality.....
There are dozens of these requirements - any attempt to trim them back will be met by fierce resistance from The Enquiry Industrial Complex.
Land input cost is definitely a problem. Addressing that is absolutely necessary if a major increase in LA house building is to be financed - though agreed, it’s not enough on its own.
But they do give some indication of actually having thought through some of the practicalities.
Anyway, it’s more interesting than which second rater* becomes the next Tory leader.
(*I’m a generous person.)
It is the biggest issue this government will face, as their every instinct is to increase the empire of what @Malmesbury called the "Enquiry Industrial Complex"
It's been the instinct of the system of government since forever - government runs on lawyers and people who think more laws/rules are awesome.
They believe that if only they can create enough process, they can achieve Nirvana.
“..it is estimated that social workers spend between 12% and 20% of their time working directly with children and families, the remainder being spend on administrative tasks”
Yet another regulatory body to oversee the regulators and tell them off if they take what the regulator sees as too long.
So they start rushing things, making errors, then the whole project gets derailled when opponents notice the errors and trot off to the lawyers for judicial review.
No wonder Farage looks so smug as he contemplates building up his party structure for the 2029 election.
Meanwhile converting houses into houses of multiple ownership looks like a growth area as the increasing shortage forces more people into the same number of houses.
Oh hang on they have to be licenced from the council with a fat fee and huge amounts of regulatory paperwork.
Oh well, looks like Tents in Parks and Shanty Towns it is then.
Most HMO are not organised or registered. The tell tale, when you visit one, is the absence of the mandatory, specified, fire alarm system.
In many blocks of flats, sold in London, it has become standard to have hefty locks on the bedroom doors, as built. With the keyholes discretely in the door handles themselves. Funny that.
Trump challenges Biden to a golf match at Trump National Doral, Miami—giving Biden 10 strokes a side and $1,000,000.00 should he win, to the charity of his choice…
Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet: "Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election — and maybe win it by a landslide — and take with him the Senate and the House."
Two clues in that article. The former MP lived in Kent, suggesting she was hardly an assiduous worker in her seat. And the Tories voted not to automatically reselect her, but put her through a process before she was picked again. In the Tories that is fairly unusual for a sitting MP, I think, and suggests she wasn’t seen as popular or competent locally.
Braverman proving once again, if further proof were needed, that she is utterly unfit for any high office of state.
Jenrick too. A disingenuous, free hit critique of Timpson's answer to the prisons crisis. If just one prisoner re-offends with a rape or a murder Jenrick is proven right. It's a cheap political punt. Proven wrong nothing lost, but proven correct is a big win.
Trump challenges Biden to a golf match at Trump National Doral, Miami—giving Biden 10 strokes a side and $1,000,000.00 should he win, to the charity of his choice…
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Indeed. And the Letby truthers keep going on about the air embolism deaths, but two (IIRC) babies were killed by insulin and the defence conceded that. They conceded that foul play had taken place, but just argued it must have been some unidentified other person.
"Truthers" is one of those really tiresome smears like "conspiracy theory." Letby conceded that there must have been foul play because lab tests showed that artificial insulin had been administered. The trouble is, the lab test used comes with a standard warning that it is not suitable for determining whether artificial insulin has been administered. See the issue?
Either take an interest or don't, but don't take a lazy and essentially political view on a question of fact which you have not investigated.
Except she conceded it as a point of fact.
So her lawyers are fools conceding something for which there is no strong evidence or she knows that insulin was administered.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
It's probably a result of the toxicity of the Conservative Party's loony right. What we are seeing now is a party leader who doesn't give a damn because he knows he'll be out soon, so we see his real views. What we saw before was him bending to the noisier, loonier side of the party.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
How easy is it to find a court-approved independent lab capable of testing these chemicals, and how much would it cost?
“The new housing minister tried to block a £770 million property development in his constituency, despite the Labour Government’s campaign against Nimbys.
“Matthew Pennycook, the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, wrote to his local council complaining that plans by developers to build a series of high-rise apartments were “wholly inappropriate” and would have a “detrimental impact” on the “local heritage”.
“His letter, sent as the constituency MP in 2021, was written despite the developer’s claims that their Thames wharf project would improve a brownfield industrial site, create 1,100 new jobs and bring an annual £42 million a year boost in “socioeconomic value” to the area.”
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
The Union, the Federation, has a lot to answer for.!
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Indeed. And the Letby truthers keep going on about the air embolism deaths, but two (IIRC) babies were killed by insulin and the defence conceded that. They conceded that foul play had taken place, but just argued it must have been some unidentified other person.
"Truthers" is one of those really tiresome smears like "conspiracy theory." Letby conceded that there must have been foul play because lab tests showed that artificial insulin had been administered. The trouble is, the lab test used comes with a standard warning that it is not suitable for determining whether artificial insulin has been administered. See the issue?
Either take an interest or don't, but don't take a lazy and essentially political view on a question of fact which you have not investigated.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, one can generally presume it's fact.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, but some random person on the Internet with no relevant qualifications questions it, one can still generally presume it's fact.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth on this topic because I’m not qualified to judge these questions, but both the Guardian & the Telegraph articles have quotes from named experts in the relevant fields saying that the evidence used to detect insulin in the children’s blood was a test that was not capable of reliably detecting injected insulin, for what sound like good biochemical reasons.
Why Letby’s defence decided to accept the insulin as fact I have no idea. As I keep repeating: it would not be the first time that someone was convicted of flawed medical evidence that a poor defence was unable to rebut in court.
Everyone here who keeps taking the judgement at face value has to also acknowledge that the UK courts have made terrible errors in the past. Those people had defence lawyers too, who no doubt did their best at the time. But defence lawyer time is finite & public defenders do not get unlimited budgets to chase down every avenue to look for ways in which the prosecution might be wrong.
People have a desperate need for certainty over the Letby case. They seem to have a hard time accepting that she was convicted, but over time reasonable doubt may come in to play.
It’s the just world fallacy in action: Letby was convicted, so she must be guilty & the court case must have been fair and reasonable. After all, if it wasn’t that would have been unjust.
No-one in the UK was permitted to make any of these criticisms of the prosecution case from the moment Letby was arrested till the moment she was finally convicted, which is why they’re all coming out now. We’d all be better off if they’d been dealt with during the court case, but that’s just not possible the way UK law is structured right now.
Which of these issues weren’t addressed in court? Everything mentioned in this thread was discussed.
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
It's probably a result of the toxicity of the Conservative Party's loony right. What we are seeing now is a party leader who doesn't give a damn because he knows he'll be out soon, so we see his real views. What we saw before was him bending to the noisier, loonier side of the party.
Which is why he was a cr@p leader.
Yes. The problem is that the headbangers are by far the majority of the Parliamantary party and, it appears, of the elderly membership too. The purges of people like Osborne and Stewart denuded the party of a certain generation and a certain moderation. The aggressive stridency of Braverman or Jenrick is of a piece with the gimmicky and vacuity of their policy making. Rwanda was a classic empty political gesture. Yet the right are still try to insist that this obvious confidence trick was a serious policy. That is not a sign of intellectual strength. The Tories alienated huge blocks of their core support with bad policies, incompetently executed, while all the time hectoring and attempting to browbeat "experts". The tone was tin eared and arrogant, the policies largely useless junk. All of this, as post election Sunak has demonstrated, was understood by many in the party. However the feral Tory right, ready to change leaders, even on the very eve of the general election trapped the leadership in absurd policy contortions. It is not the moderate Tories that lost the election, it is the headbangers, cheered on by the MAGA inspired commentariat. The thing is that theTories cannot out-Farage Nigel Farage. Nevertheless the will struggle to reoccurs the centre after the brilliant success of the Lib Dem campaign. The trials of the Conservative Party are just beginning and without a major rethink, they may indeed fall apart.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
The Union, the Federation, has a lot to answer for.!
The National Federation of SubPostmasters was a puppet of the Post Office.
I believe the GWU was of genuine help to the accused, but it took a long time for the defendants to realise that the NFSP was more than just a sham, it was part of the conspiracy.
Scanning quickly through the posts this morning I am pleased to find I am not alone in thinking that it might be a good idea for the England footbal team to let their opponents win this evening.
(The problem may of course be that the Dutch have also seen Spain play and may be thinking along the same lines.)
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
How easy is it to find a court-approved independent lab capable of testing these chemicals, and how much would it cost?
I’d assume chain of custody (if that’s the right term) would be an issue
Campbell’s own dream is that “one day in the future the person who is then Prime Minister of the UK posts a photo of a dog-eared copy of this book…with the comment ‘This is the book that inspired me to get into politics’”. His dream, our nightmare. Because it isn’t just the lack of imagination, insight, originality, knowledge, balance, or nuance that characterises this book, and marks it out as one that all nascent Prime Ministers should avoid, but it is the startling lack of self-awareness that borders on the self-delusional.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
I had occasion to use an expert witness in Court earlier this year and it was notable how careful he was to be impartial and strike a fair balance when giving evidence. He was presented by the defence, but in no way could he be described as giving their side of things. He was scrupulously fair in presenting all aspects of his findings, including any that may have been helpful to the prosecution.
There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding of the role of EWs. Some seem to think they they are there to bolster one side or the other. That certainly seems to have applied with Gareth Jenkins and his evidence in Post Office prosecutions. He himself seems to have been largely unaware of the duties and obligations of an EW, and made little effort to acquaint himself with them. It hardly needs adding that the PO itself did little to bring them to his attention.
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
On all known form, Conservative Members are just about the last people who should be asked to pick a new Leader.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
I remember a dinner table conversation with a very emminent barrister (a family friend) who said in his experience he never came across anyone who pleaded guilty who wasn't. I don't know whether or not he was correct but what he said has crossed my mind many times over the last twenty years since he said it.
Campbell’s own dream is that “one day in the future the person who is then Prime Minister of the UK posts a photo of a dog-eared copy of this book…with the comment ‘This is the book that inspired me to get into politics’”. His dream, our nightmare. Because it isn’t just the lack of imagination, insight, originality, knowledge, balance, or nuance that characterises this book, and marks it out as one that all nascent Prime Ministers should avoid, but it is the startling lack of self-awareness that borders on the self-delusional.
My God, he must be on PB. That description aligns with at least half of us.
Farron on Today this morning highlighting decision day for Ofwat regarding Thames, and the water industry in general. He correctly identified it as a big test for the new government. They need to say a firm no to Thames idea that it can bail out its investors at our expense.
One of the few examples where the case for public ownership is overwhelming.
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
I think it's obvious Rory Stewart would ultimately like to return to active politics, but I can't see him wanting to return to the Tory party as it is now, let alone the Tory party led by one of the right-wing crazies. Several people he was close to and saw as potential allies lost their seats.
It's not clear quite where he could go, unless the Tory party split. He obviously isn't tempted to run as a mayor under FPTP. Possibly he would consider becoming some kind of "czar" for Starmer. Perhaps something involving AI or citizens' assemblies.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
I remember a dinner table conversation with a very emminent barrister (a family friend) who said in his experience he never came across anyone who pleaded guilty who wasn't. I don't know whether or not he was correct but what he said has crossed my mind many times over the last twenty years since he said it.
Roger, I'm speaking to you as your lawyer. The evidence from the computer system appears watertight. Yes, you say it is wrong, but we have no way of proving that. And what does the Post Office have to gain by lying? If you go to trial, you will spend 8, maybe 10, years in prison. If you plead guilty, you can be out in 18 months. That's the difference between missing one of your kids birthdays and missing their entire childhood. Do the right thing for your kid, plead guilty and put this behind you.
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
It's probably a result of the toxicity of the Conservative Party's loony right. What we are seeing now is a party leader who doesn't give a damn because he knows he'll be out soon, so we see his real views. What we saw before was him bending to the noisier, loonier side of the party.
Which is why he was a cr@p leader.
Yes. The problem is that the headbangers are by far the majority of the Parliamantary party and, it appears, of the elderly membership too. The purges of people like Osborne and Stewart denuded the party of a certain generation and a certain moderation. The aggressive stridency of Braverman or Jenrick is of a piece with the gimmicky and vacuity of their policy making. Rwanda was a classic empty political gesture. Yet the right are still try to insist that this obvious confidence trick was a serious policy. That is not a sign of intellectual strength. The Tories alienated huge blocks of their core support with bad policies, incompetently executed, while all the time hectoring and attempting to browbeat "experts". The tone was tin eared and arrogant, the policies largely useless junk. All of this, as post election Sunak has demonstrated, was understood by many in the party. However the feral Tory right, ready to change leaders, even on the very eve of the general election trapped the leadership in absurd policy contortions. It is not the moderate Tories that lost the election, it is the headbangers, cheered on by the MAGA inspired commentariat. The thing is that theTories cannot out-Farage Nigel Farage. Nevertheless the will struggle to reoccurs the centre after the brilliant success of the Lib Dem campaign. The trials of the Conservative Party are just beginning and without a major rethink, they may indeed fall apart.
Yes, and the GE outcome can in a sense be viewed as the worst possible for them. Fifty more seats and they could have simply reverted to being a normal kind of Opposition; fifty less and they would have been obliged to have a thoroughgoing rethink of their role in politics and a revamp of the Party. One hundred and twentyone seats leaves them will all the same old problems and little motivtion to address them properly.
If they think Jenrik and Badenoch may be the answer, they haven't understood the question.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
I remember a dinner table conversation with a very emminent barrister (a family friend) who said in his experience he never came across anyone who pleaded guilty who wasn't. I don't know whether or not he was correct but what he said has crossed my mind many times over the last twenty years since he said it.
Roger, I'm speaking to you as your lawyer. The evidence from the computer system appears watertight. Yes, you say it is wrong, but we have no way of proving that. And what does the Post Office have to gain by lying? If you go to trial, you will spend 8, maybe 10, years in prison. If you plead guilty, you can be out in 18 months. That's the difference between missing one of your kids birthdays and missing their entire childhood. Do the right thing for your kid, plead guilty and put this behind you.
Roger's propensity to take as gospel the dinner party conversation of those prone to MRD syndrome, is impressive.
Though he might be subtly commenting on how wrong the guy was in his certainty ?
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
I remember a dinner table conversation with a very emminent barrister (a family friend) who said in his experience he never came across anyone who pleaded guilty who wasn't. I don't know whether or not he was correct but what he said has crossed my mind many times over the last twenty years since he said it.
Brighten my morning up please, Roger. Tell me he got food poisoning.
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
On all known form, Conservative Members are just about the last people who should be asked to pick a new Leader.
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
On all known form, Conservative Members are just about the last people who should be asked to pick a new Leader.
With the exception of Conservative MPs.
Sure. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
What is difficult to grasp about the concept that the Leader of a work group should be someone the group actually wants?
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
It's probably a result of the toxicity of the Conservative Party's loony right. What we are seeing now is a party leader who doesn't give a damn because he knows he'll be out soon, so we see his real views. What we saw before was him bending to the noisier, loonier side of the party.
Which is why he was a cr@p leader.
Yes. The problem is that the headbangers are by far the majority of the Parliamantary party and, it appears, of the elderly membership too. The purges of people like Osborne and Stewart denuded the party of a certain generation and a certain moderation. The aggressive stridency of Braverman or Jenrick is of a piece with the gimmicky and vacuity of their policy making. Rwanda was a classic empty political gesture. Yet the right are still try to insist that this obvious confidence trick was a serious policy. That is not a sign of intellectual strength. The Tories alienated huge blocks of their core support with bad policies, incompetently executed, while all the time hectoring and attempting to browbeat "experts". The tone was tin eared and arrogant, the policies largely useless junk. All of this, as post election Sunak has demonstrated, was understood by many in the party. However the feral Tory right, ready to change leaders, even on the very eve of the general election trapped the leadership in absurd policy contortions. It is not the moderate Tories that lost the election, it is the headbangers, cheered on by the MAGA inspired commentariat. The thing is that theTories cannot out-Farage Nigel Farage. Nevertheless the will struggle to reoccurs the centre after the brilliant success of the Lib Dem campaign. The trials of the Conservative Party are just beginning and without a major rethink, they may indeed fall apart.
Yes, and the GE outcome can in a sense be viewed as the worst possible for them. Fifty more seats and they could have simply reverted to being a normal kind of Opposition; fifty less and they would have been obliged to have a thoroughgoing rethink of their role in politics and a revamp of the Party. One hundred and twentyone seats leaves them will all the same old problems and little motivtion to address them properly.
If they think Jenrik and Badenoch may be the answer, they haven't understood the question.
It's pretty obviously going to be KB if she makes it through the members. The tories on here seem to be bricked up for her.
Most interesting news if the day for me was the housing minister interview on R4. Seemed to confirm that they intend to legislate to reform the law around compulsory purchase of land for building. No detail, but promising.
It might be that they actually intend to deliver on housing.
The problem isn't compulsory purchase - it is actually getting things done with the land.
There was an example, mentioned in a previous thread of a requirement to do a study, generating a multi-thousand page report, before allowing a housing association to build social housing. A study on equality.....
There are dozens of these requirements - any attempt to trim them back will be met by fierce resistance from The Enquiry Industrial Complex.
Land input cost is definitely a problem. Addressing that is absolutely necessary if a major increase in LA house building is to be financed - though agreed, it’s not enough on its own.
But they do give some indication of actually having thought through some of the practicalities.
Anyway, it’s more interesting than which second rater* becomes the next Tory leader.
(*I’m a generous person.)
It is the biggest issue this government will face, as their every instinct is to increase the empire of what @Malmesbury called the "Enquiry Industrial Complex"
It's been the instinct of the system of government since forever - government runs on lawyers and people who think more laws/rules are awesome.
They believe that if only they can create enough process, they can achieve Nirvana.
“..it is estimated that social workers spend between 12% and 20% of their time working directly with children and families, the remainder being spend on administrative tasks”
Yet another regulatory body to oversee the regulators and tell them off if they take what the regulator sees as too long.
So they start rushing things, making errors, then the whole project gets derailled when opponents notice the errors and trot off to the lawyers for judicial review.
No wonder Farage looks so smug as he contemplates building up his party structure for the 2029 election.
Meanwhile converting houses into houses of multiple ownership looks like a growth area as the increasing shortage forces more people into the same number of houses.
Oh hang on they have to be licenced from the council with a fat fee and huge amounts of regulatory paperwork.
Oh well, looks like Tents in Parks and Shanty Towns it is then.
Most HMO are not organised or registered. The tell tale, when you visit one, is the absence of the mandatory, specified, fire alarm system.
In many blocks of flats, sold in London, it has become standard to have hefty locks on the bedroom doors, as built. With the keyholes discretely in the door handles themselves. Funny that.
This is another issue with excessive/complex regulation.
Comply and you end up with a good chance going bust and losing everything as you have to compete on price with those cheating.
Cheat and you probably get away with it because most are (see above) and you are unlikely to be caught as the council have to pay for so many bureaucrats ton administer the regulations and their index linked pensions, that short of the place burning down, they are unlikely to have the resources to enforce anything much.
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
On all known form, Conservative Members are just about the last people who should be asked to pick a new Leader.
With the exception of Conservative MPs.
Sure. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
What is difficult to grasp about the concept that the Leader of a work group should be someone the group actually wants?
You misunderstood me. Tory members may be the last people who should be asked to pick a leader, with the exception of MPs, who are worse. MPs gave the members a choice between Truss and Sunak. You can say that was the wrong choice - if so I have an election result to sell you.
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
It's probably a result of the toxicity of the Conservative Party's loony right. What we are seeing now is a party leader who doesn't give a damn because he knows he'll be out soon, so we see his real views. What we saw before was him bending to the noisier, loonier side of the party.
Which is why he was a cr@p leader.
Yes. The problem is that the headbangers are by far the majority of the Parliamantary party and, it appears, of the elderly membership too. The purges of people like Osborne and Stewart denuded the party of a certain generation and a certain moderation. The aggressive stridency of Braverman or Jenrick is of a piece with the gimmicky and vacuity of their policy making. Rwanda was a classic empty political gesture. Yet the right are still try to insist that this obvious confidence trick was a serious policy. That is not a sign of intellectual strength. The Tories alienated huge blocks of their core support with bad policies, incompetently executed, while all the time hectoring and attempting to browbeat "experts". The tone was tin eared and arrogant, the policies largely useless junk. All of this, as post election Sunak has demonstrated, was understood by many in the party. However the feral Tory right, ready to change leaders, even on the very eve of the general election trapped the leadership in absurd policy contortions. It is not the moderate Tories that lost the election, it is the headbangers, cheered on by the MAGA inspired commentariat. The thing is that theTories cannot out-Farage Nigel Farage. Nevertheless the will struggle to reoccurs the centre after the brilliant success of the Lib Dem campaign. The trials of the Conservative Party are just beginning and without a major rethink, they may indeed fall apart.
Yes, and the GE outcome can in a sense be viewed as the worst possible for them. Fifty more seats and they could have simply reverted to being a normal kind of Opposition; fifty less and they would have been obliged to have a thoroughgoing rethink of their role in politics and a revamp of the Party. One hundred and twentyone seats leaves them will all the same old problems and little motivtion to address them properly.
If they think Jenrik and Badenoch may be the answer, they haven't understood the question.
It's pretty obviously going to be KB if she makes it through the members. The tories on here seem to be bricked up for her.
It's hard to discern what they see in her. But then you look at some of the alternatives.
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
I think it's obvious Rory Stewart would ultimately like to return to active politics, but I can't see him wanting to return to the Tory party as it is now, let alone the Tory party led by one of the right-wing crazies. Several people he was close to and saw as potential allies lost their seats.
It's not clear quite where he could go, unless the Tory party split. He obviously isn't tempted to run as a mayor under FPTP. Possibly he would consider becoming some kind of "czar" for Starmer. Perhaps something involving AI or citizens' assemblies.
Boris cleared out Stewart and likeminded MPs. The Party is now paying the price. Why should RS and Palshelp it out?
Some polling of Conservative members on who they would like as leader:
Kemi Badenoch: 31%; Suella Braverman: 16%; Tom Tugendat: 15%; Jeremy Hunt: 12%; James Cleverly: 10%; Robert Jenrick: 7%; Priti Patel: 6%; Victoria Atkins: 2%.
The Tories really are screwed until they widen their appeal to working people. People who are prepared to pay a sub. Neither of the top two above can win them back the support they need. Any of the next three might at least steady the ship. But maybe it’ll eventually be someone from the new intake who will eventually emerge. Or someone who gets back in through a BE. They could do worse than find Rory Stewart a safe seat.
On all known form, Conservative Members are just about the last people who should be asked to pick a new Leader.
With the exception of Conservative MPs.
Sure. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
What is difficult to grasp about the concept that the Leader of a work group should be someone the group actually wants?
You misunderstood me. Tory members may be the last people who should be asked to pick a leader, with the exception of MPs, who are worse. MPs gave the members a choice between Truss and Sunak. You can say that was the wrong choice - if so I have an election result to sell you.
Campbell’s own dream is that “one day in the future the person who is then Prime Minister of the UK posts a photo of a dog-eared copy of this book…with the comment ‘This is the book that inspired me to get into politics’”. His dream, our nightmare. Because it isn’t just the lack of imagination, insight, originality, knowledge, balance, or nuance that characterises this book, and marks it out as one that all nascent Prime Ministers should avoid, but it is the startling lack of self-awareness that borders on the self-delusional.
His book 'The Blair Years' was excellent. One of the most readable political books I've read
It is quite funny how people are saying Farage won't be able to get much speaking time eg at PMQs.
How many UK people sat and watched the big events in the European Volkskammer Parliament?
Virtually none. People only knew about Farages speeches because he uploaded and distributed them.
There are a million and one half attended debates in Parliament where Farage will be able to speak as much as he likes and upload / distribute.
Hoyle must not indulge Farage. He has to be told to stfu when he’s showboating.
And then Farage will just play the victim. And the people who follow him will believe him. Coz cult, and all that...
Is there a league table? If not, there should be.
Presumably the leader of the Famous Five will get one question a term or so to reflect his importance, and then it will be down to tickets in a hat.
Since there are only 15 organisations questions per week, that's something under 500 per annum or one and a bit per backbench MP, then it is down to the bunny hopping.
But my MP Mr Anderson seems to appear a lot more than that.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Indeed. And the Letby truthers keep going on about the air embolism deaths, but two (IIRC) babies were killed by insulin and the defence conceded that. They conceded that foul play had taken place, but just argued it must have been some unidentified other person.
"Truthers" is one of those really tiresome smears like "conspiracy theory." Letby conceded that there must have been foul play because lab tests showed that artificial insulin had been administered. The trouble is, the lab test used comes with a standard warning that it is not suitable for determining whether artificial insulin has been administered. See the issue?
Either take an interest or don't, but don't take a lazy and essentially political view on a question of fact which you have not investigated.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, one can generally presume it's fact.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, but some random person on the Internet with no relevant qualifications questions it, one can still generally presume it's fact.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth on this topic because I’m not qualified to judge these questions, but both the Guardian & the Telegraph articles have quotes from named experts in the relevant fields saying that the evidence used to detect insulin in the children’s blood was a test that was not capable of reliably detecting injected insulin, for what sound like good biochemical reasons.
Why Letby’s defence decided to accept the insulin as fact I have no idea. As I keep repeating: it would not be the first time that someone was convicted of flawed medical evidence that a poor defence was unable to rebut in court.
Everyone here who keeps taking the judgement at face value has to also acknowledge that the UK courts have made terrible errors in the past. Those people had defence lawyers too, who no doubt did their best at the time. But defence lawyer time is finite & public defenders do not get unlimited budgets to chase down every avenue to look for ways in which the prosecution might be wrong.
People have a desperate need for certainty over the Letby case. They seem to have a hard time accepting that she was convicted, but over time reasonable doubt may come in to play.
It’s the just world fallacy in action: Letby was convicted, so she must be guilty & the court case must have been fair and reasonable. After all, if it wasn’t that would have been unjust.
No-one in the UK was permitted to make any of these criticisms of the prosecution case from the moment Letby was arrested till the moment she was finally convicted, which is why they’re all coming out now. We’d all be better off if they’d been dealt with during the court case, but that’s just not possible the way UK law is structured right now.
Which of these issues weren’t addressed in court? Everything mentioned in this thread was discussed.
Without wanting to be a “Letby Truther” (because it seems likely she’s guilty tbh), some things were discussed, but the criticisms were not presented to the jury & were left to stand as is by the judge (eg the presentation of the statistical evidence on shift patterns appears on the face of it to be extremely biased) whilst other witnesses who were in the courtroom & saw all the evidence & have very strong doubts about the medical evidence were (inexplicably) not called by the defence.
To me, honestly it seems the insulin raises questions that are very difficult to explain if you don’t believe Letby was a killer, even though those babies didn’t die. But every time you pick up another rock of evidence you find cockroaches underneath it, which is why I think this case I gained so much “truther” traction. It /looks/ like she’s been railroaded & that brings the court system into disrepute.
Trump challenges Biden to a golf match at Trump National Doral, Miami—giving Biden 10 strokes a side and $1,000,000.00 should he win, to the charity of his choice…
Now why didn't Sunak think of doing that?
Sunak would have chosen football, rather than golf.
Trump challenges Biden to a golf match at Trump National Doral, Miami—giving Biden 10 strokes a side and $1,000,000.00 should he win, to the charity of his choice…
Now why didn't Sunak think of doing that?
Sunak would have chosen football, rather than golf.
Starmer was quite a decent footballer in his youth, I think, and still played a bit unti fairly recently.
While I entirely agree with her line of argument, and keep up sartorial standards myself there is a long irreversible trend to sportswear in male British fashion.
The tailcoat was an informal version of the frockcoat adjusted for riding, the lounge suit originates in informal country wear worn originally for shooting, tweed even more so, the blazer from boating wear, the polo shirt and rugby shirt etc etc. So the hoodie is part of that long trend.
I notice too that contemporary fashion for the young for athleisure wear is for teenage girls to just wear sports bra and cycling shorts, while males wear shapeless baggy hoodies and trackies, and awful trainers.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Indeed. And the Letby truthers keep going on about the air embolism deaths, but two (IIRC) babies were killed by insulin and the defence conceded that. They conceded that foul play had taken place, but just argued it must have been some unidentified other person.
"Truthers" is one of those really tiresome smears like "conspiracy theory." Letby conceded that there must have been foul play because lab tests showed that artificial insulin had been administered. The trouble is, the lab test used comes with a standard warning that it is not suitable for determining whether artificial insulin has been administered. See the issue?
Either take an interest or don't, but don't take a lazy and essentially political view on a question of fact which you have not investigated.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, one can generally presume it's fact.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, but some random person on the Internet with no relevant qualifications questions it, one can still generally presume it's fact.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth on this topic because I’m not qualified to judge these questions, but both the Guardian & the Telegraph articles have quotes from named experts in the relevant fields saying that the evidence used to detect insulin in the children’s blood was a test that was not capable of reliably detecting injected insulin, for what sound like good biochemical reasons.
Why Letby’s defence decided to accept the insulin as fact I have no idea. As I keep repeating: it would not be the first time that someone was convicted of flawed medical evidence that a poor defence was unable to rebut in court.
Everyone here who keeps taking the judgement at face value has to also acknowledge that the UK courts have made terrible errors in the past. Those people had defence lawyers too, who no doubt did their best at the time. But defence lawyer time is finite & public defenders do not get unlimited budgets to chase down every avenue to look for ways in which the prosecution might be wrong.
People have a desperate need for certainty over the Letby case. They seem to have a hard time accepting that she was convicted, but over time reasonable doubt may come in to play.
It’s the just world fallacy in action: Letby was convicted, so she must be guilty & the court case must have been fair and reasonable. After all, if it wasn’t that would have been unjust.
No-one in the UK was permitted to make any of these criticisms of the prosecution case from the moment Letby was arrested till the moment she was finally convicted, which is why they’re all coming out now. We’d all be better off if they’d been dealt with during the court case, but that’s just not possible the way UK law is structured right now.
Which of these issues weren’t addressed in court? Everything mentioned in this thread was discussed.
Without wanting to be a “Letby Truther” (because it seems likely she’s guilty tbh), some things were discussed, but the criticisms were not presented to the jury & were left to stand as is by the judge (eg the presentation of the statistical evidence on shift patterns appears on the face of it to be extremely biased) whilst other witnesses who were in the courtroom & saw all the evidence & have very strong doubts about the medical evidence were (inexplicably) not called by the defence.
To me, honestly it seems the insulin raises questions that are very difficult to explain if you don’t believe Letby was a killer, even though those babies didn’t die. But every time you pick up another rock of evidence you find cockroaches underneath it, which is why I think this case I gained so much “truther” traction. It /looks/ like she’s been railroaded & that brings the court system into disrepute.
As I have pointed out a number of times the insulin assay is not the critical one, it is the c-peptide one along side it that is.
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
He was probably over coached into being something he thought he had to be and something he's not.
It happens when you're not quite in a role you're comfortable with and under stress.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Indeed. And the Letby truthers keep going on about the air embolism deaths, but two (IIRC) babies were killed by insulin and the defence conceded that. They conceded that foul play had taken place, but just argued it must have been some unidentified other person.
"Truthers" is one of those really tiresome smears like "conspiracy theory." Letby conceded that there must have been foul play because lab tests showed that artificial insulin had been administered. The trouble is, the lab test used comes with a standard warning that it is not suitable for determining whether artificial insulin has been administered. See the issue?
Either take an interest or don't, but don't take a lazy and essentially political view on a question of fact which you have not investigated.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, one can generally presume it's fact.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, but some random person on the Internet with no relevant qualifications questions it, one can still generally presume it's fact.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth on this topic because I’m not qualified to judge these questions, but both the Guardian & the Telegraph articles have quotes from named experts in the relevant fields saying that the evidence used to detect insulin in the children’s blood was a test that was not capable of reliably detecting injected insulin, for what sound like good biochemical reasons.
Why Letby’s defence decided to accept the insulin as fact I have no idea. As I keep repeating: it would not be the first time that someone was convicted of flawed medical evidence that a poor defence was unable to rebut in court.
Everyone here who keeps taking the judgement at face value has to also acknowledge that the UK courts have made terrible errors in the past. Those people had defence lawyers too, who no doubt did their best at the time. But defence lawyer time is finite & public defenders do not get unlimited budgets to chase down every avenue to look for ways in which the prosecution might be wrong.
People have a desperate need for certainty over the Letby case. They seem to have a hard time accepting that she was convicted, but over time reasonable doubt may come in to play.
It’s the just world fallacy in action: Letby was convicted, so she must be guilty & the court case must have been fair and reasonable. After all, if it wasn’t that would have been unjust.
No-one in the UK was permitted to make any of these criticisms of the prosecution case from the moment Letby was arrested till the moment she was finally convicted, which is why they’re all coming out now. We’d all be better off if they’d been dealt with during the court case, but that’s just not possible the way UK law is structured right now.
Which of these issues weren’t addressed in court? Everything mentioned in this thread was discussed.
Without wanting to be a “Letby Truther” (because it seems likely she’s guilty tbh), some things were discussed, but the criticisms were not presented to the jury & were left to stand as is by the judge (eg the presentation of the statistical evidence on shift patterns appears on the face of it to be extremely biased) whilst other witnesses who were in the courtroom & saw all the evidence & have very strong doubts about the medical evidence were (inexplicably) not called by the defence.
To me, honestly it seems the insulin raises questions that are very difficult to explain if you don’t believe Letby was a killer, even though those babies didn’t die. But every time you pick up another rock of evidence you find cockroaches underneath it, which is why I think this case I gained so much “truther” traction. It /looks/ like she’s been railroaded & that brings the court system into disrepute.
As I have pointed out a number of times the insulin assay is not the critical one, it is the c-peptide one along side it that is.
I literally just wrote above that I think the insulin evidence is in favour of her being guilty. Was I unclear?
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
It's probably a result of the toxicity of the Conservative Party's loony right. What we are seeing now is a party leader who doesn't give a damn because he knows he'll be out soon, so we see his real views. What we saw before was him bending to the noisier, loonier side of the party.
Which is why he was a cr@p leader.
Yes. The problem is that the headbangers are by far the majority of the Parliamantary party and, it appears, of the elderly membership too. The purges of people like Osborne and Stewart denuded the party of a certain generation and a certain moderation. The aggressive stridency of Braverman or Jenrick is of a piece with the gimmicky and vacuity of their policy making. Rwanda was a classic empty political gesture. Yet the right are still try to insist that this obvious confidence trick was a serious policy. That is not a sign of intellectual strength. The Tories alienated huge blocks of their core support with bad policies, incompetently executed, while all the time hectoring and attempting to browbeat "experts". The tone was tin eared and arrogant, the policies largely useless junk. All of this, as post election Sunak has demonstrated, was understood by many in the party. However the feral Tory right, ready to change leaders, even on the very eve of the general election trapped the leadership in absurd policy contortions. It is not the moderate Tories that lost the election, it is the headbangers, cheered on by the MAGA inspired commentariat. The thing is that theTories cannot out-Farage Nigel Farage. Nevertheless the will struggle to reoccurs the centre after the brilliant success of the Lib Dem campaign. The trials of the Conservative Party are just beginning and without a major rethink, they may indeed fall apart.
Yes, and the GE outcome can in a sense be viewed as the worst possible for them. Fifty more seats and they could have simply reverted to being a normal kind of Opposition; fifty less and they would have been obliged to have a thoroughgoing rethink of their role in politics and a revamp of the Party. One hundred and twentyone seats leaves them will all the same old problems and little motivtion to address them properly.
If they think Jenrik and Badenoch may be the answer, they haven't understood the question.
It's pretty obviously going to be KB if she makes it through the members. The tories on here seem to be bricked up for her.
It's hard to discern what they see in her. But then you look at some of the alternatives.
She is articulate and argues well, so could do as LOTO, but does have a tendency to prefer talk to action. She goes missing at key times, such as the recent campaign, the Post Office scandal, and despite several cabinet appointments doesn't seem to have achieved much as a minister.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Indeed. And the Letby truthers keep going on about the air embolism deaths, but two (IIRC) babies were killed by insulin and the defence conceded that. They conceded that foul play had taken place, but just argued it must have been some unidentified other person.
"Truthers" is one of those really tiresome smears like "conspiracy theory." Letby conceded that there must have been foul play because lab tests showed that artificial insulin had been administered. The trouble is, the lab test used comes with a standard warning that it is not suitable for determining whether artificial insulin has been administered. See the issue?
Either take an interest or don't, but don't take a lazy and essentially political view on a question of fact which you have not investigated.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, one can generally presume it's fact.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, but some random person on the Internet with no relevant qualifications questions it, one can still generally presume it's fact.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth on this topic because I’m not qualified to judge these questions, but both the Guardian & the Telegraph articles have quotes from named experts in the relevant fields saying that the evidence used to detect insulin in the children’s blood was a test that was not capable of reliably detecting injected insulin, for what sound like good biochemical reasons.
Why Letby’s defence decided to accept the insulin as fact I have no idea. As I keep repeating: it would not be the first time that someone was convicted of flawed medical evidence that a poor defence was unable to rebut in court.
Everyone here who keeps taking the judgement at face value has to also acknowledge that the UK courts have made terrible errors in the past. Those people had defence lawyers too, who no doubt did their best at the time. But defence lawyer time is finite & public defenders do not get unlimited budgets to chase down every avenue to look for ways in which the prosecution might be wrong.
People have a desperate need for certainty over the Letby case. They seem to have a hard time accepting that she was convicted, but over time reasonable doubt may come in to play.
It’s the just world fallacy in action: Letby was convicted, so she must be guilty & the court case must have been fair and reasonable. After all, if it wasn’t that would have been unjust.
No-one in the UK was permitted to make any of these criticisms of the prosecution case from the moment Letby was arrested till the moment she was finally convicted, which is why they’re all coming out now. We’d all be better off if they’d been dealt with during the court case, but that’s just not possible the way UK law is structured right now.
Which of these issues weren’t addressed in court? Everything mentioned in this thread was discussed.
Without wanting to be a “Letby Truther” (because it seems likely she’s guilty tbh), some things were discussed, but the criticisms were not presented to the jury & were left to stand as is by the judge (eg the presentation of the statistical evidence on shift patterns appears on the face of it to be extremely biased) whilst other witnesses who were in the courtroom & saw all the evidence & have very strong doubts about the medical evidence were (inexplicably) not called by the defence.
To me, honestly it seems the insulin raises questions that are very difficult to explain if you don’t believe Letby was a killer, even though those babies didn’t die. But every time you pick up another rock of evidence you find cockroaches underneath it, which is why I think this case I gained so much “truther” traction. It /looks/ like she’s been railroaded & that brings the court system into disrepute.
As I have pointed out a number of times the insulin assay is not the critical one, it is the c-peptide one along side it that is.
I literally just wrote above that I think the insulin evidence is in favour of her being guilty. Was I unclear?
Yes, you have implied that there is some controversy over the insulin testing.
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Indeed. And the Letby truthers keep going on about the air embolism deaths, but two (IIRC) babies were killed by insulin and the defence conceded that. They conceded that foul play had taken place, but just argued it must have been some unidentified other person.
"Truthers" is one of those really tiresome smears like "conspiracy theory." Letby conceded that there must have been foul play because lab tests showed that artificial insulin had been administered. The trouble is, the lab test used comes with a standard warning that it is not suitable for determining whether artificial insulin has been administered. See the issue?
Either take an interest or don't, but don't take a lazy and essentially political view on a question of fact which you have not investigated.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, one can generally presume it's fact.
When both prosecution and defence agree on something, but some random person on the Internet with no relevant qualifications questions it, one can still generally presume it's fact.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth on this topic because I’m not qualified to judge these questions, but both the Guardian & the Telegraph articles have quotes from named experts in the relevant fields saying that the evidence used to detect insulin in the children’s blood was a test that was not capable of reliably detecting injected insulin, for what sound like good biochemical reasons.
Why Letby’s defence decided to accept the insulin as fact I have no idea. As I keep repeating: it would not be the first time that someone was convicted of flawed medical evidence that a poor defence was unable to rebut in court.
Everyone here who keeps taking the judgement at face value has to also acknowledge that the UK courts have made terrible errors in the past. Those people had defence lawyers too, who no doubt did their best at the time. But defence lawyer time is finite & public defenders do not get unlimited budgets to chase down every avenue to look for ways in which the prosecution might be wrong.
People have a desperate need for certainty over the Letby case. They seem to have a hard time accepting that she was convicted, but over time reasonable doubt may come in to play.
It’s the just world fallacy in action: Letby was convicted, so she must be guilty & the court case must have been fair and reasonable. After all, if it wasn’t that would have been unjust.
No-one in the UK was permitted to make any of these criticisms of the prosecution case from the moment Letby was arrested till the moment she was finally convicted, which is why they’re all coming out now. We’d all be better off if they’d been dealt with during the court case, but that’s just not possible the way UK law is structured right now.
Which of these issues weren’t addressed in court? Everything mentioned in this thread was discussed.
Without wanting to be a “Letby Truther” (because it seems likely she’s guilty tbh), some things were discussed, but the criticisms were not presented to the jury & were left to stand as is by the judge (eg the presentation of the statistical evidence on shift patterns appears on the face of it to be extremely biased) whilst other witnesses who were in the courtroom & saw all the evidence & have very strong doubts about the medical evidence were (inexplicably) not called by the defence.
To me, honestly it seems the insulin raises questions that are very difficult to explain if you don’t believe Letby was a killer, even though those babies didn’t die. But every time you pick up another rock of evidence you find cockroaches underneath it, which is why I think this case I gained so much “truther” traction. It /looks/ like she’s been railroaded & that brings the court system into disrepute.
As I have pointed out a number of times the insulin assay is not the critical one, it is the c-peptide one along side it that is.
I literally just wrote above that I think the insulin evidence is in favour of her being guilty. Was I unclear?
Yes, you have implied that there is some controversy over the insulin testing.
I was mentally including the entire assay (c-peptide & insulin) in my original comment under “the insulin”. Apologies!
But you’re right I did make that claim based on the Guardian article - I meant to back that out as it only seems to be a single medical expert (although a genuine one) with an axe to grind about the use of antibody insulin tests in these cases that’s not shared by a wider range of domain experts.
It’s possible for him to be right, but it seems to me you need more than a “this antibody test might be reacting to something other than insulin” complaint which, while it might be true, only reduces the strength of the evidence somewhat, it doesn’t actually negate it.
Farron on Today this morning highlighting decision day for Ofwat regarding Thames, and the water industry in general. He correctly identified it as a big test for the new government. They need to say a firm no to Thames idea that it can bail out its investors at our expense.
One of the few examples where the case for public ownership is overwhelming.
I'm not sure that the fact that the current owners of Thames Water stand to lose their shirts says anything about the virtues or otherwise of public ownership vs private ownership. The main learning point (one might think) is that Caveat Emptor applys particularly strongly to those buying debt laden utilities.
As I understand, the underlying business is profitable, so the administrators should be able to sell it to somebody with no effect on services to end customers. It's only a mixture of the owners and lenders who get wiped out - to which the correct response is "hard cheese".
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
I remember a dinner table conversation with a very emminent barrister (a family friend) who said in his experience he never came across anyone who pleaded guilty who wasn't. I don't know whether or not he was correct but what he said has crossed my mind many times over the last twenty years since he said it.
That’s why plea bargains are a horrific innovation. It distorts the guilt/innocence decision by altering the outcomes
From @Phil (I think) on the previous thread re the Letby case -
"The Guardian claims to have spoken to eight clinicians, seven of them specialising in neonatology who described Evans claims that an air embolism could be introduced in the way claimed during the trials as (I quote the article) nonsensical, “rubbish”, “ridiculous”, “implausible” and “fantastical” in half the cases & the other half relied on a research paper that the /authors/ of that paper said was completely inapplicable.
I am not an expert, but this seems ... concerning to me."
If so, it is odd, isn't it, as @Algakirk has repeatedly pointed out, that none of these clinicians was willing to give evidence for the defence during the trial - assuming any of them were asked.
Why not?
Because they were not asked.
It's difficult to see what point you are making. It's not like giving evidence at the trial would have been a sticking their head above the parapet thing to do. What makes you think saying things to the guardian is a markedly lower risk thing to do than saying things in court? It's much higher risk because if they were talking to the press prior to the latest judgment that leaves them exposed to contempt charges.
I presume that when they're asked to be an expert witness, or were they to be asked, they start looking into the case in detail, as opposed to reacting to one thing presented out of context, and they come to conclusions that the defence don't want to use.
I don't see any basis for any of those suppositions.
The defence case were able to call expert witnesses. The defence case in their appeal, when they made these particular points about air embolisms, were able to call expert witnesses. They never did. Even when they were talking about a topic where an expert witness would be useful.
Either they are the most incompetent defence lawyers in the history of lawyering, or they couldn't find any expert witnesses whose testimony they wanted to put in front of the court.
And those arguments don't apply to the subpostmasters because...?
Many of the sub-postermasters were brow-beaten into pleading guilty rather than fighting. When they fought in an organised manner they won.
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
I remember a dinner table conversation with a very emminent barrister (a family friend) who said in his experience he never came across anyone who pleaded guilty who wasn't. I don't know whether or not he was correct but what he said has crossed my mind many times over the last twenty years since he said it.
Brighten my morning up please, Roger. Tell me he got food poisoning.
Comments
Rwanda declines Yvette request to pay back £270m
This is theatre on Yvette's part, she just wants the waste of money flagged up.
IIRC the prosecution suggested that she might have been responsible for some of these as well by injecting insulin into their feed bags, but no evidence for this suggestion was ever demonstrated and the insulin thesis relies on the test which is disputed as previously discussed.
There was a host of other corroborating evidence too. 10 months worth, pored over by expert lawyers and the jurors.
Letby was also shown to have falsified documentation of the times of the incidents to cover her traces.
I don’t know whether Letby is innocent. But the case stinks & is being called out by a wide range of people with very relevant expertise. Are they all wrong?
I have no idea why this has suddenly become a cause celebre. It seems a pretty safe conviction to me.
Very similar to the Beverley Allit case indeed, right down to the causes of death.
He's going to end up killing himself if he does another term.
Unfortunately that’s not going to happen .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertford_and_Stortford_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
The fact she's young, pretty and female and messed up in the head (possibly psychopathic) doesn't change that.
Also, Reform soiled the bed.
It is doubtful there would be anything like the groundswell of support for Ms Letby if she was old and male.
"Memo to new Reform MP: Hoodies on men are an abomination
By Laura Perrins
July 8, 2024"
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/hoodies-on-men-are-an-abomination/
I think one of the answers to Foxy’s question is that the case looks like a stitch up: Even if enough of it is strong enough to make the conviction safe there are so many parts that don’t hold up (the reversed entry / exit data, the terrible use of statistical evidence presented to the jury & so on) you inevitably wonder if the entire case is bullshit through and through & go looking for flaws. And there are so very many egregious flaws...
Seriously, BadEnoch could surely count on someone leaking her blast at Sun(a)k for her!
I have no idea why the defence failed to call him, given his views, but there it is.
- sticks the boot into Suella Braverman
- distances Badenoch from Rishi Sunak
- courts the now-displaced Penny Mordaunt supporters
The only things left on the bingo card were referencing Robert Jenrick’s lockdown adventures (other scandals are available), calling James Cleverly “James Stupidly” and declaring that Tom Tugendhat smells of wee.
As for the source of the briefing, there’s no smoke without fire and in this case, there’s no fire without a certain former fireplace salesman and monoskilled Tory leadership campaign thug-for-hire.
In many blocks of flats, sold in London, it has become standard to have hefty locks on the bedroom doors, as built. With the keyholes discretely in the door handles themselves. Funny that.
Trump challenges Biden to a golf match at Trump National Doral, Miami—giving Biden 10 strokes a side and $1,000,000.00 should he win, to the charity of his choice…
Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet: "Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election — and maybe win it by a landslide — and take with him the Senate and the House."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9LZXheHddI
Because those two objectives seem a *very* unlikely combination.
Rishi Sunak has, since his loss, transformed into an eloquent, measured, witty, gracious, sombre statesman who is truly interesting to listen to… attentively.
Where was this man before? I’m asking in all seriousness.
https://x.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1810755236765782491
Tweet includes and refers to Rishi's LotO speech. More evidence that without the faux-Boris act, Rishi would have been a more successful prime minister.
So her lawyers are fools conceding something for which there is no strong evidence or she knows that insulin was administered.
See the issue?
Most importantly they were not able to challenge the claim that the IT system was right without paying for a full audit themselves
Which is why he was a cr@p leader.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/09/labour-relaxes-homes-planning-rules-housing-minister-nimby/
“The new housing minister tried to block a £770 million property development in his constituency, despite the Labour Government’s campaign against Nimbys.
“Matthew Pennycook, the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, wrote to his local council complaining that plans by developers to build a series of high-rise apartments were “wholly inappropriate” and would have a “detrimental impact” on the “local heritage”.
“His letter, sent as the constituency MP in 2021, was written despite the developer’s claims that their Thames wharf project would improve a brownfield industrial site, create 1,100 new jobs and bring an annual £42 million a year boost in “socioeconomic value” to the area.”
Hoodies are comfortable and practical.
Especially with this new Labour Weather (TM)
The aggressive stridency of Braverman or Jenrick is of a piece with the gimmicky and vacuity of their policy making. Rwanda was a classic empty political gesture. Yet the right are still try to insist that this obvious confidence trick was a serious policy. That is not a sign of intellectual strength.
The Tories alienated huge blocks of their core support with bad policies, incompetently executed, while all the time hectoring and attempting to browbeat "experts". The tone was tin eared and arrogant, the policies largely useless junk.
All of this, as post election Sunak has demonstrated, was understood by many in the party. However the feral Tory right, ready to change leaders, even on the very eve of the general election trapped the leadership in absurd policy contortions.
It is not the moderate Tories that lost the election, it is the headbangers, cheered on by the MAGA inspired commentariat.
The thing is that theTories cannot out-Farage Nigel Farage. Nevertheless the will struggle to reoccurs the centre after the brilliant success of the Lib Dem campaign. The trials of the Conservative Party are just beginning and without a major rethink, they may indeed fall apart.
I believe the GWU was of genuine help to the accused, but it took a long time for the defendants to realise that the NFSP was more than just a sham, it was part of the conspiracy.
(The problem may of course be that the Dutch have also seen Spain play and may be thinking along the same lines.)
Has the Telegraph abandoned her?
Kemi Badenoch: 31%;
Suella Braverman: 16%;
Tom Tugendat: 15%;
Jeremy Hunt: 12%;
James Cleverly: 10%;
Robert Jenrick: 7%;
Priti Patel: 6%;
Victoria Atkins: 2%.
https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-has-double-the-support-of-suella-braverman-among-members-to-be-next-tory-leader-poll-suggests-13175817
https://thecritic.co.uk/a-bad-man-writes-a-worse-book/
There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding of the role of EWs. Some seem to think they they are there to bolster one side or the other. That certainly seems to have applied with Gareth Jenkins and his evidence in Post Office prosecutions. He himself seems to have been largely unaware of the duties and obligations of an EW, and made little effort to acquaint himself with them. It hardly needs adding that the PO itself did little to bring them to his attention.
What is a safe seat?
He correctly identified it as a big test for the new government. They need to say a firm no to Thames idea that it can bail out its investors at our expense.
One of the few examples where the case for public ownership is overwhelming.
It's not clear quite where he could go, unless the Tory party split. He obviously isn't tempted to run as a mayor under FPTP. Possibly he would consider becoming some kind of "czar" for Starmer. Perhaps something involving AI or citizens' assemblies.
If they think Jenrik and Badenoch may be the answer, they haven't understood the question.
Though he might be subtly commenting on how wrong the guy was in his certainty ?
Now CATL produces more EV batteries than all three combined.
https://x.com/kyleichan/status/1810895469142290666
If you compare production share to country size, the efforts of the South Koreans are extremely impressive.
What is difficult to grasp about the concept that the Leader of a work group should be someone the group actually wants?
Comply and you end up with a good chance going bust and losing everything as you have to compete on price with those cheating.
Cheat and you probably get away with it because most are (see above) and you are unlikely to be caught as the council have to pay for so many bureaucrats ton administer the regulations and their index linked pensions, that short of the place burning down, they are unlikely to have the resources to enforce anything much.
NEW THREAD
But then you look at some of the alternatives.
Presumably the leader of the Famous Five will get one question a term or so to reflect his importance, and then it will be down to tickets in a hat.
Since there are only 15 organisations questions per week, that's something under 500 per annum or one and a bit per backbench MP, then it is down to the bunny hopping.
But my MP Mr Anderson seems to appear a lot more than that.
To me, honestly it seems the insulin raises questions that are very difficult to explain if you don’t believe Letby was a killer, even though those babies didn’t die. But every time you pick up another rock of evidence you find cockroaches underneath it, which is why I think this case I gained so much “truther” traction. It /looks/ like she’s been railroaded & that brings the court system into disrepute.
Now cricket.....
The tailcoat was an informal version of the frockcoat adjusted for riding, the lounge suit originates in informal country wear worn originally for shooting, tweed even more so, the blazer from boating wear, the polo shirt and rugby shirt etc etc. So the hoodie is part of that long trend.
I notice too that contemporary fashion for the young for athleisure wear is for teenage girls to just wear sports bra and cycling shorts, while males wear shapeless baggy hoodies and trackies, and awful trainers.
It happens when you're not quite in a role you're comfortable with and under stress.
But you’re right I did make that claim based on the Guardian article - I meant to back that out as it only seems to be a single medical expert (although a genuine one) with an axe to grind about the use of antibody insulin tests in these cases that’s not shared by a wider range of domain experts.
It’s possible for him to be right, but it seems to me you need more than a “this antibody test might be reacting to something other than insulin” complaint which, while it might be true, only reduces the strength of the evidence somewhat, it doesn’t actually negate it.
As I understand, the underlying business is profitable, so the administrators should be able to sell it to somebody with no effect on services to end customers. It's only a mixture of the owners and lenders who get wiped out - to which the correct response is "hard cheese".
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