And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Anyone who puts people in space is cool in my book, even if he spends too much time trolling on Twitter.
The bit that is fascinating is that, aside from the mind rot Twatter stuff, he figured out how to do business better than Boeing or LockMart. And they still haven’t woken up.
Boeing are just happy they got that large piece of space junk back down in one piece from the ISS.
They are already lobbying Congress to ban fixed price contracts by NASA. Because they can't do them.
Several newer companies have realised that if you don't subcontract the subcontract to the subcontract to the subcontract to the subcontract to the subcontract, and actually do the work, you can charge less than half, for *military* stuff. There's a couple looking at solid fuelled rockets motors for the military and doing well with the initial small stuff.
If Boeing et al don't stop them, they will eat their military lunch as well.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
Quite. It became fashionable to hate him when he moved in on party politics, when previously he was lauded, in the same way it became fashionable to hate Trump when he did the same. Prior to him getting involved with politics, he was the likeable mega rich celebrity/mogul who would turn up to things and be lauded by people.
Trump was always a waste of space, without redeeming features.
Musk, on the other hand, remains a remarkable engineering entrepreneur, despite his idiotic and malign politics.
There's nothing weird about making that distinction; it's weird that PB Trump fans don't get it.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A glimpse into what ancient Britain might have looked like.
It will undoubtedly host the magical four specialist "oak-wood rainforest" songbird species: wood warbler, redstart, pied flycatcher and tree pipit. Well worth straining your neck to see, and your ears to hear. That said, they'll all have left for sunnier climes by now.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
Quite. It became fashionable to hate him when he moved in on party politics, when previously he was lauded, in the same way it became fashionable to hate Trump when he did the same. Prior to him getting involved with politics, he was the likeable mega rich celebrity/mogul who would turn up to things and be lauded by people.
Have you many examples of people who used to 'laud' Musk who now 'hate' him? I get the impression it's a lot of folk on the friggin cringelord right who have now realised that he's one of their own and can't bear to have their boy criticised.
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A glimpse into what ancient Britain might have looked like.
It will undoubtedly host the magical four specialist "oak-wood rainforest" songbird species: wood warbler, redstart, pied flycatcher and tree pipit. Well worth straining your neck to see, and your ears to hear. That said, they'll all have left for sunnier climes by now.
On topic, Badenoch has - once again - misdiagnosed the problem. It's not tactical voting that is scuppering her chances, it's the blistering editorial critique of her campaign and her record on the influential site politicalbetting.com
It's not really complicated. If 41 MPs really want her then it is extremely easy to ensure she goes to the members. A smaller number may suffice, but if you don't have the loyalty of a third of the MPs you should not be in the last two. The same rules apply to them all.
BTW is Cleverly positioning himself as the only one who can get votes from drys and wets?
The flaw in this argument is that if one of the two on the ballot only got there because of votes "lent" by the leading candidate, then in reality they don't have the loyalty of a third or Tory MPs either.
What I really don't see is what Tory MPs see in Jenrick. I don't like the idea of some of the other contenders, but I can make a plausible case for any of them. Jenrick just seems to have mountains of sleezey baggage and little else.
If there is only one candidate with serious support from MPs that tells you all you need to know. Yes it is possible to keep a candidate off the final two but only as long as they don't have a decent level of support (one third).
MPs are, I suppose, entitled if they wish - this is politics - and if there really is only one candidate with a real support of +one third to conspire together to put in a second potemkin candidate. If they wanted to do so, Mel Stride would be the guy. Voters vote tactically all the time. There is a reasonable chance that if they put Cleverly second he will win.
On topic, Badenoch has - once again - misdiagnosed the problem. It's not tactical voting that is scuppering her chances, it's the blistering editorial critique of her campaign and her record on the influential site politicalbetting.com
It's not really complicated. If 41 MPs really want her then it is extremely easy to ensure she goes to the members. A smaller number may suffice, but if you don't have the loyalty of a third of the MPs you should not be in the last two. The same rules apply to them all.
BTW is Cleverly positioning himself as the only one who can get votes from drys and wets?
The flaw in this argument is that if one of the two on the ballot only got there because of votes "lent" by the leading candidate, then in reality they don't have the loyalty of a third or Tory MPs either.
What I really don't see is what Tory MPs see in Jenrick. I don't like the idea of some of the other contenders, but I can make a plausible case for any of them. Jenrick just seems to have mountains of sleezey baggage and little else.
If there is only one candidate with serious support from MPs that tells you all you need to know. Yes it is possible to keep a candidate off the final two but only as long as they don't have a decent level of support (one third).
MPs are, I suppose, entitled if they wish - this is politics - and if there really is only one candidate with a real support of +one third to conspire together to put in a second potemkin candidate. If they wanted to do so, Mel Stride would be the guy. Voters vote tactically all the time. There is a reasonable chance that if they put Cleverly second he will win.
If the leading candidate has so much support from MPs that they can choose their opponent to face the members' vote, then I guess it also functions as a test of their political ability to choose the candidate they can most easily defeat in that vote.
And, whoever they face in that final vote, if they lose it then it demonstrates a serious disconnect between the members and the MPs that will cause trouble regardless.
Kemi Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, is the clear winner in the latest ConservativeHome survey of Tory members into how well they think shadow cabinet ministers are peforming
Guardian blog
Membership are going to be pretty angry if Jenrick stitches this up so they dont have Kemi in the final two to vote for aren't they?
But would they be angry enough to vote for his opponent?
Survation brings despair for Scottish independence
Researchers at Survation spoke to 1,021 people in Scotland eligible to vote in a survey commissioned by the campaign group Scotland in Union.
They were questioned between between August 27 and 29 and, according to the poll, both the SNP and Scottish Labour are on 28 per cent support in the constituency vote among likely voters.
Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour Party enjoys a one-point lead over John Swinney’s SNP at 25 per cent and 24 per cent respectively in the regional list vote.
The Scottish Greens, meanwhile, landed on 6 per cent support in constituencies and 9 per cent in the regional list, the Scottish Lib Dems had 9 per cent in both areas and Alba recorded 1 per cent in the constituencies and 2 per cent in the regions...
....the Tories would win just 11 per cent of votes on the proportional regional list, which is where most of their MSPs were returned in the 2021 Scottish parliament election.
Reform would win 8 per cent, which would result in the party gaining a handful of seats despite having next to no campaigning presence north of the border.
In constituency votes, the Conservative share would halve to 11 per cent while Reform would jump to 9 per cent....
The poll also sought to assess the level of support for Scottish independence as the ten-year anniversary of the referendum in 2014 approaches....
...The 2014 question asked was, “should Scotland be an independent country?” with 55 per cent answering “no” and 45 per cent “yes”.
According to today's Press and Journal among "decided voters" the figures are 59% "no" and 41% "yes". Wonder if they have got that right? Must be biggest margin for a long, long time if correct.
It's a Scotland in Union poll with their 'special' question. The numbers are virtually identical to their last poll (Remain in the UK actually 1% point down but let's not quibble). I would imagine any psephological analysis might conclude supporters of the party (regional sub branch) that has Unionist in its name would be the ones despairing, what with their numbers almost halved since 2021 and Reform threatening to overtake them without even a visit from Farage (that may be a good thing from a Reform pov).
Paul Marshall of Unherd and GB News has bought the Spectator.
The sale of the Telegraph has not be finalised yet but he's favourite to buy that as well.
Could work.
Sounds like the UnHerd guys will be running the show at exec level:
"Mr Sayers will remain chief executive of the expanded group and become publisher of The Spectator. OQS said The Spectator and UnHerd would remain fully separate titles, with independent editorial and governance structures."
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
Warehousing? Fairly hard to set fire to immigrant hostels, when you are in prison, for example.
Survation brings despair for Scottish independence
Researchers at Survation spoke to 1,021 people in Scotland eligible to vote in a survey commissioned by the campaign group Scotland in Union.
They were questioned between between August 27 and 29 and, according to the poll, both the SNP and Scottish Labour are on 28 per cent support in the constituency vote among likely voters.
Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour Party enjoys a one-point lead over John Swinney’s SNP at 25 per cent and 24 per cent respectively in the regional list vote.
The Scottish Greens, meanwhile, landed on 6 per cent support in constituencies and 9 per cent in the regional list, the Scottish Lib Dems had 9 per cent in both areas and Alba recorded 1 per cent in the constituencies and 2 per cent in the regions...
....the Tories would win just 11 per cent of votes on the proportional regional list, which is where most of their MSPs were returned in the 2021 Scottish parliament election.
Reform would win 8 per cent, which would result in the party gaining a handful of seats despite having next to no campaigning presence north of the border.
In constituency votes, the Conservative share would halve to 11 per cent while Reform would jump to 9 per cent....
The poll also sought to assess the level of support for Scottish independence as the ten-year anniversary of the referendum in 2014 approaches....
...The 2014 question asked was, “should Scotland be an independent country?” with 55 per cent answering “no” and 45 per cent “yes”.
According to today's Press and Journal among "decided voters" the figures are 59% "no" and 41% "yes". Wonder if they have got that right? Must be biggest margin for a long, long time if correct.
There’s two independence questions, the 59% one uses a Remain/Leave wording.
A ton of HK Chinese moved there in the run up to and since 1997 so much of it seems like "little Kowloon" (or more like, "little Lan Kwai Fong"). Pretty grey and drab.
Vancouver, that is.
The best part of it is leaving. Specifically, not only the train journey to Banff, but the Sea to Sky Highway. A fantastic 3-hr bus journey from Vancouver that ends up in Whistler. Absolutely stunning
I mean I'm sure you have some urban mojitos to investigate but people really only go there to go somewhere else, often Whistler or one of the other mountains then to slide down them at some kind of rate of knots with a big grin on their faces.
@rcs1000, @TSE, I am sorry to bother you both, but my comment history has disappeared. When I look at my comment history at https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/comments/viewcode it only goes back for about five days. This is a problem. What is the cause, and can it be fixed please?
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
As a thought exercise (not a conclusion) this one is worthwhile: Suppose you had to look at convicted criminals in prison as a whole and divide them into only two groups: Those who should not be in prison at all (because our other ways of dealing with offenders is so intensive and brilliant) and those who should never be let out.
Group 2 would and should (sadly) be quite a bit larger than the current number of about 60; but Group 1 would be gigantic.
Secondly: Suppose you start from the rebuttable presumption that all crime occurs because of mental health issues including addictions, personality disorder, childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, how would this affect dealing with criminals.
Letby could be an example. I am sorry to say that I think she is guilty, though I keep an open mind. But I also think that it isn't possible for her to be fully sane in any meaningful sense, though no doubt a bevy of doctors say she is.
RIP Schengen. Born 26th March 1995. Died 10th September 2024. No flowers.
You do realise that there have been sporadic border checks within Schengen for years? France reintroduced them for the Olympics, for example, and there have been many, many other examples.
Yes. This time is different. This time is political, in response to the recent elections in Germany, and not operational, in response to a specific external event.
It's much harder for them to go back, and the pressure for other countries to follow suit will be strong. The Dutch may be next.
I'm disappointed, but this is what happens when people don't advocate for freedoms. They get taken away.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
Quite. It became fashionable to hate him when he moved in on party politics, when previously he was lauded, in the same way it became fashionable to hate Trump when he did the same. Prior to him getting involved with politics, he was the likeable mega rich celebrity/mogul who would turn up to things and be lauded by people.
Have you many examples of people who used to 'laud' Musk who now 'hate' him? I get the impression it's a lot of folk on the friggin cringelord right who have now realised that he's one of their own and can't bear to have their boy criticised.
In the various forums for space flight, it has been entertaining to see, over the years, how the StickMyPoliticalOarInTheConversation types have shifted their positions.
It used to be MAGA types chiming in with "SpaceX is running on money stolen from NASA", "Their prices are fraudulent", "SLS is a national endeavour supporting our patriotic Big Aerospace companies.", "Space refuelling depots are bad for the Constellation project, so they are bad for America".
Now the same line are being recycled by their opposites. It is rather funny to see people who claim to be liberal backing the corruption of Richard Fucking Shelby - a right wing(nut) in his own regard.
@rcs1000, @TSE, I am sorry to bother you both, but my comment history has disappeared. When I look at my comment history at https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/comments/viewcode it only goes back for about five days. This is a problem. What is the cause, and can it be fixed please?
I think the issue is that you can only see the first page of comments and there is navigation that allows you to go to the next page of comments.
I've got the same issue btw so it's definitely a vanilla issue...
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
Warehousing? Fairly hard to set fire to immigrant hostels, when you are in prison, for example.
Sure, and even with low level offenders, there comes a point when their benighted communities just need a break. Prison serves a limited purpose in that respect.
But what we really want to focus on is what can we do to and for people serving sentences that makes it less likely that they will offend again? This is what Rory Stewart tried to focus on during his tenure as Prisons Minister and it seems to me to be precisely the correct question. Addictions, mental illness, literacy, work skills, there is more to do than we can possibly achieve but the more we do the lower that recidivism rate will be. That is a win win for all of us.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A glimpse into what ancient Britain might have looked like.
It will undoubtedly host the magical four specialist "oak-wood rainforest" songbird species: wood warbler, redstart, pied flycatcher and tree pipit. Well worth straining your neck to see, and your ears to hear. That said, they'll all have left for sunnier climes by now.
OTOH, too cold and damp to worry about adders.
I have this image of Mr & Mrs Adder having left their Big Coats in the dry cleaners and cannot venture outside
@rcs1000, @TSE, I am sorry to bother you both, but my comment history has disappeared. When I look at my comment history at https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/comments/viewcode it only goes back for about five days. This is a problem. What is the cause, and can it be fixed please?
I think the issue is that you can only see the first page of comments and there is navigation that allows you to go to the next page of comments.
I've got the same issue btw so it's definitely a vanilla issue...
Did you mean "..there is NO navigation..." because it seems to have vanished.
And they’re in orbit, scheduled to be the furthest humans have travelled away from Earth since the last days of the Apollo program in the mid-70s. Well done to all involved, and God Speed for a successful mission.
But apparently the man orchestrating it all is an uncool incel fanny. So some Pbers say.
Yes. It is quite ridiculous
Musk Derangement Syndrome
The truth is Musk is a proper genius with incredible brains who is also really eccentric - self declared Asperger’s - and therefore does odd and often “uncool” things
It’s also a bit weird that PB harangues him for this when - at a rough guess - at least half of PBers are likely on the spectrum in some way. This is a site for political statistics geeks, after all
Quite. It became fashionable to hate him when he moved in on party politics, when previously he was lauded, in the same way it became fashionable to hate Trump when he did the same. Prior to him getting involved with politics, he was the likeable mega rich celebrity/mogul who would turn up to things and be lauded by people.
Trump was always a waste of space, without redeeming features.
Musk, on the other hand, remains a remarkable engineering entrepreneur, despite his idiotic and malign politics.
There's nothing weird about making that distinction; it's weird that PB Trump fans don't get it.
@rcs1000, @TSE, I am sorry to bother you both, but my comment history has disappeared. When I look at my comment history at https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/comments/viewcode it only goes back for about five days. This is a problem. What is the cause, and can it be fixed please?
I suspect it is part of the Vanilla upgrade that has buggered up the comment order.
"Secondly: Suppose you start from the rebuttable presumption that all crime occurs because of mental health issues including addictions, personality disorder, childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, how would this affect dealing with criminals".
It would lead to a big swelling in the ranks of your Group 2.
@rcs1000, @TSE, I am sorry to bother you both, but my comment history has disappeared. When I look at my comment history at https://vf.politicalbetting.com/profile/comments/viewcode it only goes back for about five days. This is a problem. What is the cause, and can it be fixed please?
I suspect it is part of the Vanilla upgrade that has buggered up the comment order.
It's not buggered up the comment order, it's made past comments unavailable/absent. Of the last 20,856 comments I can only access the last thirty. My genius is lost to the world. Can we please fix this please?
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
We can barely get them to accept Scottish banknotes.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
I'd pretty much keep the laws as they currently are.
Vast numbers of people don't have a bank account. I do wonder how the no-cash proponents expect these people to manage.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
To give an interesting example - Chase (JP Morgan's consumer, alt-bank), has no way to deposit cash.
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
As a thought exercise (not a conclusion) this one is worthwhile: Suppose you had to look at convicted criminals in prison as a whole and divide them into only two groups: Those who should not be in prison at all (because our other ways of dealing with offenders is so intensive and brilliant) and those who should never be let out.
Group 2 would and should (sadly) be quite a bit larger than the current number of about 60; but Group 1 would be gigantic.
Secondly: Suppose you start from the rebuttable presumption that all crime occurs because of mental health issues including addictions, personality disorder, childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, how would this affect dealing with criminals.
Letby could be an example. I am sorry to say that I think she is guilty, though I keep an open mind. But I also think that it isn't possible for her to be fully sane in any meaningful sense, though no doubt a bevy of doctors say she is.
The criminal test for sanity is somewhat more nuanced than a psychiatrist would normally operate. In terms of fitness for trial the question is whether the accused can meaningfully take part in their trial, both in understanding what is going on and being able to give instructions to your representatives. The bar of a plea in bar of trial is set pretty low in both respects for obvious reasons.
On conviction, the question is whether they go to jail or an institution like the State Hospital. The latter requires them to have a diagnosis that is capable of treatment. The result, once again, is that our prisons are full of people who are seriously mentally ill but did not meet that standard. I have heard from an Inspector of Prisons that this is the greatest challenge the Prison service faces.
As I have said before I have not studied the Letby case but it is entirely possible that she is profoundly deranged in any normal sense and yet fit to plead and indeed be sentenced to jail.
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
We can barely get them to accept Scottish banknotes.
Almost no businesses near me in north London accept Scottish money – chiefly because their staff cannot tell a real note from a fake. This has been the case for as long as I can remember.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
I don't use cash much, but I think there is a flaw in this argument. Your proposal (that it is OK routinely to not accept cash for ordinary transactions) confers all the rights on the seller not the buyer. Why shouldn't the customer have as much right as the seller to determine what form of lawful payment is acceptable?
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
I'd pretty much keep the laws as they currently are.
Vast numbers of people don't have a bank account. I do wonder how the no-cash proponents expect these people to manage.
Okay, fine, then you agree with me. The laws as they currently are allow cashless businesses, which will only grow greater in number as more realise that taking cash is an expensive, risky, waste of time (unless you are tax-dodging).
Glad you agree entirely with me, as that is my position too.
A ton of HK Chinese moved there in the run up to and since 1997 so much of it seems like "little Kowloon" (or more like, "little Lan Kwai Fong"). Pretty grey and drab.
Vancouver, that is.
The best part of it is leaving. Specifically, not only the train journey to Banff, but the Sea to Sky Highway. A fantastic 3-hr bus journey from Vancouver that ends up in Whistler. Absolutely stunning
I mean I'm sure you have some urban mojitos to investigate but people really only go there to go somewhere else, often Whistler or one of the other mountains then to slide down them at some kind of rate of knots with a big grin on their faces.
Good afternoon
Our eldest and his wife live in North Vancouver and she is enjoys going to work on the sea bus
Like all cities, Vancouver has its problems but we have been there several times and would not agree entirely with your comments
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
This misses one of the major advantages of prison, namely that whilst inside, people rarely manage to reoffend. There is this presumption that people can always be fixed - sometimes they can, unfortunately sometimes they can't.
In the long run, it's probably cheaper to give out very long sentences to say burglars on their third offence than to endure the constant cycles of crime, arrest, prosecution, a few months inside, reoffending which currently go on.
I would make prison fairly unpleasant, make the sentences for a first offence short, with lots of support and rehabilitation available - but make it clear than if you're up in front of the beak for a third offence, we're done with you, it's 20 years of bread and water. It would cost us a modest amount in prison places, but permanently jailing say the 100k most persistent low to medium level offenders would massively reduce crime, yielding savings which would probably more than pay for the prison places.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
I don't use cash much, but I think there is a flaw in this argument. Your proposal (that it is OK routinely to not accept cash for ordinary transactions) confers all the rights on the seller not the buyer. Why shouldn't the customer have as much right as the seller to determine what form of lawful payment is acceptable?
Well vendors are at liberty to accept what they like in all other cases. Would you insist they accept postal orders, Scottish tenners, cheques, groats, or uncut opals?
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
As a thought exercise (not a conclusion) this one is worthwhile: Suppose you had to look at convicted criminals in prison as a whole and divide them into only two groups: Those who should not be in prison at all (because our other ways of dealing with offenders is so intensive and brilliant) and those who should never be let out.
Group 2 would and should (sadly) be quite a bit larger than the current number of about 60; but Group 1 would be gigantic.
Secondly: Suppose you start from the rebuttable presumption that all crime occurs because of mental health issues including addictions, personality disorder, childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, how would this affect dealing with criminals.
Letby could be an example. I am sorry to say that I think she is guilty, though I keep an open mind. But I also think that it isn't possible for her to be fully sane in any meaningful sense, though no doubt a bevy of doctors say she is.
The criminal test for sanity is somewhat more nuanced than a psychiatrist would normally operate. In terms of fitness for trial the question is whether the accused can meaningfully take part in their trial, both in understanding what is going on and being able to give instructions to your representatives. The bar of a plea in bar of trial is set pretty low in both respects for obvious reasons.
On conviction, the question is whether they go to jail or an institution like the State Hospital. The latter requires them to have a diagnosis that is capable of treatment. The result, once again, is that our prisons are full of people who are seriously mentally ill but did not meet that standard. I have heard from an Inspector of Prisons that this is the greatest challenge the Prison service faces.
As I have said before I have not studied the Letby case but it is entirely possible that she is profoundly deranged in any normal sense and yet fit to plead and indeed be sentenced to jail.
Yes. Especially to the bit I have put in bold. This is the case for turning the whole ship around and presuming (rebuttably) that crime has non criminal causes. To regard 'treatability' as a significant criterion is to tell a large class of very sad people that the prison warehouse is the only place, until they are let out wthout assistance among the rest of society.
This is a hugely under discussed issue. It's the sort of social reform Labour governments used to prioritise. Time for a Royal Commission and an internationally based review, starting perhaps with Norway.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
This misses one of the major advantages of prison, namely that whilst inside, people rarely manage to reoffend. There is this presumption that people can always be fixed - sometimes they can, unfortunately sometimes they can't.
In the long run, it's probably cheaper to give out very long sentences to say burglars on their third offence than to endure the constant cycles of crime, arrest, prosecution, a few months inside, reoffending which currently go on.
I would make prison fairly unpleasant, make the sentences for a first offence short, with lots of support and rehabilitation available - but make it clear than if you're up in front of the beak for a third offence, we're done with you, it's 20 years of bread and water. It would cost us a modest amount in prison places, but permanently jailing say the 100k most persistent low to medium level offenders would massively reduce crime, yielding savings which would probably more than pay for the prison places.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
I don't use cash much, but I think there is a flaw in this argument. Your proposal (that it is OK routinely to not accept cash for ordinary transactions) confers all the rights on the seller not the buyer. Why shouldn't the customer have as much right as the seller to determine what form of lawful payment is acceptable?
Well vendors are at liberty to accept what they like in all other cases. Would you insist they accept postal orders, Scottish tenners, cheques, groats, or uncut opals?
No. I suggest there is a class of transactions where it is not unreasonable to place with the customer, not the vendor, the power of choice to use legal tender.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
I'd pretty much keep the laws as they currently are.
Vast numbers of people don't have a bank account. I do wonder how the no-cash proponents expect these people to manage.
Okay, fine, then you agree with me. The laws as they currently are allow cashless businesses, which will only grow greater in number as more realise that taking cash is an expensive, risky, waste of time (unless you are tax-dodging).
Glad you agree entirely with me, as that is my position too.
In which case, I rescind my agreement (I did not think that was the case).
What would you do about those who do not have bank accounts?
HARRIS: - lay out comprehensive, detailed plans - but avoid coming off too “wonky” - avoid alienating swing voters - solve Israel/Palestine (onstage) - don’t smile much - don’t frown too much
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
2 million people a year spending thousands just to experience a 15-minute city and low traffic neighbourhood.
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
This misses one of the major advantages of prison, namely that whilst inside, people rarely manage to reoffend. There is this presumption that people can always be fixed - sometimes they can, unfortunately sometimes they can't.
In the long run, it's probably cheaper to give out very long sentences to say burglars on their third offence than to endure the constant cycles of crime, arrest, prosecution, a few months inside, reoffending which currently go on.
I would make prison fairly unpleasant, make the sentences for a first offence short, with lots of support and rehabilitation available - but make it clear than if you're up in front of the beak for a third offence, we're done with you, it's 20 years of bread and water. It would cost us a modest amount in prison places, but permanently jailing say the 100k most persistent low to medium level offenders would massively reduce crime, yielding savings which would probably more than pay for the prison places.
We already lock up a considerably higher percentage of the population than most of Europe. What I am not clear on is whether we get any benefit from it. The US is closer to your suggestion than most with even more locked up than us, many for life and beyond. Evidence that this is reducing crime in society is scarce.
Another factor you have to think about is who is manning these prisons. At the moment we have not much more than a handful of people who are never getting out. They are incredibly difficult and dangerous to deal with. There is no meaningful sanction if they attack you. If we had thousands like that getting prison guards would be even more difficult than it is now.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A glimpse into what ancient Britain might have looked like.
Not only did they film the Prisoner in Portmeirion but also the Timeless classic Dr Who Story, Masque of Mandragora, among other things.
I visited as a child, while they were filming The Prisoner. And was therefore denied access to the village.
I did get to see the helicopter.
Earlier in the year, we got to see the barn in which The Repair Shop is filmed, whilst they were filming. A nice security guard chatted about what was going on.
Admittedly, it was not as exciting as the Prisoner...
I thought dangerous criminals were not going to be released.
"Among those set to walk free are Connar Shaw, from Rotherham, who will only serve 13 months of his 32-month prison sentence after strangling his partner and threatening to throw acid in her face during years of abuse."
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
We can barely get them to accept Scottish banknotes.
Almost no businesses near me in north London accept Scottish money – chiefly because their staff cannot tell a real note from a fake. This has been the case for as long as I can remember.
That's equally true in Morpeth let alone Newcastle or further south.
You can have equal issues spending Northern Irish money in Scotland - I used to get money from Danske at Copenhagen Airport for the lols while working for them...
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
I don't use cash much, but I think there is a flaw in this argument. Your proposal (that it is OK routinely to not accept cash for ordinary transactions) confers all the rights on the seller not the buyer. Why shouldn't the customer have as much right as the seller to determine what form of lawful payment is acceptable?
Well vendors are at liberty to accept what they like in all other cases. Would you insist they accept postal orders, Scottish tenners, cheques, groats, or uncut opals?
No. I suggest there is a class of transactions where it is not unreasonable to place with the customer, not the vendor, the power of choice to use legal tender.
Okay, what does that mean in practice, in terms of law?
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
2 million people a year spending thousands just to experience a 15-minute city and low traffic neighbourhood.
10mph speed limit.
And, just as per the conspiracy theories, locked into the 15 minute city... (by a huge fence. I mean, its enormous. Really. I might take a photo one day and post it up as my one a day. I have no idea why its so big. Even better some of the prisoner accommodation is in sight of the fence too.)
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
2 million people a year spending thousands just to experience a 15-minute city and low traffic neighbourhood.
10mph speed limit.
And, just as per the conspiracy theories, locked into the 15 minute city... (by a huge fence. I mean, its enormous. Really. I might take a photo one day and post it up as my one a day. I have no idea why its so big. Even better some of the prisoner accommodation is in sight of the fence too.)
We went to the Centre Parcs in Thetford Forest a couple of years ago. It was great fun. And the track that runs alongside the fence made for a brilliant pre-dawn running track.
Especially when my running along it caught the attention of the security guards...
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A glimpse into what ancient Britain might have looked like.
Not only did they film the Prisoner in Portmeirion but also the Timeless classic Dr Who Story, Masque of Mandragora, among other things.
I visited as a child, while they were filming The Prisoner. And was therefore denied access to the village.
I did get to see the helicopter.
Earlier in the year, we got to see the barn in which The Repair Shop is filmed, whilst they were filming. A nice security guard chatted about what was going on.
Admittedly, it was not as exciting as the Prisoner...
In my head Jay Blades is holding all the repairers captive, using them to mend stuff. They are ALL prisoners.
Also - great show, but what does Jay actually do on it? Always wondered why he isn't doing repairs too.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
I'd pretty much keep the laws as they currently are.
Vast numbers of people don't have a bank account. I do wonder how the no-cash proponents expect these people to manage.
Okay, fine, then you agree with me. The laws as they currently are allow cashless businesses, which will only grow greater in number as more realise that taking cash is an expensive, risky, waste of time (unless you are tax-dodging).
Glad you agree entirely with me, as that is my position too.
In which case, I rescind my agreement (I did not think that was the case).
What would you do about those who do not have bank accounts?
I have said numerous times before that 'cash' can be handled electronically on a card without a bank account. Many other countries have such a system. This is all googleable but I dare say you can envisage such a system without having to research the many examples worldwide.
Starmer looked very uncomfortable a few weeks ago when he insisted that the risk of reoffending was being “managed”. How? By whom? Does that mean he’ll take responsibility for any serious crimes that result from the policy?
The facts show that prison is an incredibly inefficient way of "treating" an offender. A significant minority go on to offend again having spent the correct time in jail despite the no doubt well meaning efforts of the probation service when they get out.
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
As a thought exercise (not a conclusion) this one is worthwhile: Suppose you had to look at convicted criminals in prison as a whole and divide them into only two groups: Those who should not be in prison at all (because our other ways of dealing with offenders is so intensive and brilliant) and those who should never be let out.
Group 2 would and should (sadly) be quite a bit larger than the current number of about 60; but Group 1 would be gigantic.
Secondly: Suppose you start from the rebuttable presumption that all crime occurs because of mental health issues including addictions, personality disorder, childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, how would this affect dealing with criminals.
Letby could be an example. I am sorry to say that I think she is guilty, though I keep an open mind. But I also think that it isn't possible for her to be fully sane in any meaningful sense, though no doubt a bevy of doctors say she is.
The criminal test for sanity is somewhat more nuanced than a psychiatrist would normally operate. In terms of fitness for trial the question is whether the accused can meaningfully take part in their trial, both in understanding what is going on and being able to give instructions to your representatives. The bar of a plea in bar of trial is set pretty low in both respects for obvious reasons.
On conviction, the question is whether they go to jail or an institution like the State Hospital. The latter requires them to have a diagnosis that is capable of treatment. The result, once again, is that our prisons are full of people who are seriously mentally ill but did not meet that standard. I have heard from an Inspector of Prisons that this is the greatest challenge the Prison service faces.
As I have said before I have not studied the Letby case but it is entirely possible that she is profoundly deranged in any normal sense and yet fit to plead and indeed be sentenced to jail.
Yes. Especially to the bit I have put in bold. This is the case for turning the whole ship around and presuming (rebuttably) that crime has non criminal causes. To regard 'treatability' as a significant criterion is to tell a large class of very sad people that the prison warehouse is the only place, until they are let out wthout assistance among the rest of society.
This is a hugely under discussed issue. It's the sort of social reform Labour governments used to prioritise. Time for a Royal Commission and an internationally based review, starting perhaps with Norway.
This discussion is very edifying, and I'd like to thank everyone involved.
I'm imagining the intervention most politicians (and their spad) in an executive position might make at this point, given the current state of the country. Perhaps something like,
Politician: "Okay, but what's the cheapest way to deal with the issue over the next five years?" SPAD: "Probably outsource a new prison to G4S."
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
You can check out but you can never leave !!!
Center Parcs seem to be very expensive once you start adding the activities.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
I don't use cash much, but I think there is a flaw in this argument. Your proposal (that it is OK routinely to not accept cash for ordinary transactions) confers all the rights on the seller not the buyer. Why shouldn't the customer have as much right as the seller to determine what form of lawful payment is acceptable?
Well vendors are at liberty to accept what they like in all other cases. Would you insist they accept postal orders, Scottish tenners, cheques, groats, or uncut opals?
No. I suggest there is a class of transactions where it is not unreasonable to place with the customer, not the vendor, the power of choice to use legal tender.
Okay, what does that mean in practice, in terms of law?
An act or SI which specifies: what is legal tender, what amount is the upper limit under which it is presumed to be accepted as settlement in personal transactions (£100?), provision for exceptions for digital and distance transactions and any other exceptions you can think of. If desired, sanctions and provision for creation of offences under the act.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
We can barely get them to accept Scottish banknotes.
Almost no businesses near me in north London accept Scottish money – chiefly because their staff cannot tell a real note from a fake. This has been the case for as long as I can remember.
That's equally true in Morpeth let alone Newcastle or further south.
You can have equal issues spending Northern Irish money in Scotland - I used to get money from Danske at Copenhagen Airport for the lols while working for them...
Many moons ago, I took a package trip with my then girlfriend (now my wife) to Turkey. This was decades ago in the days when cash was still A Thing. They offered a much worse forex rate to change Scottish notes than English ones. In the end, I spotted a guy with a Celtic shirt who kindly agreed to trade my Scottish note for an English one, as he was flying home the next day.
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
You can check out but you can never leave !!!
Center Parcs seem to be very expensive once you start adding the activities.
You just need to do free stuff, like forming an Escape Committee, and Trying to Distract the Goons.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
I don't use cash much, but I think there is a flaw in this argument. Your proposal (that it is OK routinely to not accept cash for ordinary transactions) confers all the rights on the seller not the buyer. Why shouldn't the customer have as much right as the seller to determine what form of lawful payment is acceptable?
Well vendors are at liberty to accept what they like in all other cases. Would you insist they accept postal orders, Scottish tenners, cheques, groats, or uncut opals?
No. I suggest there is a class of transactions where it is not unreasonable to place with the customer, not the vendor, the power of choice to use legal tender.
Okay, what does that mean in practice, in terms of law?
An act or SI which specifies: what is legal tender, what amount is the upper limit under which it is presumed to be accepted as settlement in personal transactions (£100?), provision for exceptions for digital and distance transactions and any other exceptions you can think of. If desired, sanctions and provision for creation of offences under the act.
Sounds like gobbledegook. Would you force businesses to accept cash, or not? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses and individuals or simply firms that have some bricks & mortar premises?
(For example, I refuse to accept cash in personal transactions, as it means I then have to waste hours of my own time going to a bank branch. Would you force me to accept it, despite the fact that such transfers take literally seconds via a mobile app?)
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
If you don't have universal, or near-universal, acceptance of cash in the country, then it rapidly becomes pointless as business will not take it. As you well know.
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Really?
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
We can barely get them to accept Scottish banknotes.
Almost no businesses near me in north London accept Scottish money – chiefly because their staff cannot tell a real note from a fake. This has been the case for as long as I can remember.
That's equally true in Morpeth let alone Newcastle or further south.
You can have equal issues spending Northern Irish money in Scotland - I used to get money from Danske at Copenhagen Airport for the lols while working for them...
I have never met with a Scottish money problem in Cumbria, where it is just competely normal.
Btw you posted a very nice photo from the end of your holidays yesterday and I wanted to ask you where it was
Some kind of clean green sandy estuary. Looked a bit northern and definitely alluring
It could even have been Canada
But I’m gonna guess Scandinavia? Or Scotland? Maybe Brittany?
Just a long weekend. This might look more familiar ?
Ah wait. Portmeirion?!
A really nice place in the early morning, before it opens, when it's deserted.
They also have a remarkable arboretum.
I love portmeirion
I’d be quite happy if we built a thousand portmeirions, as new towns, instead of soul-less Barratt home redbrick yuk. That would have the added advantage of making the original portmeirion much less special, and so: much less touristy
A glimpse into what ancient Britain might have looked like.
Not only did they film the Prisoner in Portmeirion but also the Timeless classic Dr Who Story, Masque of Mandragora, among other things.
I visited as a child, while they were filming The Prisoner. And was therefore denied access to the village.
I did get to see the helicopter.
Earlier in the year, we got to see the barn in which The Repair Shop is filmed, whilst they were filming. A nice security guard chatted about what was going on.
Admittedly, it was not as exciting as the Prisoner...
I've mentioned in the past visiting the church hall in Deshaies that is the Death in Paradise police station .
If you want to see how you can change a location by careful camera positioning Death in Paradise is a great demonstration because Guadeloupe has a stupid number of cars and Deshaies looks nothing like Honoré
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
You can check out but you can never leave !!!
Center Parcs seem to be very expensive once you start adding the activities.
I have never been but I cannot see the appeal of it, particularly at their insane prices. You can go abroad and do similar activities for less without being locked in a compound in Mansfield.
Oh, screw the members (and I speak as one of them) - what the hell do they know?
[that said, and I appreciate this is somewhat oxymoronic, CCHQ need to work out a way of respectively engaging them and their input without just seeing them as cannon fodder for money and pavement pounding]
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Before you declare a place 'liveable' its better to check housing prices rather than the quality of the oysters.
And if you cannot get a job or cannot afford somewhere to live then a place isn't liveable.
I suppose those people who were lucky enough to buy a house in London when it was affordable and whose idea of northern England is still rather 1980s might view things differently.
That's all true, but there is no killer reason to go TO Mansfield town centre, except maybe shopping. So people live on the surrounding estates, and go somewhere else, whether for work or play.
Though to add to my other post, it also has a football club which is in League One. Also several top end golf clubs in the area, and the Centre Parks holiday village.
Events they have done recently were the Le Mansfield electric car thing which I liked the branding for, and UK Tour cycle stage, which was a sick, ironic joke.
Center Parcs, not Centre Parks. Very important.
I live about 1 mile from the Warminster Forest Centre Parcs. Most amusing thing for me it the enormous fence round the entire site, topped with razor wire. I'm sure its intended to keep the plebs out (i.e. me) but it sure does look like a POW camp from the outside. And I hear the prices for stuff inside are insane, plus a definite sense that once in, you are not meant to leave...
2 million people a year spending thousands just to experience a 15-minute city and low traffic neighbourhood.
10mph speed limit.
And, just as per the conspiracy theories, locked into the 15 minute city... (by a huge fence. I mean, its enormous. Really. I might take a photo one day and post it up as my one a day. I have no idea why its so big. Even better some of the prisoner accommodation is in sight of the fence too.)
People love it. Something to do with growing up with The Great Escape, perhaps.
AFAIK not a single PBer is calling for the banning of cash. Many of us don’t use it and think it pointless, inconvenient, environmentally wasteful, risky and time-consuming, but that is rather a different thing.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
I don't use cash much, but I think there is a flaw in this argument. Your proposal (that it is OK routinely to not accept cash for ordinary transactions) confers all the rights on the seller not the buyer. Why shouldn't the customer have as much right as the seller to determine what form of lawful payment is acceptable?
Well vendors are at liberty to accept what they like in all other cases. Would you insist they accept postal orders, Scottish tenners, cheques, groats, or uncut opals?
No. I suggest there is a class of transactions where it is not unreasonable to place with the customer, not the vendor, the power of choice to use legal tender.
Okay, what does that mean in practice, in terms of law?
An act or SI which specifies: what is legal tender, what amount is the upper limit under which it is presumed to be accepted as settlement in personal transactions (£100?), provision for exceptions for digital and distance transactions and any other exceptions you can think of. If desired, sanctions and provision for creation of offences under the act.
Sounds like gobbledegook. Would you force businesses to accept cash, or not? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses and individuals or simply firms that have some bricks & mortar premises?
(For example, I refuse to accept cash in personal transactions, as it means I then have to waste hours of my own time going to a bank branch. Would you force me to accept it, despite the fact that such transfers take literally seconds via a mobile app?)
Tbf, you asked a boring question and got an accurate, short and boring reply, a reply which addresses on the whole your subsequent questions. I left out the miscellaneous provisions and repeals, and the question of how it applies to the Channel Islands and transactions that are illegal ab initio and whether offences are of strict liability and can be tried either way.
Comments
Several newer companies have realised that if you don't subcontract the subcontract to the subcontract to the subcontract to the subcontract to the subcontract, and actually do the work, you can charge less than half, for *military* stuff. There's a couple looking at solid fuelled rockets motors for the military and doing well with the initial small stuff.
If Boeing et al don't stop them, they will eat their military lunch as well.
Musk, on the other hand, remains a remarkable engineering entrepreneur, despite his idiotic and malign politics.
There's nothing weird about making that distinction; it's weird that PB Trump fans don't get it.
I think Joe Saward also said as much back in April / May - Ferrari was never an option due to the past court case..
The real test is not whether some of these early releasers offend, of course they will, but will they offend more often than those that complete their sentence in the usual way? Because if the percentage is the same or lower it rather begs the question what the hell they were doing in prison in the first place.
MPs are, I suppose, entitled if they wish - this is politics - and if there really is only one candidate with a real support of +one third to conspire together to put in a second potemkin candidate. If they wanted to do so, Mel Stride would be the guy. Voters vote tactically all the time. There is a reasonable chance that if they put Cleverly second he will win.
The sale of the Telegraph has not be finalised yet but he's favourite to buy that as well.
And, whoever they face in that final vote, if they lose it then it demonstrates a serious disconnect between the members and the MPs that will cause trouble regardless.
I would imagine any psephological analysis might conclude supporters of the party (regional sub branch) that has Unionist in its name would be the ones despairing, what with their numbers almost halved since 2021 and Reform threatening to overtake them without even a visit from Farage (that may be a good thing from a Reform pov).
Sounds like the UnHerd guys will be running the show at exec level:
"Mr Sayers will remain chief executive of the expanded group and become publisher of The Spectator. OQS said The Spectator and UnHerd would remain fully separate titles, with independent editorial and governance structures."
Telegraph
Vancouver, that is.
The best part of it is leaving. Specifically, not only the train journey to Banff, but the Sea to Sky Highway. A fantastic 3-hr bus journey from Vancouver that ends up in Whistler. Absolutely stunning
I mean I'm sure you have some urban mojitos to investigate but people really only go there to go somewhere else, often Whistler or one of the other mountains then to slide down them at some kind of rate of knots with a big grin on their faces.
Group 2 would and should (sadly) be quite a bit larger than the current number of about 60; but Group 1 would be gigantic.
Secondly: Suppose you start from the rebuttable presumption that all crime occurs because of mental health issues including addictions, personality disorder, childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, how would this affect dealing with criminals.
Letby could be an example. I am sorry to say that I think she is guilty, though I keep an open mind. But I also think that it isn't possible for her to be fully sane in any meaningful sense, though no doubt a bevy of doctors say she is.
It used to be MAGA types chiming in with "SpaceX is running on money stolen from NASA", "Their prices are fraudulent", "SLS is a national endeavour supporting our patriotic Big Aerospace companies.", "Space refuelling depots are bad for the Constellation project, so they are bad for America".
Now the same line are being recycled by their opposites. It is rather funny to see people who claim to be liberal backing the corruption of Richard Fucking Shelby - a right wing(nut) in his own regard.
- OBI-EEK: I have to admit that without the lawyers it would not have been a victory.
- VIEWDA: Victory, you say? Master Obi-Eek, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun, the woke war has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsiway-bIo8I've got the same issue btw so it's definitely a vanilla issue...
But what we really want to focus on is what can we do to and for people serving sentences that makes it less likely that they will offend again? This is what Rory Stewart tried to focus on during his tenure as Prisons Minister and it seems to me to be precisely the correct question. Addictions, mental illness, literacy, work skills, there is more to do than we can possibly achieve but the more we do the lower that recidivism rate will be. That is a win win for all of us.
'The cash came up to my torso' - tales of a match-fixer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cd05385k722o
It would lead to a big swelling in the ranks of your Group 2.
There are however many weirdo brown-gloved cash-fetishists on here who wish to make draconian restrictions on private businesses and force them to accept an antiquated mode of barter at their own expense, despite they and their customers being happily cashless.
Funny old world.
‘Did Kemi Badenoch put pineapple on your pizzas?’
(according to AI)
And cash is useful for many people; not for you, perhaps, but others.
Would you force businesses to accept cash? And, if so, would you apply such a law to online businesses or only those that have bricks & mortar premises?
Vast numbers of people don't have a bank account. I do wonder how the no-cash proponents expect these people to manage.
On conviction, the question is whether they go to jail or an institution like the State Hospital. The latter requires them to have a diagnosis that is capable of treatment. The result, once again, is that our prisons are full of people who are seriously mentally ill but did not meet that standard. I have heard from an Inspector of Prisons that this is the greatest challenge the Prison service faces.
As I have said before I have not studied the Letby case but it is entirely possible that she is profoundly deranged in any normal sense and yet fit to plead and indeed be sentenced to jail.
Fantastic place.
Well worth the entry fee.
I am not a number.....
Glad you agree entirely with me, as that is my position too.
Our eldest and his wife live in North Vancouver and she is enjoys going to work on the sea bus
Like all cities, Vancouver has its problems but we have been there several times and would not agree entirely with your comments
Be seeing you.
In the long run, it's probably cheaper to give out very long sentences to say burglars on their third offence than to endure the constant cycles of crime, arrest, prosecution, a few months inside, reoffending which currently go on.
I would make prison fairly unpleasant, make the sentences for a first offence short, with lots of support and rehabilitation available - but make it clear than if you're up in front of the beak for a third offence, we're done with you, it's 20 years of bread and water. It would cost us a modest amount in prison places, but permanently jailing say the 100k most persistent low to medium level offenders would massively reduce crime, yielding savings which would probably more than pay for the prison places.
This is a hugely under discussed issue. It's the sort of social reform Labour governments used to prioritise. Time for a Royal Commission and an internationally based review, starting perhaps with Norway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law#United_States
And there's a huge inconsistency between "making prison fairly unpleasant", and having "lots of support and rehabilitation available".
And was therefore denied access to the village.
I did get to see the helicopter.
What would you do about those who do not have bank accounts?
EXPECTATIONS HEADING INTO DEBATE:
HARRIS:
- lay out comprehensive, detailed plans
- but avoid coming off too “wonky”
- avoid alienating swing voters
- solve Israel/Palestine (onstage)
- don’t smile much
- don’t frown too much
TRUMP:
- Try not to fling literal human feces
https://x.com/mrbenwexler/status/1833298166562881588
10mph speed limit.
Another factor you have to think about is who is manning these prisons. At the moment we have not much more than a handful of people who are never getting out. They are incredibly difficult and dangerous to deal with. There is no meaningful sanction if they attack you. If we had thousands like that getting prison guards would be even more difficult than it is now.
Admittedly, it was not as exciting as the Prisoner...
"Among those set to walk free are Connar Shaw, from Rotherham, who will only serve 13 months of his 32-month prison sentence after strangling his partner and threatening to throw acid in her face during years of abuse."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13832853/First-prisoners-released-released-today-reoffend.html
You can have equal issues spending Northern Irish money in Scotland - I used to get money from Danske at Copenhagen Airport for the lols while working for them...
Especially when my running along it caught the attention of the security guards...
Also - great show, but what does Jay actually do on it? Always wondered why he isn't doing repairs too.
I'm imagining the intervention most politicians (and their spad) in an executive position might make at this point, given the current state of the country. Perhaps something like,
Politician: "Okay, but what's the cheapest way to deal with the issue over the next five years?"
SPAD: "Probably outsource a new prison to G4S."
Center Parcs seem to be very expensive once you start adding the activities.
(For example, I refuse to accept cash in personal transactions, as it means I then have to waste hours of my own time going to a bank branch. Would you force me to accept it, despite the fact that such transfers take literally seconds via a mobile app?)
If you want to see how you can change a location by careful camera positioning Death in Paradise is a great demonstration because Guadeloupe has a stupid number of cars and Deshaies looks nothing like Honoré
https://grid.iamkate.com/
Interesting to see the pumped storage stash it away at this time of day.
[that said, and I appreciate this is somewhat oxymoronic, CCHQ need to work out a way of respectively engaging them and their input without just seeing them as cannon fodder for money and pavement pounding]
Aron Goldman
@ArgoJournal
.
@WashingtonPost
/
@ScharSchool
Virginia 2024 Presidential Election Poll:
Likely Voters
Head-to-Head
🔵Kamala Harris-Tim Walz 51% (+8)
🔴Donald Trump-JD Vance 43%
https://x.com/ArgoJournal/status/1833463351201989025
Good article.
Checking China’s chokeholds
Chokepoint technologies are systemic challenges
https://theasymmetric.substack.com/p/checking-china-chokeholds-chokepoints
How is that sustainable, yet alone fair?