Electoral Calculus would give us a Labour majority of 48 for what it's worth, which is nothing of course.
As polling companies always overstate Reform, including at the recent election, have they kicked the habit now?
It's clear that Labour could have won a small majority with 29% at the last election, which is interesting because until then a lot of people didn't really believe that could happen, a party winning an overall majority with less than 30%.
One way of looking at what's happened is that a lot of voters have opted out of the "Sunak or Starmer for PM, choose one" aspect of elections. Northern Ireland has never really taken part in that, but others have joined them in more recent years. People don't vote SNP or Plaid expecting their leader to become PM, or to contribute to that decision, but to send a message. Same is true of Lib Dem or Green voters. Maybe more Reform voters really thought they were voting to make Farage PM... who knows?
If that is the case, the followup questions are about why (is it down to the parties, or voters being less willing to compromise?) and what (if anything) could/should be done to change it.
It might just be how things are these days, but I'm not sure it is a desirable situation for society to be in.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
What's seriously objectionable about your comments is your repeated claims that you know posters minds better than they know themselves. That's just twattery.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Affiliation with Russian disinformation campaign In September 2024, two Russian state media employees were charged with secretly funding almost $10 million to a Tennessee company for the production of political videos to benefit Russia by influencing the United States. The company's description matches that of Tenet Media, which had employed Rubin and other right-wing influencers.[48] Rubin matches the indictment's description of "Commentator-1", who it alleges agreed to produce "four weekly videos that he would host and would be livestreamed by Tenet Media in exchange for $400,000 per month and a $100,000 signing bonus".[49][50] In his response to the indictment on Twitter, Rubin stated that he was unaware of the company's connections to Russian funding and declared himself a victim of the alleged scheme.[51] “The company never disclosed to the influencers – or to their millions of followers – its ties to [Russian state media company] RT and the Russian government,” US attorney general Merrick Garland said.[52]
Yes, Rubin was another victim of Tenet Media.
If someone offers me $100k a week I might try and have some idea who they were, but maybe I live in a different world.
Yes, this company was well organised and had fake profiles of their ‘investors’. The FBI is speaking to them and treating them as victims.
It is possible he didn't know they were Russian. But someone accepting $100k a week to spout political commentary by an unknown donor is not someone worth listening to, imo.
That’s the going rate for buying up a podcast in the US. Rubin earns millions from his own regular channels on Rumble, YouTube, and other podcast platforms.
It is the going rate because foreign states and malign billlionaires seek to distort the truth.
Every creator involved in Tenet Media has confirmed that the company had no editorial influence over their output.
you really that gullible?
Okay, so here’s Dave Rubin’s video about the lies of Harris at the debate.
Electoral Calculus would give us a Labour majority of 48 for what it's worth, which is nothing of course.
As polling companies always overstate Reform, including at the recent election, have they kicked the habit now?
It's clear that Labour could have won a small majority with 29% at the last election, which is interesting because until then a lot of people didn't really believe that could happen, a party winning an overall majority with less than 30%.
Me, for a start. I always thought it was a mere mathematical chimera that might exist in theory but would never work in practice.
The BJP won a parliamentary majority with just 31% of the vote in 2014 which is close - are there any examples below 30%?
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans
There is this obsession with patriotism in America which boggles the mind. But it is a trip wire which makes it really hard for "patriots" who aren't mad to vote for the lunatic who will demolish the thing you are patriotic about.
Trump is falling apart, will only get worse (watch him fire the sane advisors and rely on the core of mentalists screaming that the debate was "rigged" because Harris was given the questions beforehand), and will actively propel more and more conservatives to vote for the conservative candidate - Harris.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong. But I'm feeling pretty good about coming out weeks ago proclaiming that Harris will win bigly.
Trump still on 45-49% in all but one post debate poll suggests it will still be very close, there is not going to be a Harris landslide even if she scrapes home.
Indeed every post debate poll still has Harris below the 51% Biden got in 2020
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
Well bollocks to you all. I am a Trump supporter.
Bring it.
I think Trump is a narcissistic man-child, and I don't want him to win.
That does not mean he won't win. I'd rate Harris' chance of winning at no better than 11/9.
Too many people think that Trump's supporters are suddenly going to see the light, and vote Democratic.
Well quite. The US electorate is not a bunch of UK centrist dads. I can see the scene on Nov 6: We planned for Kamala to win and we'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky voters. The "only bed-wetters think Trump will win" rhetoric has persuaded me that Hillary walked it in 2016. What strange tricks the memory plays.
Your memory will tell you that there were a couple of reasons in particular why Hillary lost. What are the comparable ones this cycle ?
I don't know, but Trump's unassailable looking lead on money and immigration, and the too close to call ness of individual state polling, are what have caused me to close my KH position for a very chunky profit. On top of that I go to the states a bit and the single complaint I hear most about the Dems is, they are corrupt. You would not have a clue about this from discussion over here. Trump may be Voldemort, but that doesn't make his opponents Dumbledore
I can only assume that PBers for Harris have remortgaged their houses and borrowed the contents of the client account to pile on her. That's what I would do if I could get evens on something I was that certain about.
(Why does anyone even conduct popular vote polling btw?)
Given what Trump has been up to, I'm surprised the Dems are seen as, effectively, more corrupt. Of course, historically, Democrat-run Chicago and New York were seen as corrupt, and indeed probably were.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
LOL. Imagine on a betting site, only wanting to hear one side of the argument…
So on the argument on who won the debate there is on the one side:
Democrats, Republicans, members of the Trump campaign, polling on who won, observers around the world.
On the other side there's Trump himself, Sandpit (both of whom don't really think he won).
Talking of not understanding statistics.
More people (may have) thought Harris won the debate absolutely. If there were a hundred people polled and 51 (or even 98) thought she won then that leaves...pauses to do the math...49 (2) people who thought that Trump won.
So plenty more people than you suggest who thought he won it.
Talking of not having a sense of humour.
The point is (duh) that the only people who think Trump won were already Trump fans (and not even all of them think he won)
Also the polling has Harris winning by around 20 point margins, not a 2 point margin as you seem to think.
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans
There is this obsession with patriotism in America which boggles the mind. But it is a trip wire which makes it really hard for "patriots" who aren't mad to vote for the lunatic who will demolish the thing you are patriotic about.
Trump is falling apart, will only get worse (watch him fire the sane advisors and rely on the core of mentalists screaming that the debate was "rigged" because Harris was given the questions beforehand), and will actively propel more and more conservatives to vote for the conservative candidate - Harris.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong. But I'm feeling pretty good about coming out weeks ago proclaiming that Harris will win bigly.
Trump still on 45-49% in all but one post debate poll suggests it will still be very close, there is not going to be a Harris landslide even if she scrapes home.
Indeed every post debate poll still has Harris below the 51% Biden got in 2020
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
Well bollocks to you all. I am a Trump supporter.
Bring it.
I think Trump is a narcissistic man-child, and I don't want him to win.
That does not mean he won't win. I'd rate Harris' chance of winning at no better than 11/9.
Too many people think that Trump's supporters are suddenly going to see the light, and vote Democratic.
Well quite. The US electorate is not a bunch of UK centrist dads. I can see the scene on Nov 6: We planned for Kamala to win and we'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky voters. The "only bed-wetters think Trump will win" rhetoric has persuaded me that Hillary walked it in 2016. What strange tricks the memory plays.
Your memory will tell you that there were a couple of reasons in particular why Hillary lost. What are the comparable ones this cycle ?
I don't know, but Trump's unassailable looking lead on money and immigration, and the too close to call ness of individual state polling, are what have caused me to close my KH position for a very chunky profit. On top of that I go to the states a bit and the single complaint I hear most about the Dems is, they are corrupt. You would not have a clue about this from discussion over here. Trump may be Voldemort, but that doesn't make his opponents Dumbledore
I can only assume that PBers for Harris have remortgaged their houses and borrowed the contents of the client account to pile on her. That's what I would do if I could get evens on something I was that certain about.
(Why does anyone even conduct popular vote polling btw?)
Never bet what you can't afford to lose. I'm confident Harris will win; but never that confident.
Harris went into the debate with a very small lead. She has come out of it with a slightly larger one. More importantly, like the sit down interview she did with Walz, she has overcome another hurdle and shown tens of millions of Americans that she can look and act Presidential.
Right now she's a favourite but it is dangerously close. Trump exceeded his polling in both his last 2 runs. In Wisconsin he exceeded it by 7(!!) and 5% respectively. Harris's lead in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania is highly vulnerable to this under recording of Trump supporters.
Anyone like @Sandpit pointing out this is not over is doing a public service. It is helpful to listen to the other side which is composed of at least 43% of American voters. I don't think this is over although I would be delighted to be wrong. A bad piece of economic news, an international crisis which makes it clear that Harris has been content to leave someone seriously senile in charge, there are a number of things that could go wrong. So far Harris has had a remarkably smooth run. She has 56 days to go.
Military and overseas ballots need to be sent out by tomorrow week.
Mail ballots have already gone out in Alabama.
Pennsylvania opens in-person voting on Monday.
She doesn't have 56 days. This is the crunch period. She needs to motivate her base to get out there and vote ASAP.
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans
There is this obsession with patriotism in America which boggles the mind. But it is a trip wire which makes it really hard for "patriots" who aren't mad to vote for the lunatic who will demolish the thing you are patriotic about.
Trump is falling apart, will only get worse (watch him fire the sane advisors and rely on the core of mentalists screaming that the debate was "rigged" because Harris was given the questions beforehand), and will actively propel more and more conservatives to vote for the conservative candidate - Harris.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong. But I'm feeling pretty good about coming out weeks ago proclaiming that Harris will win bigly.
Trump still on 45-49% in all but one post debate poll suggests it will still be very close, there is not going to be a Harris landslide even if she scrapes home.
Indeed every post debate poll still has Harris below the 51% Biden got in 2020
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
Well bollocks to you all. I am a Trump supporter.
Bring it.
I think Trump is a narcissistic man-child, and I don't want him to win.
That does not mean he won't win. I'd rate Harris' chance of winning at no better than 11/9.
Too many people think that Trump's supporters are suddenly going to see the light, and vote Democratic.
Well quite. The US electorate is not a bunch of UK centrist dads. I can see the scene on Nov 6: We planned for Kamala to win and we'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky voters. The "only bed-wetters think Trump will win" rhetoric has persuaded me that Hillary walked it in 2016. What strange tricks the memory plays.
Your memory will tell you that there were a couple of reasons in particular why Hillary lost. What are the comparable ones this cycle ?
I don't know, but Trump's unassailable looking lead on money and immigration, and the too close to call ness of individual state polling, are what have caused me to close my KH position for a very chunky profit. On top of that I go to the states a bit and the single complaint I hear most about the Dems is, they are corrupt. You would not have a clue about this from discussion over here. Trump may be Voldemort, but that doesn't make his opponents Dumbledore
I can only assume that PBers for Harris have remortgaged their houses and borrowed the contents of the client account to pile on her. That's what I would do if I could get evens on something I was that certain about.
(Why does anyone even conduct popular vote polling btw?)
Never bet what you can't afford to lose. I'm confident Harris will win; but never that confident.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans
There is this obsession with patriotism in America which boggles the mind. But it is a trip wire which makes it really hard for "patriots" who aren't mad to vote for the lunatic who will demolish the thing you are patriotic about.
Trump is falling apart, will only get worse (watch him fire the sane advisors and rely on the core of mentalists screaming that the debate was "rigged" because Harris was given the questions beforehand), and will actively propel more and more conservatives to vote for the conservative candidate - Harris.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong. But I'm feeling pretty good about coming out weeks ago proclaiming that Harris will win bigly.
Trump still on 45-49% in all but one post debate poll suggests it will still be very close, there is not going to be a Harris landslide even if she scrapes home.
Indeed every post debate poll still has Harris below the 51% Biden got in 2020
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
Well bollocks to you all. I am a Trump supporter.
Bring it.
I think Trump is a narcissistic man-child, and I don't want him to win.
That does not mean he won't win. I'd rate Harris' chance of winning at no better than 11/9.
Too many people think that Trump's supporters are suddenly going to see the light, and vote Democratic.
Well quite. The US electorate is not a bunch of UK centrist dads. I can see the scene on Nov 6: We planned for Kamala to win and we'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky voters. The "only bed-wetters think Trump will win" rhetoric has persuaded me that Hillary walked it in 2016. What strange tricks the memory plays.
Your memory will tell you that there were a couple of reasons in particular why Hillary lost. What are the comparable ones this cycle ?
I don't know, but Trump's unassailable looking lead on money and immigration, and the too close to call ness of individual state polling, are what have caused me to close my KH position for a very chunky profit. On top of that I go to the states a bit and the single complaint I hear most about the Dems is, they are corrupt. You would not have a clue about this from discussion over here. Trump may be Voldemort, but that doesn't make his opponents Dumbledore
I can only assume that PBers for Harris have remortgaged their houses and borrowed the contents of the client account to pile on her. That's what I would do if I could get evens on something I was that certain about.
(Why does anyone even conduct popular vote polling btw?)
Given what Trump has been up to, I'm surprised the Dems are seen as, effectively, more corrupt. Of course, historically, Democrat-run Chicago and New York were seen as corrupt, and indeed probably were.
The Dems have been having fun and games in New Jersey. They had a Senator who in moral terms (if not perhaps sanity terms) is very Trumpy (as in, convicted of multiple crimes). He has now quit the Senate though.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
They should have built a MagLev along the side of the M40 from London to Birmingham. That was one of the original ideas IIRC from an outfit called UK UltraSpeed about 15 years ago. Here's their video.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
The speed and scoping were always a bit excessive. You can imagine a line with 150mph speeds would be a lot cheaper and would still be a significant upgrade of speed and capacity on the WCML.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
It does seem reasonable to dislike a convicted baby murderer to me.
It's interesting news from Liverpool. It wouldn't surprise me if the number of suspicious incidents when she was on duty is considerable.
Medical and nursing serial killers seem to enjoy being present at incidents, a bit like arsonists watching the fires that they have set. It's part of the psychopathology.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Juries and jurists know nothing (or next to nothing) about pharmacology, neo natal paediatrics, and effectively almost all the mdeical evidence. They just have to weigh the evidence presented by experts.
Statistics is different, though. It goes directly to weight of evidence and the concept of "beyond a reasonable doubt". It's intertwined with all the layman thinking juries do once they are deliberating.
Does anyone know if a judge has to give a special warning about statistics evidence in the summing up? My Google skills have failed me.
What do you mean by statistical evidence? I don’t think there was any inferential statistics presented, was there? No p-values.
Incidentally, I would like to offer both my commiserations and heartfelt thanks to Lancashire County Cricket Club for their dismal performance this season, which was achieved by relieving Gloucestershire of Dale Benkenstein's services.
Electoral Calculus would give us a Labour majority of 48 for what it's worth, which is nothing of course.
As polling companies always overstate Reform, including at the recent election, have they kicked the habit now?
It's clear that Labour could have won a small majority with 29% at the last election, which is interesting because until then a lot of people didn't really believe that could happen, a party winning an overall majority with less than 30%.
Me, for a start. I always thought it was a mere mathematical chimera that might exist in theory but would never work in practice.
It happened, of course, because of the splintering of the electorate, particularly on the right, matching the splintering we've seen on the Left, intermittently, since 1981.
If the electorate splinters further, to 20 different parties, a party could get a crushing majority on 10% of the vote. Then even the most fanatical devotee of FPTP would have difficulty in resisting calls for reform.
The more parties and fragmentation the more benefits for parties with similar views, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea working in coalition. If they don't then the Popular Front of Judean Peoples and the Front of Popular Judeans do form an alliance and walk the election. Thus the next election will depend on who works together. Not a hard lesson but currently too hard for some people. Those who disagree with this will lose, end of.
Electoral Calculus would give us a Labour majority of 48 for what it's worth, which is nothing of course.
As polling companies always overstate Reform, including at the recent election, have they kicked the habit now?
It's clear that Labour could have won a small majority with 29% at the last election, which is interesting because until then a lot of people didn't really believe that could happen, a party winning an overall majority with less than 30%.
Me, for a start. I always thought it was a mere mathematical chimera that might exist in theory but would never work in practice.
It happened, of course, because of the splintering of the electorate, particularly on the right, matching the splintering we've seen on the Left, intermittently, since 1981.
If the electorate splinters further, to 20 different parties, a party could get a crushing majority on 10% of the vote. Then even the most fanatical devotee of FPTP would have difficulty in resisting calls for reform.
The more parties and fragmentation the more benefits for parties with similar views, the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea working in coalition. If they don't then the Popular Front of Judean Peoples and the Front of Popular Judeans do form an alliance and walk the election. Thus the next election will depend on who works together. Not a hard lesson but currently too hard for some people. Those who disagree with this will lose, end of.
The People's Front of Judea and the Campaign for Free Galilee struggled together.
They should of course have been struggling against the common enemy - the Judean People's Front.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
The speed and scoping were always a bit excessive. You can imagine a line with 150mph speeds would be a lot cheaper and would still be a significant upgrade of speed and capacity on the WCML.
One of the reasons it didn't get built a good decade earlier. As the case was always about capacity, the "world beating" high speed spec was largely vanity, and was what a big part of what led to the huge delays and cost overruns.
Incidentally, I would like to offer both my commiserations and heartfelt thanks to Lancashire County Cricket Club for their dismal performance this season, which was achieved by relieving Gloucestershire of Dale Benkenstein's services.
I haven't checked but usually Derbyshire can be relied upon to do very badly each year. I don't think they've ever won the county championship in their entire history.
Difficult to know quite what it means without knowing if they have tinkered with methodology, but it looks like Labour is shedding votes to Greens and LDs rather than to the blue and turquoise meanies.
Tory+Ref is 43% in this poll compared to 39% at the GE.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
She wasn't just fingered for any old deaths though. They were weird: symptoms nobody had ever seen before on babies that would ordinarily be expected to be perfectly fine. And all the while Letby was present and close up. And these weird cases kept happening again and again and Letby was always there.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
The speed and scoping were always a bit excessive. You can imagine a line with 150mph speeds would be a lot cheaper and would still be a significant upgrade of speed and capacity on the WCML.
One of the reasons it didn't get built a good decade earlier. As the case was always about capacity, the "world beating" high speed spec was largely vanity, and was what a big part of what led to the huge delays and cost overruns.
There's a huge difference in going from 125mph to 225mph.
All sorts of extra dynamic forces and fluid mechanics come into play on the latter, such as needing to make tunnels much bigger and wider to avoid air hammer, and the track geometry and civil engineering needs to be insane to handle it.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Affiliation with Russian disinformation campaign In September 2024, two Russian state media employees were charged with secretly funding almost $10 million to a Tennessee company for the production of political videos to benefit Russia by influencing the United States. The company's description matches that of Tenet Media, which had employed Rubin and other right-wing influencers.[48] Rubin matches the indictment's description of "Commentator-1", who it alleges agreed to produce "four weekly videos that he would host and would be livestreamed by Tenet Media in exchange for $400,000 per month and a $100,000 signing bonus".[49][50] In his response to the indictment on Twitter, Rubin stated that he was unaware of the company's connections to Russian funding and declared himself a victim of the alleged scheme.[51] “The company never disclosed to the influencers – or to their millions of followers – its ties to [Russian state media company] RT and the Russian government,” US attorney general Merrick Garland said.[52]
Yes, Rubin was another victim of Tenet Media.
Indeed. He just took the money and didn't ask questions. People often offer people 400K pcm to witter on YouTube. It's just a thing down his way. Happens all the time
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans
There is this obsession with patriotism in America which boggles the mind. But it is a trip wire which makes it really hard for "patriots" who aren't mad to vote for the lunatic who will demolish the thing you are patriotic about.
Trump is falling apart, will only get worse (watch him fire the sane advisors and rely on the core of mentalists screaming that the debate was "rigged" because Harris was given the questions beforehand), and will actively propel more and more conservatives to vote for the conservative candidate - Harris.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong. But I'm feeling pretty good about coming out weeks ago proclaiming that Harris will win bigly.
Trump still on 45-49% in all but one post debate poll suggests it will still be very close, there is not going to be a Harris landslide even if she scrapes home.
Indeed every post debate poll still has Harris below the 51% Biden got in 2020
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
Well bollocks to you all. I am a Trump supporter.
Bring it.
I think Trump is a narcissistic man-child, and I don't want him to win.
That does not mean he won't win. I'd rate Harris' chance of winning at no better than 11/9.
Too many people think that Trump's supporters are suddenly going to see the light, and vote Democratic.
I don't think that. Trumpers gonna Trump and there are loads of them. That's why despite everything he is bang in this election. I don't have it as a 50/50 but I understand why the market does. He's going to get his base plus GOP reliables plus a portion of floaters/independents and that adds up to a big vote.
But it won't be enough imo. He's a weaker older wilder madder candidate than he was in either of his previous runs. The small slice of voters in the middle, the ones who'll decide the election, are going to break against him. Not all of them but a critical mass. It's happening now and will pick up steam.
Come Nov 5th, I predict Harris wins the PV by at least 5 pts and the EC comfortably. I'm very confident of this. I could close out my Big Short on Trump at about flat now (a result given how underwater it was before Biden pulled out) but I'm not going to do that. I feel good about it.
Harris went into the debate with a very small lead. She has come out of it with a slightly larger one. More importantly, like the sit down interview she did with Walz, she has overcome another hurdle and shown tens of millions of Americans that she can look and act Presidential.
Right now she's a favourite but it is dangerously close. Trump exceeded his polling in both his last 2 runs. In Wisconsin he exceeded it by 7(!!) and 5% respectively. Harris's lead in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania is highly vulnerable to this under recording of Trump supporters.
Anyone like @Sandpit pointing out this is not over is doing a public service. It is helpful to listen to the other side which is composed of at least 43% of American voters. I don't think this is over although I would be delighted to be wrong. A bad piece of economic news, an international crisis which makes it clear that Harris has been content to leave someone seriously senile in charge, there are a number of things that could go wrong. So far Harris has had a remarkably smooth run. She has 56 days to go.
Military and overseas ballots need to be sent out by tomorrow week.
Mail ballots have already gone out in Alabama.
Pennsylvania opens in-person voting on Monday.
She doesn't have 56 days. This is the crunch period. She needs to motivate her base to get out there and vote ASAP.
Especially the tens of thousands of new registrations that her campaign has generated in the last few weeks. As Taylor Swift said, its a good idea to vote early. But my point is that this is not a done deal. I think we are in agreement on that?
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
The number of unusual deaths in the Letby case was very high, so I expect the probability of the same happening on another baby unit is low. But that’s a number the defence could have put to the juries.
The more important point is that the prosecution didn’t stop there. They didn’t say, “Letby was the only nurse present at all the suspicious deaths - lock her up!” Rather, that was one piece of a large case. They also presented evidence showing that some of the deaths were not just unusual but had to be murder, that Letby had twice been observed on the ward acting highly suspiciously, that she had altered records, that she had stolen records, that she had written odd notes to herself, etc. etc.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Affiliation with Russian disinformation campaign In September 2024, two Russian state media employees were charged with secretly funding almost $10 million to a Tennessee company for the production of political videos to benefit Russia by influencing the United States. The company's description matches that of Tenet Media, which had employed Rubin and other right-wing influencers.[48] Rubin matches the indictment's description of "Commentator-1", who it alleges agreed to produce "four weekly videos that he would host and would be livestreamed by Tenet Media in exchange for $400,000 per month and a $100,000 signing bonus".[49][50] In his response to the indictment on Twitter, Rubin stated that he was unaware of the company's connections to Russian funding and declared himself a victim of the alleged scheme.[51] “The company never disclosed to the influencers – or to their millions of followers – its ties to [Russian state media company] RT and the Russian government,” US attorney general Merrick Garland said.[52]
Yes, Rubin was another victim of Tenet Media.
If someone offers me $100k a week I might try and have some idea who they were, but maybe I live in a different world.
Yes, this company was well organised and had fake profiles of their ‘investors’. The FBI is speaking to them and treating them as victims.
It is possible he didn't know they were Russian. But someone accepting $100k a week to spout political commentary by an unknown donor is not someone worth listening to, imo.
That’s the going rate for buying up a podcast in the US. Rubin earns millions from his own regular channels on Rumble, YouTube, and other podcast platforms.
It is the going rate because foreign states and malign billlionaires seek to distort the truth.
Every creator involved in Tenet Media has confirmed that the company had no editorial influence over their output.
you really that gullible?
Okay, so here’s Dave Rubin’s video about the lies of Harris at the debate.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
LOL. Imagine on a betting site, only wanting to hear one side of the argument…
So on the argument on who won the debate there is on the one side:
Democrats, Republicans, members of the Trump campaign, polling on who won, observers around the world.
On the other side there's Trump himself, Sandpit (both of whom don't really think he won).
Talking of not understanding statistics.
More people (may have) thought Harris won the debate absolutely. If there were a hundred people polled and 51 (or even 98) thought she won then that leaves...pauses to do the math...49 (2) people who thought that Trump won.
So plenty more people than you suggest who thought he won it.
Talking of not having a sense of humour.
The point is (duh) that the only people who think Trump won were already Trump fans (and not even all of them think he won)
Also the polling has Harris winning by around 20 point margins, not a 2 point margin as you seem to think.
No one could ever accuse me of having a sense of humour.
The race is neck and neck. I've no idea who will win or what the result in Arizona means.
But I do see on PB a complete inability to understand what Trump's appeal might be. There is evidently a huge attraction and I'm guessing some of his supporters are bright buttons.
PB has this collective failing whereby no one can see any appeal that he may have (apart from to idiot rednecks) and dismisses any manifestation of that appeal as Russian propaganda.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
The evidence was examined in court and she was found guilty. The evidence was re-examined by the Court of Appeal. It was re-re-examined by the second trial. You’re now asking for the evidence to be re-re-re-examined.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
The speed and scoping were always a bit excessive. You can imagine a line with 150mph speeds would be a lot cheaper and would still be a significant upgrade of speed and capacity on the WCML.
One of the reasons it didn't get built a good decade earlier. As the case was always about capacity, the "world beating" high speed spec was largely vanity, and was what a big part of what led to the huge delays and cost overruns.
There's a huge difference in going from 125mph to 225mph.
All sorts of extra dynamic forces and fluid mechanics come into play on the latter, such as needing to make tunnels much bigger and wider to avoid air hammer, and the track geometry and civil engineering needs to be insane to handle it.
I think we all debated this ad nauseam back at the time. TBH, I can't remember your position on it, other than your knowing far more about the engineering involved.
Incidentally, I would like to offer both my commiserations and heartfelt thanks to Lancashire County Cricket Club for their dismal performance this season, which was achieved by relieving Gloucestershire of Dale Benkenstein's services.
I haven't checked but usually Derbyshire can be relied upon to do very badly each year. I don't think they've ever won the county championship in their entire history.
1936.
Somerset and Northants have never won. Gloucestershire won it in the 1870s but not since it was reorganised and formalised in 1890.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
Full analysis of this requires a level of detail I don't have - it will be in the transcripts almost no-one has read, including me.
However, I think your misunderstanding is this.
To prove murder/attempted murder it is central to prove that there was an unlawful killing/attempt. Without evidence of that nothing gets off the ground. The judge and court of appeal concluded that there was a case to answer WRT there being murders/attempted murders in each case. (The CA specifically considered this ground, of there being no case to answer),
The next question is who did it. The rotas provide evidence of presence of LL in each individual case.
This provides not a statistical but a factual set of claims about each case, each of which the defence is at liberty to challenge; eg by saying she wasn't there, there wasn't a killing/attempt, someone else did it and these people, X, Y and Z, are the possible candidates. or of course simply saying none of these and requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury.
There was of course an abundance of other corroborating evidence.
Huh. I understood this was already the case. We know someone who was warned about losing their driving licence if she cycled while over the drink-driving limit.
Harris went into the debate with a very small lead. She has come out of it with a slightly larger one. More importantly, like the sit down interview she did with Walz, she has overcome another hurdle and shown tens of millions of Americans that she can look and act Presidential.
Right now she's a favourite but it is dangerously close. Trump exceeded his polling in both his last 2 runs. In Wisconsin he exceeded it by 7(!!) and 5% respectively. Harris's lead in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania is highly vulnerable to this under recording of Trump supporters.
Anyone like @Sandpit pointing out this is not over is doing a public service. It is helpful to listen to the other side which is composed of at least 43% of American voters. I don't think this is over although I would be delighted to be wrong. A bad piece of economic news, an international crisis which makes it clear that Harris has been content to leave someone seriously senile in charge, there are a number of things that could go wrong. So far Harris has had a remarkably smooth run. She has 56 days to go.
Military and overseas ballots need to be sent out by tomorrow week.
Mail ballots have already gone out in Alabama.
Pennsylvania opens in-person voting on Monday.
She doesn't have 56 days. This is the crunch period. She needs to motivate her base to get out there and vote ASAP.
Especially the tens of thousands of new registrations that her campaign has generated in the last few weeks. As Taylor Swift said, its a good idea to vote early. But my point is that this is not a done deal. I think we are in agreement on that?
It isn't, but all the aces at the moment are with Harris.
She could lose, but it's the less likely outcome at this point.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
The speed and scoping were always a bit excessive. You can imagine a line with 150mph speeds would be a lot cheaper and would still be a significant upgrade of speed and capacity on the WCML.
One of the reasons it didn't get built a good decade earlier. As the case was always about capacity, the "world beating" high speed spec was largely vanity, and was what a big part of what led to the huge delays and cost overruns.
There's a huge difference in going from 125mph to 225mph.
All sorts of extra dynamic forces and fluid mechanics come into play on the latter, such as needing to make tunnels much bigger and wider to avoid air hammer, and the track geometry and civil engineering needs to be insane to handle it.
I think we all debated this ad nauseam back at the time. TBH, I can't remember your position on it, other than your knowing far more about the engineering involved.
My position is that for the UK very high speed don't make sense, as we're so densely populated and small, but high-ish speeds do - like 150-175mph, which is plenty. 225mph is overkill
I think some of this was driven by some modal shift analysis showing that journey times needed to be hours (or whatever it was) to get people to move from domestic air, and they got a bit obsessed by it all.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
LOL. Imagine on a betting site, only wanting to hear one side of the argument…
So on the argument on who won the debate there is on the one side:
Democrats, Republicans, members of the Trump campaign, polling on who won, observers around the world.
On the other side there's Trump himself, Sandpit (both of whom don't really think he won).
Talking of not understanding statistics.
More people (may have) thought Harris won the debate absolutely. If there were a hundred people polled and 51 (or even 98) thought she won then that leaves...pauses to do the math...49 (2) people who thought that Trump won.
So plenty more people than you suggest who thought he won it.
Talking of not having a sense of humour.
The point is (duh) that the only people who think Trump won were already Trump fans (and not even all of them think he won)
Also the polling has Harris winning by around 20 point margins, not a 2 point margin as you seem to think.
No one could ever accuse me of having a sense of humour.
The race is neck and neck. I've no idea who will win or what the result in Arizona means.
But I do see on PB a complete inability to understand what Trump's appeal might be. There is evidently a huge attraction and I'm guessing some of his supporters are bright buttons.
PB has this collective failing whereby no one can see any appeal that he may have (apart from to idiot rednecks) and dismisses any manifestation of that appeal as Russian propaganda.
There is some truth in that, although I think you are exaggerating - I can only think of 1 poster who would really fit that description.
As for the odds, I continue to make it roughly 50-50 so we agree on that, though in a forced choice to pick the winner I would pick Harris right now - partly because she is slightly ahead in the polls (and there are some good signs in terms of voter registration, enthusiasm and money-raising), and partly because Trump just looks past it (in a way that he didn't really 4 or 8 years ago).
You can make the case for Trump - polls underestimated him the last 2 times, he's ahead on the economy and the border, and his net favorability isn't as bad as it was 4 or 8 years ago - so I would think it not an unreasonable position to think Trump should be favourite (but not by much).
Utterly OT, but I'm reaching the stage of the Theoderic biography relating to Boethius. It's ironic a ruler who was so fair so much of the time committed such an injustice that gave rise to a medieval favourite piece of literature written by the unjustly imprisoned Boethius.
I think we all debated this ad nauseam back at the time. TBH, I can't remember your position on it, other than your knowing far more about the engineering involved.
My position is that for the UK very high speed don't make sense, as we're so densely populated and small, but high-ish speeds do - like 150-175mph, which is plenty. 225mph is overkill
I think some of this was driven by some modal shift analysis showing that journey times needed to be less than* 3 hours (or whatever it was) to get people to move from domestic air, and they got a bit obsessed by it all.
Then we agree.
In any event, the WCML is just about at the limit of its capacity, and is also pretty knackered. And the M6 is highly congested. Which all suggests something is needed pretty quickly.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
Okay, I think I get the gist. You don't have an opinion on this matter and your a bit down on anyone who does. Fair enough.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
LOL. Imagine on a betting site, only wanting to hear one side of the argument…
So on the argument on who won the debate there is on the one side:
Democrats, Republicans, members of the Trump campaign, polling on who won, observers around the world.
On the other side there's Trump himself, Sandpit (both of whom don't really think he won).
Talking of not understanding statistics.
More people (may have) thought Harris won the debate absolutely. If there were a hundred people polled and 51 (or even 98) thought she won then that leaves...pauses to do the math...49 (2) people who thought that Trump won.
So plenty more people than you suggest who thought he won it.
Talking of not having a sense of humour.
The point is (duh) that the only people who think Trump won were already Trump fans (and not even all of them think he won)
Also the polling has Harris winning by around 20 point margins, not a 2 point margin as you seem to think.
No one could ever accuse me of having a sense of humour.
The race is neck and neck. I've no idea who will win or what the result in Arizona means.
But I do see on PB a complete inability to understand what Trump's appeal might be. There is evidently a huge attraction and I'm guessing some of his supporters are bright buttons.
PB has this collective failing whereby no one can see any appeal that he may have (apart from to idiot rednecks) and dismisses any manifestation of that appeal as Russian propaganda.
He appeals to:
Left behind - economically and socially, slightly different groups with big overlap Republicans who would be loyal to absolutely anyone with an R after their name and opposed to those with a D after theirs Billionaire (and want more) class Russian and other fans of dictatorship and kleptocracy
Pointing out the latter two doesn't mean that we don't recognise the first and that is where the majority of his votes come from. But it does mean that things him and his supporters say are often spin for the elite or Russian propaganda.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
Full analysis of this requires a level of detail I don't have - it will be in the transcripts almost no-one has read, including me.
However, I think your misunderstanding is this.
To prove murder/attempted murder it is central to prove that there was an unlawful killing/attempt. Without evidence of that nothing gets off the ground. The judge and court of appeal concluded that there was a case to answer WRT there being murders/attempted murders in each case. (The CA specifically considered this ground, of there being no case to answer),
The next question is who did it. The rotas provide evidence of presence of LL in each individual case.
This provides not a statistical but a factual set of claims about each case, each of which the defence is at liberty to challenge; eg by saying she wasn't there, there wasn't a killing/attempt, someone else did it and these people, X, Y and Z, are the possible candidates. or of course simply saying none of these and requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury.
There was of course an abundance of other corroborating evidence.
I think we are at cross purposes. Do you think it possible that say five deaths on a NICU could occur with only one member of staff present in every case by random chance alone? It clearly is a possibility. The Dutch case was based on believing it wasn't. The other argument is how were the deaths chosen to be part of the case? If they were chosen because people had started to suspect Letby and then looked at the cases where she was around, as is possible, then that would be cherry picking.
I am not saying that this happened but this is why I believe that the evidence presented (the chart) falls very much into the use of statistics. The point was "Look only Letby was here for ALL the deaths".
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
The Trump supporters are making stuff up, though. The debate rules were negotiated by Biden's team (and Trump agreed). Harris wanted to change them (open mikes), and Trump refused.
It's not impossible there's a second debate. One of Trump's team (though hardly a reliable source) is claiming one was already agreed.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
LOL. Imagine on a betting site, only wanting to hear one side of the argument…
So on the argument on who won the debate there is on the one side:
Democrats, Republicans, members of the Trump campaign, polling on who won, observers around the world.
On the other side there's Trump himself, Sandpit (both of whom don't really think he won).
Talking of not understanding statistics.
More people (may have) thought Harris won the debate absolutely. If there were a hundred people polled and 51 (or even 98) thought she won then that leaves...pauses to do the math...49 (2) people who thought that Trump won.
So plenty more people than you suggest who thought he won it.
Talking of not having a sense of humour.
The point is (duh) that the only people who think Trump won were already Trump fans (and not even all of them think he won)
Also the polling has Harris winning by around 20 point margins, not a 2 point margin as you seem to think.
No one could ever accuse me of having a sense of humour.
The race is neck and neck. I've no idea who will win or what the result in Arizona means.
But I do see on PB a complete inability to understand what Trump's appeal might be. There is evidently a huge attraction and I'm guessing some of his supporters are bright buttons.
PB has this collective failing whereby no one can see any appeal that he may have (apart from to idiot rednecks) and dismisses any manifestation of that appeal as Russian propaganda.
He appeals to:
Left behind - economically and socially, slightly different groups with big overlap Republicans who would be loyal to absolutely anyone with an R after their name and opposed to those with a D after theirs Billionaire (and want more) class Russian and other fans of dictatorship and kleptocracy
Pointing out the latter two doesn't mean that we don't recognise the first and that is where the majority of his votes come from. But it does mean that things him and his supporters say are often spin for the elite or Russian propaganda.
Though in reality, his appearance to most of the first group is purely cultural. As president, he did almost nothing of substance for them economically.
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans..
3. There are signs that his advisers, and the GOP at large, are starting to fall out. If that continues, it could become a rout.
OTOH, there's always the possibility of a game changer, with unpredictable effects. What if, for example, Putin used a tactical nuke in Ukraine in retaliation for some Ukrainian success ?
The Chinese will go apeshit and Putin could face an internal bullet. What the US does will be to make things really hurt for Moscow. Use of western weapons against deep Russia would totally be on the table too.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
You do realise that the creators of Tenet Media have ben called victims of the scam by the FBI?
I do realise. It's a terrible thing to happen to you when you are the victim of receiving money from the Russian state to broadcast propaganda for them.
This fits the old KGB pattern, incidentally, from the Mitrokhin Archive.
The KGB would seek out, and fund Western groups that they saw as aligned to things they wanted said or done.
Very often, the bulk of the group was unaware of KGB involvement - a typical method was a corrupt treasurer who would inject the funds. Many of them stole some of the KGB money to live the high life as well.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
Okay, I think I get the gist. You don't have an opinion on this matter and your a bit down on anyone who does. Fair enough.
Well done withdrawing. As Wittgenstein was fond of pointing out there's stacks of things about which it is meaningless or wrong to express an opinion.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
Okay, I think I get the gist. You don't have an opinion on this matter and your a bit down on anyone who does. Fair enough.
Well done withdrawing. As Wittgenstein was fond of pointing out there's stacks of things about which it is meaningless or wrong to express an opinion.
And this subject wouldn't be one of them, as a proposition about Letby's guilt or non-guilt can meaningfully carve out logical space.
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans
There is this obsession with patriotism in America which boggles the mind. But it is a trip wire which makes it really hard for "patriots" who aren't mad to vote for the lunatic who will demolish the thing you are patriotic about.
Trump is falling apart, will only get worse (watch him fire the sane advisors and rely on the core of mentalists screaming that the debate was "rigged" because Harris was given the questions beforehand), and will actively propel more and more conservatives to vote for the conservative candidate - Harris.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong. But I'm feeling pretty good about coming out weeks ago proclaiming that Harris will win bigly.
Trump still on 45-49% in all but one post debate poll suggests it will still be very close, there is not going to be a Harris landslide even if she scrapes home.
Indeed every post debate poll still has Harris below the 51% Biden got in 2020
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
Well bollocks to you all. I am a Trump supporter.
Bring it.
I think Trump is a narcissistic man-child, and I don't want him to win.
That does not mean he won't win. I'd rate Harris' chance of winning at no better than 11/9.
Too many people think that Trump's supporters are suddenly going to see the light, and vote Democratic.
Well quite. The US electorate is not a bunch of UK centrist dads. I can see the scene on Nov 6: We planned for Kamala to win and we'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky voters. The "only bed-wetters think Trump will win" rhetoric has persuaded me that Hillary walked it in 2016. What strange tricks the memory plays.
Your memory will tell you that there were a couple of reasons in particular why Hillary lost. What are the comparable ones this cycle ?
I don't know, but Trump's unassailable looking lead on money and immigration, and the too close to call ness of individual state polling, are what have caused me to close my KH position for a very chunky profit. On top of that I go to the states a bit and the single complaint I hear most about the Dems is, they are corrupt. You would not have a clue about this from discussion over here. Trump may be Voldemort, but that doesn't make his opponents Dumbledore
I can only assume that PBers for Harris have remortgaged their houses and borrowed the contents of the client account to pile on her. That's what I would do if I could get evens on something I was that certain about.
(Why does anyone even conduct popular vote polling btw?)
Given what Trump has been up to, I'm surprised the Dems are seen as, effectively, more corrupt. Of course, historically, Democrat-run Chicago and New York were seen as corrupt, and indeed probably were.
The Dems have been having fun and games in New Jersey. They had a Senator who in moral terms (if not perhaps sanity terms) is very Trumpy (as in, convicted of multiple crimes). He has now quit the Senate though.
The real problem is that, as the fictional President Bartlett said, "We've legalised bribery"
So in American politics, it is entirely legal for a politician to vote for a project to got to company X. and then, if company X (or subcontractors) do the right dance moves, Company X can donate to the personal wealth of said politician in a number of ways.
Share options are something that stink, especially, in this. To the point that tracking politicians share dealings has become a way to beat the market....
So everyone does this. Even minor Congress people become millionaires. Trump comes along and steals in the old fashioned ways - he doesn't know the dance.
So, on one side, they are saying "lock him up"
The Trumpets are saying "What about *their* bullshit?"
Huh. I understood this was already the case. We know someone who was warned about losing their driving licence if she cycled while over the drink-driving limit.
There is no basis for that I think so it's probably a police officer not having a clue in this area of law, or over-reaching, which happens all the time.
The only similar thing I know is under the Criminal Courts Sentencing Act section 146(1), which is a general power to disqualify under any offence. There's more in the text, and checks and balances would apply.
Of course cycling drunk is a separate offence, with whatever the wording is.
The only circs I can think of are if it was an electric moped or motorcycle which does not meet the conditions to be pedal cycle under the EAPC rules - no e-assists above 15.5mph and so on. In that case it is a motor vehicle so motoring law applies such as insurance required and drink driving laws etc.
146 Driving disqualification for any offence (1)The court by or before which a person is convicted of an offence committed after 31st December 1997 may, instead of or in addition to dealing with him in any other way, order him to be disqualified, for such period as it thinks fit, for holding or obtaining a driving licence. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/6/section/146/enacted
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
Full analysis of this requires a level of detail I don't have - it will be in the transcripts almost no-one has read, including me.
However, I think your misunderstanding is this.
To prove murder/attempted murder it is central to prove that there was an unlawful killing/attempt. Without evidence of that nothing gets off the ground. The judge and court of appeal concluded that there was a case to answer WRT there being murders/attempted murders in each case. (The CA specifically considered this ground, of there being no case to answer),
The next question is who did it. The rotas provide evidence of presence of LL in each individual case.
This provides not a statistical but a factual set of claims about each case, each of which the defence is at liberty to challenge; eg by saying she wasn't there, there wasn't a killing/attempt, someone else did it and these people, X, Y and Z, are the possible candidates. or of course simply saying none of these and requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury.
There was of course an abundance of other corroborating evidence.
I think we are at cross purposes. Do you think it possible that say five deaths on a NICU could occur with only one member of staff present in every case by random chance alone? It clearly is a possibility. The Dutch case was based on believing it wasn't. The other argument is how were the deaths chosen to be part of the case? If they were chosen because people had started to suspect Letby and then looked at the cases where she was around, as is possible, then that would be cherry picking.
I am not saying that this happened but this is why I believe that the evidence presented (the chart) falls very much into the use of statistics. The point was "Look only Letby was here for ALL the deaths".
It’s descriptive statistics, it’s not inferential statistics. Historically, there have been concerns with how inferential statistics have been used with court. It’s a bit misleading, I feel, to go on about “statistics” when we’re talking about a simple table.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
LOL. Imagine on a betting site, only wanting to hear one side of the argument…
So on the argument on who won the debate there is on the one side:
Democrats, Republicans, members of the Trump campaign, polling on who won, observers around the world.
On the other side there's Trump himself, Sandpit (both of whom don't really think he won).
Talking of not understanding statistics.
More people (may have) thought Harris won the debate absolutely. If there were a hundred people polled and 51 (or even 98) thought she won then that leaves...pauses to do the math...49 (2) people who thought that Trump won.
So plenty more people than you suggest who thought he won it.
Talking of not having a sense of humour.
The point is (duh) that the only people who think Trump won were already Trump fans (and not even all of them think he won)
Also the polling has Harris winning by around 20 point margins, not a 2 point margin as you seem to think.
No one could ever accuse me of having a sense of humour.
The race is neck and neck. I've no idea who will win or what the result in Arizona means.
But I do see on PB a complete inability to understand what Trump's appeal might be. There is evidently a huge attraction and I'm guessing some of his supporters are bright buttons.
PB has this collective failing whereby no one can see any appeal that he may have (apart from to idiot rednecks) and dismisses any manifestation of that appeal as Russian propaganda.
He appeals to:
Left behind - economically and socially, slightly different groups with big overlap Republicans who would be loyal to absolutely anyone with an R after their name and opposed to those with a D after theirs Billionaire (and want more) class Russian and other fans of dictatorship and kleptocracy
Pointing out the latter two doesn't mean that we don't recognise the first and that is where the majority of his votes come from. But it does mean that things him and his supporters say are often spin for the elite or Russian propaganda.
Though in reality, his appearance to most of the first group is purely cultural. As president, he did almost nothing of substance for them economically.
They think he will do, which is what matters in the context of his support.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
"The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something." This was USED as statistical evidence. As in, how likely is it that this was a coincidence.
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
The Trump supporters are making stuff up, though. The debate rules were negotiated by Biden's team (and Trump agreed). Harris wanted to change them (open mikes), and Trump refused.
It's not impossible there's a second debate. One of Trump's team (though hardly a reliable source) is claiming one was already agreed.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
Full analysis of this requires a level of detail I don't have - it will be in the transcripts almost no-one has read, including me.
However, I think your misunderstanding is this.
To prove murder/attempted murder it is central to prove that there was an unlawful killing/attempt. Without evidence of that nothing gets off the ground. The judge and court of appeal concluded that there was a case to answer WRT there being murders/attempted murders in each case. (The CA specifically considered this ground, of there being no case to answer),
The next question is who did it. The rotas provide evidence of presence of LL in each individual case.
This provides not a statistical but a factual set of claims about each case, each of which the defence is at liberty to challenge; eg by saying she wasn't there, there wasn't a killing/attempt, someone else did it and these people, X, Y and Z, are the possible candidates. or of course simply saying none of these and requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury.
There was of course an abundance of other corroborating evidence.
I think we are at cross purposes. Do you think it possible that say five deaths on a NICU could occur with only one member of staff present in every case by random chance alone? It clearly is a possibility. The Dutch case was based on believing it wasn't. The other argument is how were the deaths chosen to be part of the case? If they were chosen because people had started to suspect Letby and then looked at the cases where she was around, as is possible, then that would be cherry picking.
I am not saying that this happened but this is why I believe that the evidence presented (the chart) falls very much into the use of statistics. The point was "Look only Letby was here for ALL the deaths".
It’s descriptive statistics, it’s not inferential statistics. Historically, there have been concerns with how inferential statistics have been used with court. It’s a bit misleading, I feel, to go on about “statistics” when we’re talking about a simple table.
Its not a simple table though, is it. It was used to suggest to the jury that the chance of Letby being there EVERY time was non-existent.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
The evidence was examined in court and she was found guilty. The evidence was re-examined by the Court of Appeal. It was re-re-examined by the second trial. You’re now asking for the evidence to be re-re-re-examined.
Those re-s look great until you see how many goes it took a real life case like the Birmingham lot to get the right answer.
The main problem here is the gap between the evidence, and the subset of evidence presented at the trial. For instance it now seems common ground (has been reported without rebuttal in every serious news source I usually use) that the confessional notes which were a crucial part of the case, were nothing of the kind. Secondly it seems pretty much established that the concession that the insulin deaths must have been murder, was wrong on the evidence. Why did neither point emerge at trial? I don't want the evidence re-examined, I want it properly examined once, which is why I think cases like this should be examined and prosecuted by an investigating judge.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
The evidence was examined in court and she was found guilty. The evidence was re-examined by the Court of Appeal. It was re-re-examined by the second trial. You’re now asking for the evidence to be re-re-re-examined.
Those re-s look great until you see how many goes it took a real life case like the Birmingham lot to get the right answer.
The main problem here is the gap between the evidence, and the subset of evidence presented at the trial. For instance it now seems common ground (has been reported without rebuttal in every serious news source I usually use) that the confessional notes which were a crucial part of the case, were nothing of the kind. Secondly it seems pretty much established that the concession that the insulin deaths must have been murder, was wrong on the evidence. Why did neither point emerge at trial? I don't want the evidence re-examined, I want it properly examined once, which is why I think cases like this should be examined and prosecuted by an investigating judge.
There have been some terrible miscarriages of justice. But you still need specific reasons as to why Letby’s case is another. Can you point to some particular aspect of this case that is like the Birmingham Six’s?
Your claim of “common ground” or things “pretty much established” are simply untrue. Neither of those issues have any such consensus. The context revealed that she was advised to write about her feelings doesn’t explain away the things she wrote. The claims around the exogenous insulin evidence are not widely accepted.
The UK legal system does not have investigating judges.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
The evidence was examined in court and she was found guilty. The evidence was re-examined by the Court of Appeal. It was re-re-examined by the second trial. You’re now asking for the evidence to be re-re-re-examined.
Those re-s look great until you see how many goes it took a real life case like the Birmingham lot to get the right answer.
The main problem here is the gap between the evidence, and the subset of evidence presented at the trial. For instance it now seems common ground (has been reported without rebuttal in every serious news source I usually use) that the confessional notes which were a crucial part of the case, were nothing of the kind. Secondly it seems pretty much established that the concession that the insulin deaths must have been murder, was wrong on the evidence. Why did neither point emerge at trial? I don't want the evidence re-examined, I want it properly examined once, which is why I think cases like this should be examined and prosecuted by an investigating judge.
There have been some terrible miscarriages of justice. But you still need specific reasons as to why Letby’s case is another. Can you point to some particular aspect of this case that is like the Birmingham Six’s?
Your claim of “common ground” or things “pretty much established” are simply untrue. Neither of those issues have any such consensus. The context revealed that she was advised to write about her feelings doesn’t explain away the things she wrote. The claims around the exogenous insulin evidence are not widely accepted.
The UK legal system does not have investigating judges.
After nearly 40 years professional employment in the legal system of England and Wales I had pretty much worked that out. I didn't say there were such things, I said there should be.
You are wrong about both the notes and the insulin test. There's no point bickering about it, but on your own case these are 1. important evidentiary questions which 2. were not addressed in any court.
There have been quite a number of recent by-elections where voter turnout has fallen off a cliff. It's been particularly noticeable since Voter ID was brought in. My normal rule of thumb for council by-election turnout is that <20% is poor and <13% requires explanation.</i> https://x.com/andrewteale/status/1834363186172080528
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
But that isn't statistics. That's evidence of opportunity for her to have committed the crimes.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
But that isn't statistics. That's evidence of opportunity for her to have committed the crimes.
Not how it was used. It was used as "how likely was it that Letby was the only one there when all these babies died". Of course it also shows opportunity.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
The evidence was examined in court and she was found guilty. The evidence was re-examined by the Court of Appeal. It was re-re-examined by the second trial. You’re now asking for the evidence to be re-re-re-examined.
Those re-s look great until you see how many goes it took a real life case like the Birmingham lot to get the right answer.
The main problem here is the gap between the evidence, and the subset of evidence presented at the trial. For instance it now seems common ground (has been reported without rebuttal in every serious news source I usually use) that the confessional notes which were a crucial part of the case, were nothing of the kind. Secondly it seems pretty much established that the concession that the insulin deaths must have been murder, was wrong on the evidence. Why did neither point emerge at trial? I don't want the evidence re-examined, I want it properly examined once, which is why I think cases like this should be examined and prosecuted by an investigating judge.
There have been some terrible miscarriages of justice. But you still need specific reasons as to why Letby’s case is another. Can you point to some particular aspect of this case that is like the Birmingham Six’s?
Your claim of “common ground” or things “pretty much established” are simply untrue. Neither of those issues have any such consensus. The context revealed that she was advised to write about her feelings doesn’t explain away the things she wrote. The claims around the exogenous insulin evidence are not widely accepted.
The UK legal system does not have investigating judges.
After nearly 40 years professional employment in the legal system of England and Wales I had pretty much worked that out. I didn't say there were such things, I said there should be.
You are wrong about both the notes and the insulin test. There's no point bickering about it, but on your own case these are 1. important evidentiary questions which 2. were not addressed in any court.
The defence knew about the context in which the notes were written. They chose what defence to offer around the notes.
The defence accepted the insulin evidence and chose not to contest it. I don’t think they brought it up in the appeal either.
You’re claiming these things are “common ground” when even the defence didn’t believe in their value.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
Full analysis of this requires a level of detail I don't have - it will be in the transcripts almost no-one has read, including me.
However, I think your misunderstanding is this.
To prove murder/attempted murder it is central to prove that there was an unlawful killing/attempt. Without evidence of that nothing gets off the ground. The judge and court of appeal concluded that there was a case to answer WRT there being murders/attempted murders in each case. (The CA specifically considered this ground, of there being no case to answer),
The next question is who did it. The rotas provide evidence of presence of LL in each individual case.
This provides not a statistical but a factual set of claims about each case, each of which the defence is at liberty to challenge; eg by saying she wasn't there, there wasn't a killing/attempt, someone else did it and these people, X, Y and Z, are the possible candidates. or of course simply saying none of these and requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury.
There was of course an abundance of other corroborating evidence.
I think we are at cross purposes. Do you think it possible that say five deaths on a NICU could occur with only one member of staff present in every case by random chance alone? It clearly is a possibility. The Dutch case was based on believing it wasn't. The other argument is how were the deaths chosen to be part of the case? If they were chosen because people had started to suspect Letby and then looked at the cases where she was around, as is possible, then that would be cherry picking.
I am not saying that this happened but this is why I believe that the evidence presented (the chart) falls very much into the use of statistics. The point was "Look only Letby was here for ALL the deaths".
I see your point, and I doubt if, on what is currently known, we can go much further. You overlook the fact that the prosecution has to prove unlawful killing/attempt in each case. The fact that she was present for all the deaths is obvious: it falls under the nature of the allegation. How should and could the prosecution prove (and it is essential in each case, or it falls) that LL was present except by the evidence of the rota; which evidence is not about stats or probabilities, it is about presence in the room.
I guess his hallucinogenics are stronger than mine.
I'm no Trump fan, far from it, but this isn't his most nonsense comment. Self ID, and recognition of such, perhaps with parents who do not approve could see just this scenario occur.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
But that isn't statistics. That's evidence of opportunity for her to have committed the crimes.
Not how it was used. It was used as "how likely was it that Letby was the only one there when all these babies died". Of course it also shows opportunity.
I’m not aware of any likelihood value being offered. There was no inferential stats AFAIK.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
Point of order. The new proposal IS high speed - design speed of 186mph.
In practice I won't be that surprised to see the southern HS2 also restricted to such a slow speed. The extra energy used to go even faster is barely worth the bother.
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
But that isn't statistics. That's evidence of opportunity for her to have committed the crimes.
Not how it was used. It was used as "how likely was it that Letby was the only one there when all these babies died". Of course it also shows opportunity.
That is a perfectly reasonable jury point for the prosecution to make, appealing to their common sense, as long as the ground of unlawful killing/attempt is made out for each case.
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
The evidence was examined in court and she was found guilty. The evidence was re-examined by the Court of Appeal. It was re-re-examined by the second trial. You’re now asking for the evidence to be re-re-re-examined.
Those re-s look great until you see how many goes it took a real life case like the Birmingham lot to get the right answer.
The main problem here is the gap between the evidence, and the subset of evidence presented at the trial. For instance it now seems common ground (has been reported without rebuttal in every serious news source I usually use) that the confessional notes which were a crucial part of the case, were nothing of the kind. Secondly it seems pretty much established that the concession that the insulin deaths must have been murder, was wrong on the evidence. Why did neither point emerge at trial? I don't want the evidence re-examined, I want it properly examined once, which is why I think cases like this should be examined and prosecuted by an investigating judge.
There have been some terrible miscarriages of justice. But you still need specific reasons as to why Letby’s case is another. Can you point to some particular aspect of this case that is like the Birmingham Six’s?
Your claim of “common ground” or things “pretty much established” are simply untrue. Neither of those issues have any such consensus. The context revealed that she was advised to write about her feelings doesn’t explain away the things she wrote. The claims around the exogenous insulin evidence are not widely accepted.
The UK legal system does not have investigating judges.
After nearly 40 years professional employment in the legal system of England and Wales I had pretty much worked that out. I didn't say there were such things, I said there should be.
You are wrong about both the notes and the insulin test. There's no point bickering about it, but on your own case these are 1. important evidentiary questions which 2. were not addressed in any court.
The defence knew about the context in which the notes were written. They chose what defence to offer around the notes.
The defence accepted the insulin evidence and chose not to contest it. I don’t think they brought it up in the appeal either.
You’re claiming these things are “common ground” when even the defence didn’t believe in their value.
I don't have a side in this argument, but isn't it the case that a fairly high proportion of miscarriages of justice involve an inadequate defence ?
One of the interesting things about the Letby case, is how keep various people are to turn it into the latest version of the culture wars.
So we have the unedifying spectacle, from both sides, of people using it as a football.
For me, there are questions to be asked. This isn't about setting her free now, or hanging her to prevent the case being re-examined.
Maybe because I grew up with Private Eye in the house..... I recall many, long sagas about the guilt or innocence of people long convicted of various things. Sometimes these people turned out to be innocent and sometimes guilty. The vituperation about the people questioning and defending such convictions was often notable.
But the process of asking those questions seems as British to me as Michael Foot was.
Quite. Aggressive certainty on either side disqualifies any post from serious consideration. As a lawyer I am also bemused and flattered by the competence attributed to the profession.
What this case says to me is that we should ditch the adversarial model in favour of one better designed to get to the truth rather than a win or lose outcome.
'certainty on either side'? The other day you were declaring how baffled you were that anyone could dislike Lucy Letby.
Good God.
I said I was puzzled by the hatred for her, and I said it in a discussion about the merits of her conviction - so clearly in a context where "she killed all those babies" is inadmissible.
You made the claim to which I am replying so I will leave it to you to look this up, confirm what I say is true, and apologize.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
Complete misreading. The "hatred" consists of, to paraphrase, I know nothing about it but I am convinced she is guilty and reexamining the evidence is wrong. As a matter of logic you can't factor her guilt into a discussion of the right and wrong of questioning her guilt. So as a matter of logic the hatred ought to emanate from something else. I have no opinion as to her guilt or innocence.
The evidence was examined in court and she was found guilty. The evidence was re-examined by the Court of Appeal. It was re-re-examined by the second trial. You’re now asking for the evidence to be re-re-re-examined.
Those re-s look great until you see how many goes it took a real life case like the Birmingham lot to get the right answer.
The main problem here is the gap between the evidence, and the subset of evidence presented at the trial. For instance it now seems common ground (has been reported without rebuttal in every serious news source I usually use) that the confessional notes which were a crucial part of the case, were nothing of the kind. Secondly it seems pretty much established that the concession that the insulin deaths must have been murder, was wrong on the evidence. Why did neither point emerge at trial? I don't want the evidence re-examined, I want it properly examined once, which is why I think cases like this should be examined and prosecuted by an investigating judge.
There have been some terrible miscarriages of justice. But you still need specific reasons as to why Letby’s case is another. Can you point to some particular aspect of this case that is like the Birmingham Six’s?
Your claim of “common ground” or things “pretty much established” are simply untrue. Neither of those issues have any such consensus. The context revealed that she was advised to write about her feelings doesn’t explain away the things she wrote. The claims around the exogenous insulin evidence are not widely accepted.
The UK legal system does not have investigating judges.
After nearly 40 years professional employment in the legal system of England and Wales I had pretty much worked that out. I didn't say there were such things, I said there should be.
You are wrong about both the notes and the insulin test. There's no point bickering about it, but on your own case these are 1. important evidentiary questions which 2. were not addressed in any court.
The defence knew about the context in which the notes were written. They chose what defence to offer around the notes.
The defence accepted the insulin evidence and chose not to contest it. I don’t think they brought it up in the appeal either.
You’re claiming these things are “common ground” when even the defence didn’t believe in their value.
Correct, the insulin matter was not in the appeal.
The BBC report suggests the proposed replacement for HS2 northern leg might cost little more than a third of the cancelled project.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o ...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg. The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network. Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality." More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
Point of order. The new proposal IS high speed - design speed of 186mph.
In practice I won't be that surprised to see the southern HS2 also restricted to such a slow speed. The extra energy used to go even faster is barely worth the bother.
Except when it's windy.
"Your service into Glasgow will be 30 minutes ahead of schedule because the National Grid needs to dump North Sea renewables into the HS4 line. Hold onto your coffee!"
I guess his hallucinogenics are stronger than mine.
I'm no Trump fan, far from it, but this isn't his most nonsense comment. Self ID, and recognition of such, perhaps with parents who do not approve could see just this scenario occur.
Then he should say so, and we can have an argument about that.
Trump - as I called - has totally lost his shit and will now sink his own campaign. Whilst the perception was that "45%" would vote for him whatever he said, that's already demonstrably not the case.
Republicans for Harris is a real thing, and its starting to gather momentum. The more that name conservatives declare for the conservative candidate, the more that conservative voters will follow.
Trump will be left with the radicals, the deranged, satan-following evangelicals and the remaining gas-breathing drones. The election is over. Only question now is how big she wins.
Blimey. Wish I had a tenth of your confidence on this one.
My confidence is built on 2 things: 1. Trust in Trump to completely fall apart. That is now happening before our eyes 2. Confidence that Harris will look like the sane choice, even for moderate republicans
There is this obsession with patriotism in America which boggles the mind. But it is a trip wire which makes it really hard for "patriots" who aren't mad to vote for the lunatic who will demolish the thing you are patriotic about.
Trump is falling apart, will only get worse (watch him fire the sane advisors and rely on the core of mentalists screaming that the debate was "rigged" because Harris was given the questions beforehand), and will actively propel more and more conservatives to vote for the conservative candidate - Harris.
Perhaps I will be proven wrong. But I'm feeling pretty good about coming out weeks ago proclaiming that Harris will win bigly.
Trump still on 45-49% in all but one post debate poll suggests it will still be very close, there is not going to be a Harris landslide even if she scrapes home.
Indeed every post debate poll still has Harris below the 51% Biden got in 2020
Unpopular opinion incoming. As told by Trump supporters.
When there’s a boxing match, the winner says “I won”, and the loser says “Can we have a rematch?”
Trump was all up for a series of debates, it was Team Harris that only wanted this one debate, in a carefully-controlled environment with a very friendly team of presenters.
Now that debate has happened, and Harris didn’t totally implode as they thought she might, they’re looking for another.
Trump will want the next debate on Fox, with an audience present and without the presenters “fact-checking” one side and not the other.
My personal view, is that there will be a week or two of back-and-forth, but they will eventually agree to another meeting. Both sides think they can win a second debate.
Dude you are getting about as credible as our Saturday morning visitors with your spinning.
Yes, it’s a shame as @Sandpit is an otherwise good poster
Do we want this site to be a one-way Harris propoganda machine?
Some of us are looking at the other side of American Twitter, so you don’t have to.
You post a load of stuff, with no links, and then claim to be 'looking at the other side'.
Twitter is a cesspit. If you're giving the other side, at the very least give links so we can see how *credible* the source is. Chances are it's BS.
I post a fair number of links, am genuinely trying to bring to this forum an idea of what American conservatives and Republicans are talking about, in an environment in which two sides are talking past each other and can agree on little more than today being Friday.
Video fact-checking Harris from the debate, by Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative, former liberal and originally a DeSantis supporter.
You do realise that the Rubin Report is one of the channels that has just been shown to be Russia-funded?
So what. It is a view and Joe Blow in Arizona doesn't care who funded it he only cares whether it makes sense to him.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la at views from a pro-Trump perspective does an injustice to this site.
Go America Trump.
It was a sensible question to ask of someone who just posted ...Dave Rubin. He’s a fairly mainstream conservative...
That's not "sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting lalala".
Give some sense of proportion to your trademark "I'm above the fray" stance.
And show some respect to Joe Blow.
It's precisely because I am not above the fray that I take issue with those who dismiss views, from whomever, which don't confirm Trump as a narcissistic simpleton.
It is one of PB's collective rightthink moments. Anything which dares to contravene the orthodoxy is dismissed, in particular by those less able minds on here.
Let's think about it - PB is a pretty diverse crowd. Trump, meanwhile, received 46% of the vote in 2016 so nearly half of people supported him and his policies. But absolutely no one is willing to do so on PB which statistically can't be right. Not everyone on PB can dislike Trump and want Harris to win but that is what everyone says. Because they are victims of PB Rightthink.
Well bollocks to you all. I am a Trump supporter.
Bring it.
I think Trump is a narcissistic man-child, and I don't want him to win.
That does not mean he won't win. I'd rate Harris' chance of winning at no better than 11/9.
Too many people think that Trump's supporters are suddenly going to see the light, and vote Democratic.
I don't think that. Trumpers gonna Trump and there are loads of them. That's why despite everything he is bang in this election. I don't have it as a 50/50 but I understand why the market does. He's going to get his base plus GOP reliables plus a portion of floaters/independents and that adds up to a big vote.
But it won't be enough imo. He's a weaker older wilder madder candidate than he was in either of his previous runs. The small slice of voters in the middle, the ones who'll decide the election, are going to break against him. Not all of them but a critical mass. It's happening now and will pick up steam.
Come Nov 5th, I predict Harris wins the PV by at least 5 pts and the EC comfortably. I'm very confident of this. I could close out my Big Short on Trump at about flat now (a result given how underwater it was before Biden pulled out) but I'm not going to do that. I feel good about it.
I predict Trump wins the popular vote by 0.5% and Harris wins the EC by 273 to 265
But after her trial last year Cheshire Police revealed it was investigating the time she spent on two placements in Liverpool in 2012 and 2015.
He told the inquiry that some babies collapsed due to dislodgement of endotracheal [breathing] tubes.
"This is not something that is happening all the time", he said.
"It is unusual, and you will hear that it occurs generally in less than 1% of shifts."
The audit found that there were recorded incidents of the tubes being dislodged on 40% of the shifts Letby worked at Liverpool Womens' Hospital.
Mr Baker said: "In light of what we know now, we might wonder why.”
A number of the usual suspects (Davis, Hitchens et al) have hitched their wagon to the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. I think there is a reasonable chance that the overwhelming nature of the case against her and the utterly feeble nature of the criticisms will cause those in public life who have done so to stop this fairly soon, out of embarrassment and respect for the families.
Mr Baker KC noted that the victims' families are anxious to preserve anonymity because they fear personal abuse etc from conspiracy theorists.
To me this has something of the whole Carl Beech saga about it: a breathless media running with any old crap, showboating politicians stirring the pot, a big dollop of conspiracy theory, while all the time cooler heads are ignored or even derided. But I agree: as this inquiry goes on most of the truthers will probably creep away and never mention it again.
There are surely two separate questions. Did Letby kill at least some babies? Probably. Did she receive a fair trial? Probably not.
And a major flaw, as has happened in other cases, is that neither jurists nor jurors know the first thing about probability and statistics. The system is simply not set up to cope with this sort of evidence, and what we end up with is conviction on the basis of ‘no smoke without fire’ which might be correct but is hardly satisfactory.
Were statistics a big thing in this case? I read the Appeal Court's judgment and I don't recall them even being mentioned. What got a lot of play was babies turning weird colours and dying in a way no one had ever seen before, and every time Letby was the one supervising.
Yes - the classic chart of who was on shift when babies died (suspiciously).
That is not of itself statistics. The chart to show that LL was on duty at the relevant times is evidence of presence of the defendant and therefore opportunity, not of statistical likelihood of something. On its own it demonstrates nothing without a whole tranche of further evidence, but all the other evidence falls away if LL was not present.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
I'm sorry but it IS statistics. It was used to show that she was the only one present on all the shifts that a suspicious death occurred. It is plausible that is has been cherry picked:
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby 2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift 3) These then become the murders. 4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up 5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
Full analysis of this requires a level of detail I don't have - it will be in the transcripts almost no-one has read, including me.
However, I think your misunderstanding is this.
To prove murder/attempted murder it is central to prove that there was an unlawful killing/attempt. Without evidence of that nothing gets off the ground. The judge and court of appeal concluded that there was a case to answer WRT there being murders/attempted murders in each case. (The CA specifically considered this ground, of there being no case to answer),
The next question is who did it. The rotas provide evidence of presence of LL in each individual case.
This provides not a statistical but a factual set of claims about each case, each of which the defence is at liberty to challenge; eg by saying she wasn't there, there wasn't a killing/attempt, someone else did it and these people, X, Y and Z, are the possible candidates. or of course simply saying none of these and requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury.
There was of course an abundance of other corroborating evidence.
I think we are at cross purposes. Do you think it possible that say five deaths on a NICU could occur with only one member of staff present in every case by random chance alone? It clearly is a possibility. The Dutch case was based on believing it wasn't. The other argument is how were the deaths chosen to be part of the case? If they were chosen because people had started to suspect Letby and then looked at the cases where she was around, as is possible, then that would be cherry picking.
I am not saying that this happened but this is why I believe that the evidence presented (the chart) falls very much into the use of statistics. The point was "Look only Letby was here for ALL the deaths".
I see your point, and I doubt if, on what is currently known, we can go much further. You overlook the fact that the prosecution has to prove unlawful killing/attempt in each case. The fact that she was present for all the deaths is obvious: it falls under the nature of the allegation. How should and could the prosecution prove (and it is essential in each case, or it falls) that LL was present except by the evidence of the rota; which evidence is not about stats or probabilities, it is about presence in the room.
You have to start with remembering that this is NOT the case of the Bloody Knife (with thanks for Blackadder). Babies die in NICU units sadly. This unit was being asked to do things it probably shouldn't have been. Babies were dying. At some point someone started to wonder if they were not dying of natural causes (recalling that they were premature babies who are fundamentally fragile). It is possible that some, all or none of the babies were murdered. There is evidence in some of the cases for unnatural death, but not in all. In some cases they are deemed suspicious because they were over the worst and pulling though.
Put yourself in the eyes of the jury. You are shown *that chart*. You are going to use it as statistics. Which was the intention. Just as Meadows said it was a 1 in 73 million chance of having two cot deaths in one family.
I guess his hallucinogenics are stronger than mine.
I'm no Trump fan, far from it, but this isn't his most nonsense comment. Self ID, and recognition of such, perhaps with parents who do not approve could see just this scenario occur.
Then he should say so, and we can have an argument about that.
Comments
If that is the case, the followup questions are about why (is it down to the parties, or voters being less willing to compromise?) and what (if anything) could/should be done to change it.
It might just be how things are these days, but I'm not sure it is a desirable situation for society to be in.
And your mind doesn't take much knowing.
Tim Pool certainly seems stupid enough to believe he's worth $100k an episode.
But the FBI would probably be saying that even, if they were still investigating some of them.
Of course, historically, Democrat-run Chicago and New York were seen as corrupt, and indeed probably were.
The point is (duh) that the only people who think Trump won were already Trump fans (and not even all of them think he won)
Also the polling has Harris winning by around 20 point margins, not a 2 point margin as you seem to think.
I'm confident Harris will win; but never that confident.
Mail ballots have already gone out in Alabama.
Pennsylvania opens in-person voting on Monday.
She doesn't have 56 days. This is the crunch period. She needs to motivate her base to get out there and vote ASAP.
Hatred is a form of dislike is it not? And 'bafflement' is pretty synonymous with 'puzzlement' in my understanding. But anyway. If you're 'puzzled by the hatred for her' then that's presumably not because you're a psychopath but because you're convinced of her innocence. Fine. But that seems very much like the sort of certainty you were just railing against.
The prosecution have to disclose their evidence, including unused evidence, to the defence. The defence are at liberty to adduce evidence that suspicious deaths occurred when LL was not on duty if they can find it.
A jury is entitled to use its common sense about the patterns they discern from the evidence. If (for example) they are sure, early in their deliberations, about LL's responsibility for the insulin cases, they can decide this gives weight to the idea that she is responsible for others where the evidence is less direct. The acquittals and failures to decide suggested that they were careful in how they did this.
Won't be high speed rail, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k3k87y497o
...Sir David called on the new government to support the proposal, which is predicted to cost between 60 and 75% less than the proposed HS2 northern leg.
The savings would be delivered through lower design speeds, ballasted track, UK rather than European standard cross-sections and building on the existing rail network.
Sir David said: “What we need now is for the new government to work together with the business community and Combined Authorities – take the practical steps to make a new rail link a reality."
More than £2bn had been spent on HS2 phase 2 before it was scrapped, with the consortium proposing to use much of this land and infrastructure...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjJ2L2034SE
1) Staff become suspiscuous about Letby
2) Staff then look at deaths when she was on shift
3) These then become the murders.
4) Chart of who was on shift when the murders occurred is drawn up
5) Only Letby was on shift for all the murders.
Can you see the issue?
Now it has been asserted that the suspicious deaths were drawn up independent of knowing who was on shift, and done so on how ill the babies were etc. If that is the case then thats one issue cleared.
But you still need to be aware of the statistical chance of an event happening. If there are 100 baby units what are the odds that one member of staff would be present at all deaths (considered unusual)? Is it 0? No. You hope it is vanishingly small, but there would be a chance.
Unlikely things happen. Leicester won the premier league. People win the lottery.
It's interesting news from Liverpool. It wouldn't surprise me if the number of suspicious incidents when she was on duty is considerable.
Medical and nursing serial killers seem to enjoy being present at incidents, a bit like arsonists watching the fires that they have set. It's part of the psychopathology.
There's a long list of medical and nursing serial killers here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Medical_serial_killers
They should of course have been struggling against the common enemy - the Judean People's Front.
As the case was always about capacity, the "world beating" high speed spec was largely vanity, and was what a big part of what led to the huge delays and cost overruns.
All sorts of extra dynamic forces and fluid mechanics come into play on the latter, such as needing to make tunnels much bigger and wider to avoid air hammer, and the track geometry and civil engineering needs to be insane to handle it.
But it won't be enough imo. He's a weaker older wilder madder candidate than he was in either of his previous runs. The small slice of voters in the middle, the ones who'll decide the election, are going to break against him. Not all of them but a critical mass. It's happening now and will pick up steam.
Come Nov 5th, I predict Harris wins the PV by at least 5 pts and the EC comfortably. I'm very confident of this. I could close out my Big Short on Trump at about flat now (a result given how underwater it was before Biden pulled out) but I'm not going to do that. I feel good about it.
The more important point is that the prosecution didn’t stop there. They didn’t say, “Letby was the only nurse present at all the suspicious deaths - lock her up!” Rather, that was one piece of a large case. They also presented evidence showing that some of the deaths were not just unusual but had to be murder, that Letby had twice been observed on the ward acting highly suspiciously, that she had altered records, that she had stolen records, that she had written odd notes to herself, etc. etc.
Compare, for example, with https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/harris-trump-debate-12-statements-examined-2024-09-11/ .
The race is neck and neck. I've no idea who will win or what the result in Arizona means.
But I do see on PB a complete inability to understand what Trump's appeal might be. There is evidently a huge attraction and I'm guessing some of his supporters are bright buttons.
PB has this collective failing whereby no one can see any appeal that he may have (apart from to idiot rednecks) and dismisses any manifestation of that appeal as Russian propaganda.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/dangerous-cyclists-face-penalty-points-on-their-driving-licence-to-cut-accidents-in-london/ar-AA1qvMfY?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=4d6f97afca2b4c3c969239f86c7030cd&ei=15
Somerset and Northants have never won. Gloucestershire won it in the 1870s but not since it was reorganised and formalised in 1890.
However, I think your misunderstanding is this.
To prove murder/attempted murder it is central to prove that there was an unlawful killing/attempt. Without evidence of that nothing gets off the ground. The judge and court of appeal concluded that there was a case to answer WRT there being murders/attempted murders in each case. (The CA specifically considered this ground, of there being no case to answer),
The next question is who did it. The rotas provide evidence of presence of LL in each individual case.
This provides not a statistical but a factual set of claims about each case, each of which the defence is at liberty to challenge; eg by saying she wasn't there, there wasn't a killing/attempt, someone else did it and these people, X, Y and Z, are the possible candidates. or of course simply saying none of these and requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury.
There was of course an abundance of other corroborating evidence.
She could lose, but it's the less likely outcome at this point.
I think some of this was driven by some modal shift analysis showing that journey times needed to be
As for the odds, I continue to make it roughly 50-50 so we agree on that, though in a forced choice to pick the winner I would pick Harris right now - partly because she is slightly ahead in the polls (and there are some good signs in terms of voter registration, enthusiasm and money-raising), and partly because Trump just looks past it (in a way that he didn't really 4 or 8 years ago).
You can make the case for Trump - polls underestimated him the last 2 times, he's ahead on the economy and the border, and his net favorability isn't as bad as it was 4 or 8 years ago - so I would think it not an unreasonable position to think Trump should be favourite (but not by much).
Bad luck.
In any event, the WCML is just about at the limit of its capacity, and is also pretty knackered. And the M6 is highly congested.
Which all suggests something is needed pretty quickly.
(*you used a '<' which buggers up vanilla.)
Left behind - economically and socially, slightly different groups with big overlap
Republicans who would be loyal to absolutely anyone with an R after their name and opposed to those with a D after theirs
Billionaire (and want more) class
Russian and other fans of dictatorship and kleptocracy
Pointing out the latter two doesn't mean that we don't recognise the first and that is where the majority of his votes come from. But it does mean that things him and his supporters say are often spin for the elite or Russian propaganda.
The other argument is how were the deaths chosen to be part of the case? If they were chosen because people had started to suspect Letby and then looked at the cases where she was around, as is possible, then that would be cherry picking.
I am not saying that this happened but this is why I believe that the evidence presented (the chart) falls very much into the use of statistics. The point was "Look only Letby was here for ALL the deaths".
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/abcs-bias-deprived-voters-of-a-fair-debate-2024-presidential-election-trump-harris-01410617?st=nvHWdP
Doug Schoen, who was also on thye Clintonian wing, said the same thing.
Don't think it changes the narrative per se but it is not just Trump supporters who are having a go at the moderators.
As president, he did almost nothing of substance for them economically.
The KGB would seek out, and fund Western groups that they saw as aligned to things they wanted said or done.
Very often, the bulk of the group was unaware of KGB involvement - a typical method was a corrupt treasurer who would inject the funds. Many of them stole some of the KGB money to live the high life as well.
So in American politics, it is entirely legal for a politician to vote for a project to got to company X. and then, if company X (or subcontractors) do the right dance moves, Company X can donate to the personal wealth of said politician in a number of ways.
Share options are something that stink, especially, in this. To the point that tracking politicians share dealings has become a way to beat the market....
So everyone does this. Even minor Congress people become millionaires. Trump comes along and steals in the old fashioned ways - he doesn't know the dance.
So, on one side, they are saying "lock him up"
The Trumpets are saying "What about *their* bullshit?"
The only similar thing I know is under the Criminal Courts Sentencing Act section 146(1), which is a general power to disqualify under any offence. There's more in the text, and checks and balances would apply.
Of course cycling drunk is a separate offence, with whatever the wording is.
The only circs I can think of are if it was an electric moped or motorcycle which does not meet the conditions to be pedal cycle under the EAPC rules - no e-assists above 15.5mph and so on. In that case it is a motor vehicle so motoring law applies such as insurance required and drink driving laws etc.
146 Driving disqualification for any offence
(1)The court by or before which a person is convicted of an offence committed after 31st December 1997 may, instead of or in addition to dealing with him in any other way, order him to be disqualified, for such period as it thinks fit, for holding or obtaining a driving licence.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/6/section/146/enacted
Legal commentary on this:
https://www.cyclinguk.org/sites/default/files/documents/magazine/pdf/cuk201901055.pdf
And allowed Trump far more time for repeated extra rebuttals, than they gave Harris.
Penn and Schoen. LOL.
Penn incompetence was arguably one of the reasons Clinton lost.
His wiki entry is too long to quote here, but I'll give the relevant link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn#Rightward_shift
Schoen identifies Democratic, but works for Newsmax.
The main problem here is the gap between the evidence, and the subset of evidence presented at the trial. For instance it now seems common ground (has been reported without rebuttal in every serious news source I usually use) that the confessional notes which were a crucial part of the case, were nothing of the kind. Secondly it seems pretty much established that the concession that the insulin deaths must have been murder, was wrong on the evidence. Why did neither point emerge at trial? I don't want the evidence re-examined, I want it properly examined once, which is why I think cases like this should be examined and prosecuted by an investigating judge.
Your claim of “common ground” or things “pretty much established” are simply untrue. Neither of those issues have any such consensus. The context revealed that she was advised to write about her feelings doesn’t explain away the things she wrote. The claims around the exogenous insulin evidence are not widely accepted.
The UK legal system does not have investigating judges.
You are wrong about both the notes and the insulin test. There's no point bickering about it, but on your own case these are 1. important evidentiary questions which 2. were not addressed in any court.
Sadly he was in Tucson, Arizona.
Give her the wings to fly so she can vote for me in Pennsylvania
My normal rule of thumb for council by-election turnout is that <20% is poor and <13% requires explanation.</i>
https://x.com/andrewteale/status/1834363186172080528
Turnout at Bow East yesterday was 15 per cent.
Trump: Can you imagine your child goes to school and they don't even call you and they change the sex of your child.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1834357892490953051
I guess his hallucinogenics are stronger than mine.
The defence accepted the insulin evidence and chose not to contest it. I don’t think they brought it up in the appeal either.
You’re claiming these things are “common ground” when even the defence didn’t believe in their value.
In practice I won't be that surprised to see the southern HS2 also restricted to such a slow speed. The extra energy used to go even faster is barely worth the bother.
"Your service into Glasgow will be 30 minutes ahead of schedule because the National Grid needs to dump North Sea renewables into the HS4 line. Hold onto your coffee!"
Put yourself in the eyes of the jury. You are shown *that chart*. You are going to use it as statistics. Which was the intention. Just as Meadows said it was a 1 in 73 million chance of having two cot deaths in one family.
There's a bust-up in California about that kind of thing.