If the headline is a question, the answer is probably "no".
Fun to speculate, but there are some problems that might not have occurred to Addled Space Karen.
For a start, it wouldn't be that easy to spend that much money. Not impossible, but not easy.
Second, for all those who get excited about PM Nigel, remember that he will be an oldish 65 when the next election comes round. Fresh-faced across the Atlantic, but past It here. It would also imply most of his cabinet being newbie MPs.
I am surprised he didn't say they only come from fat ugly slappers who don't get any....that seems to be in keeping with his patter.
The question is, yet again, everybody seemed to know what he was like, while nobody seemed to do anything about it. All in plain sight, but can't upset the talent....Wuselly Brand, Huw Edwards, etc.
What is the inverse of a chicken and egg problem? I've not read every account but there is a pattern of behaviour going back a decade or more. It is that duration and repetition that make this scandalous. No single incident amounts to a crime. There is no rape or indecent assault. Nothing that could not have been nipped in the bud by a stern warning from HR or the producers, if only people had responded at the time rather than waiting till now. It's not like Savile or Al-Fayed, or even like Schofield or Edwards.
Men in strong positions in the hierarchy equals sexual abuse of women and men.
The problem is both men and hierarchical structures. The pattern is universal: media, politics, business, medicine, law.
Does that apply here? Do off-colour jokes amount to sexual abuse? Wallace might have had power over junior production staff but surely not over celebrities more famous than him. It's not what he did but that he did it repeatedly over years if not decades that is the problem.
This is a very male space, and we can only speculate why so few women post, even though there are millions of women interested in politics.
I very much doubt that assertion. In my experience most women glaze over at the mere mention of politics.
It puts me in mind of this classic Harry Enfield sketch:
I am surprised he didn't say they only come from fat ugly slappers who don't get any....that seems to be in keeping with his patter.
The question is, yet again, everybody seemed to know what he was like, while nobody seemed to do anything about it. All in plain sight, but can't upset the talent....Wuselly Brand, Huw Edwards, etc.
What is the inverse of a chicken and egg problem? I've not read every account but there is a pattern of behaviour going back a decade or more. It is that duration and repetition that make this scandalous. No single incident amounts to a crime. There is no rape or indecent assault. Nothing that could not have been nipped in the bud by a stern warning from HR or the producers, if only people had responded at the time rather than waiting till now. It's not like Savile or Al-Fayed, or even like Schofield or Edwards.
Men in strong positions in the hierarchy equals sexual abuse of women and men.
The problem is both men and hierarchical structures. The pattern is universal: media, politics, business, medicine, law.
Does that apply here? Do off-colour jokes amount to sexual abuse? Wallace might have had power over junior production staff but surely not over celebrities more famous than him. It's not what he did but that he did it repeatedly over years if not decades that is the problem.
This is a very male space, and we can only speculate why so few women post, even though there are millions of women interested in politics.
I very much doubt that assertion. In my experience most women glaze over at the mere mention of politics.
It puts me in mind of this classic Harry Enfield sketch:
The reality is that there are lots of women active in politics and expressing their views on social media, but very few here.
Whether these women are interested in the betting part of politicalbetting is the other question, although if we cleared out the non-betting men there would not be many left.
The BBC does seem to have a problem. 'Talent' after talent shown to be abusing their position and power in the workplace, and the BBC routinely ignoring it.
Gregg Wallace's situation is a relatively minor one, but is shows that the BBC is still letting the 'talent' do whatever it wants, and is not protecting other, lesser, staff members and the public.
The BBC does seem to have a problem. 'Talent' after talent shown to be abusing their position and power in the workplace, and the BBC routinely ignoring it.
Gregg Wallace's situation is a relatively minor one, but is shows that the BBC is still letting the 'talent' do whatever it wants, and is not protecting other, lesser, staff members and the public.
Yes, definitely a BBC thing, such patterns of behaviours are unheard of in all other large organisations.
I am surprised he didn't say they only come from fat ugly slappers who don't get any....that seems to be in keeping with his patter.
The question is, yet again, everybody seemed to know what he was like, while nobody seemed to do anything about it. All in plain sight, but can't upset the talent....Wuselly Brand, Huw Edwards, etc.
What is the inverse of a chicken and egg problem? I've not read every account but there is a pattern of behaviour going back a decade or more. It is that duration and repetition that make this scandalous. No single incident amounts to a crime. There is no rape or indecent assault. Nothing that could not have been nipped in the bud by a stern warning from HR or the producers, if only people had responded at the time rather than waiting till now. It's not like Savile or Al-Fayed, or even like Schofield or Edwards.
Men in strong positions in the hierarchy equals sexual abuse of women and men.
The problem is both men and hierarchical structures. The pattern is universal: media, politics, business, medicine, law.
Does that apply here? Do off-colour jokes amount to sexual abuse? Wallace might have had power over junior production staff but surely not over celebrities more famous than him. It's not what he did but that he did it repeatedly over years if not decades that is the problem.
This is a very male space, and we can only speculate why so few women post, even though there are millions of women interested in politics.
Greg Wallace would get put back in his box if he tried the leery laddish stuff on here though.
As tim used to get called out when he was being a misogynist oaf.
I remain unconvinced that the Wallace nonsense is a bigger story than Aleppo. BBC story priority can be bloody weird sometimes.
I don’t know this guy, but it sounds like he’s accused of bad jokes rather than kiddy fiddling.
A very different category of offence compared to many of the other BBC names that have been in the news in recent years.
Whether a joke is 'bad' or not is very much in the eye of the beholder. People should be allowed to get on with their jobs without being subjected to unwanted sexual comments. Or racist ones (though Wallace has not bene accused of that AFAIK).
It's about professionalism. He did not act professionally.
Starmer's relaunch is going to focus on some key targets. The problem with this is clear. It is just a fact that government has power and responsibility for all state managed expenditure and policy making. This is gigantic. A handful of targets doesn't help. Their job is to run the entire, huge, state enterprise competently.
Opinions vary as to whether this is a good idea, but we live in a centralised social democracy. While that is the case it is unavoidable. We, not the government, decide which bits of their responsibility matters to us. It might be pot holes, it might be NHS dentistry, it might be our foreign policy towards Bulgaria. We should not allow them to choose.
The rebel advance threatens to cut off Damascus from the Russian naval base.
Russian shades of Biden's decision to do a midnight flit from Bagram airport in Afghanistan leaving the entire area and especially Kabul without any air support which led to the abasolute chaotic withdrawal of Western embassies and their support teams among other key personal as well as the collapse of the Aghan Government in Kabul....
We were waiting for a Russian collapse in Ukraine, seems like it is happening in Syria first.
The Russians didn't seem to have a balanced force in Syria. They provided air support for the Assad regime whilst they built a warm deep-water port at Tartus. Tartus is well north of Damascus, due west of Hama which Assad's forces have abandoned. It is doubtful the Russians can hold Tartus without any wider support.
A Russian plane was shot down over Alleppo. There was also a report that an airbase was overrun leaving behind 5 Russian planes.
13 years of Russian assistance seems to be coming to an end. A strategic disaster for Russia, to add to Georgia, Ukraine and the economy.
Absolutely. The Syria news is very bad news for both Russian and Iranian interests.
I don't think we know enough about how the current rebels will behave to comment on whether it's a good thing for humanity in the long-term. But from a geopolitical angle I'll take a defeat for Russia and Iran as a win. Especially given Russia is the primary threat to Europe and the UK at present.
He's a greedy, pompous, lying, charmless, grifting, humourless, entitled, dismal, Woketastic anti-charisma machine, with weird little eyes and a stupid pursed mouth of disapproval, and he can't think of a Christmas movie he likes. He's Loathsome
I don't think he can turn this around, TBH
He's OK; but he is no good at hopey changey; maybe no-one can turn it around for now. If anyone has decent and doable ideas they are keeping quiet. There is only one other party of government and IIRC they weren't very effective in various ways right up to about July this year.
What he should do (perhaps now is too late) is basically from 5th July: "Your glass was half empty and getting emptier; it is now half full and getting fuller. And this is what 'full' looks like, and this is how we are going to get there". And he should still, every day, be explaining the enterprise and pointing out the signposts and mile stones and how marvellous we all are.....
They do not understand how bad the boats thing is. They don't get it, on a visceral level. For them the sight of an asylum seeker in a Marriot Hotel with private healthcare is probably a warming moment, a Britain that care!. They surely strive to see it from the perspective of a Briton stuck in an NHS queue in a dying town, but they cannot manage it, they do not have the empathy
This shit is going to kill them, they lack Theory of Mind. It will quite possibly put Farage in Downing Street
How many asylum seekers have been in Marriot Hotels with private healthcare.
This stuff is the dog whistles that Lee Anderson shoehorns into his social media posts.
One of the hotels turned out to contain nurses employed by the NHS.
I sense it took an heroic effort to prevent the term ‘old slappers’ popping out. His career is more over than the Ottoman Empire. I assume he must paying quite a bit to the lawyers who are making increasingly ridiculous statements of complete innocence on his behalf, maybe time to cut and run.
He's a greedy, pompous, lying, charmless, grifting, humourless, entitled, dismal, Woketastic anti-charisma machine, with weird little eyes and a stupid pursed mouth of disapproval, and he can't think of a Christmas movie he likes. He's Loathsome
I don't think he can turn this around, TBH
He's OK; but he is no good at hopey changey; maybe no-one can turn it around for now. If anyone has decent and doable ideas they are keeping quiet. There is only one other party of government and IIRC they weren't very effective in various ways right up to about July this year.
What he should do (perhaps now is too late) is basically from 5th July: "Your glass was half empty and getting emptier; it is now half full and getting fuller. And this is what 'full' looks like, and this is how we are going to get there". And he should still, every day, be explaining the enterprise and pointing out the signposts and mile stones and how marvellous we all are.....
They do not understand how bad the boats thing is. They don't get it, on a visceral level. For them the sight of an asylum seeker in a Marriot Hotel with private healthcare is probably a warming moment, a Britain that care!. They surely strive to see it from the perspective of a Briton stuck in an NHS queue in a dying town, but they cannot manage it, they do not have the empathy
This shit is going to kill them, they lack Theory of Mind. It will quite possibly put Farage in Downing Street
How many asylum seekers have been in Marriot Hotels with private healthcare.
This stuff is the dog whistles that Lee Anderson shoehorns into his social media posts.
One of the hotels turned out to contain nurses employed by the NHS.
The other thing about the hotels is that they're what happens you stop trying to process asylum claims. People don't just stop existing because you would rather they weren't there.
I remain unconvinced that the Wallace nonsense is a bigger story than Aleppo. BBC story priority can be bloody weird sometimes.
I don’t know this guy, but it sounds like he’s accused of bad jokes rather than kiddy fiddling.
A very different category of offence compared to many of the other BBC names that have been in the news in recent years.
Bad jokes and off colour comments of a coarse nature.
He also, allegedly, appeared with a sock over his todger !!
All stuff that would have been dismissed as banter 40 years ago.
Make of that what you will.
Yes possibly jokes that would have been fine a few years ago, but don’t pass muster today. Someone needed to take him to one side and have a word in his ear.
What if they really DO have a coup and no one believes it happened?
We can’t know until tomorrow. But the thing to watch is the reactions of countries with embassies/consulates in place and/or aid workers out there in numbers.
Can’t remember off hand if we or the rest of the west still have diplomatic relations.
If there really is a coup taking place by now we'd be seeing a flood of images and videos from locals in Damascus. We are not
My guess is there has perhaps been some sporadic gunfire from rebels in the city (because rebels clearly ARE on the march elsewhere in Syria) and they're trying to spook and roil the regime while Assad is away, by making it out to be much bigger
Assad does look imperilled, however
Weren't there reports he is in Moscow currently?
Apparently landed in Damascus several hours ago...
Ah ok thanks, I'm just catching up. Have rather selfishly been focused on living my life today.
Call yourself a PBer? There is no such thing as "life"
I dunno. We once had a poster called @SeanT who had about twelve of them.
I think he retired, having made his millions as an early investor in What3Words.
I heard he retired because he correctly predicted the pandemic about a month before everyone else. But the past is shrouded in myth
No, that was someone called eadric, as I recall
Just for the record, so that I can claim this one over @Leon - the US outbreak of avian flu now spreading widely to milking cows and some pigs is gonna be a bastard human pandemic in a year or so's time.
Yes. That virus is busy mutating and edging closer to fully making the transition to a human flu.
We are pretty good at flu vaccination. Prior to 2020 there was no corona virus vaccines in existence. I wouldnt worry. I’d wait until Feigel dingbat starts shrieking.
Yes. My understanding is that there's already an H5 vaccine. But there's likely to be a bit of a gap between it definitively making the species jump and a vaccine being widely available. A shorter time compared to Covid, but some time nevertheless.
Flu tends not to be infectious without symptoms. That was the real kicker for covid. It made isolation and track and trace very, very hard. We are all scarred by covid (some very much so, as X will show) but we need to remember that covid was a 1 in a century event. We’d be bloody unlucky to get two of those in five years.
Is COVID-19 a once in a century event? It depends what you count. The 20th century had 4 pandemics with at least a million deaths, the three big flu pandemics (Spanish flu, the 1957 pandemic and the 1968 pandemic) and HIV/AIDS. Not as serious, but there was also the 1977 flu pandemic. I’d probably say we get a flu pandemic about once every 25 years.
How often we get other pandemics is harder to determine. But other pandemics are possibly becoming commoner. Since inventing the classification in 2005, the WHO has declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern 8 times already, although that’s not the same as a pandemic. Those 8 have been swine flu, 2014 polio outbreaks, the West African Ebola epidemic, Zika, the Kivu Ebola epidemic, COVID-19 and the two mpox outbreaks. (MERS notably wasn’t declared a PHEIC.) They vary in death toll. Most of those had total deaths in the thousands of lower, the exceptions being COVID and swine flu (~284,000 deaths). So, in the first quarter of the current century, we’ve had two big pandemics with COVID and swine flu.
I am surprised he didn't say they only come from fat ugly slappers who don't get any....that seems to be in keeping with his patter.
The question is, yet again, everybody seemed to know what he was like, while nobody seemed to do anything about it. All in plain sight, but can't upset the talent....Wuselly Brand, Huw Edwards, etc.
What is the inverse of a chicken and egg problem? I've not read every account but there is a pattern of behaviour going back a decade or more. It is that duration and repetition that make this scandalous. No single incident amounts to a crime. There is no rape or indecent assault. Nothing that could not have been nipped in the bud by a stern warning from HR or the producers, if only people had responded at the time rather than waiting till now. It's not like Savile or Al-Fayed, or even like Schofield or Edwards.
Men in strong positions in the hierarchy equals sexual abuse of women and men.
The problem is both men and hierarchical structures. The pattern is universal: media, politics, business, medicine, law.
Does that apply here? Do off-colour jokes amount to sexual abuse? Wallace might have had power over junior production staff but surely not over celebrities more famous than him. It's not what he did but that he did it repeatedly over years if not decades that is the problem.
This is a very male space, and we can only speculate why so few women post, even though there are millions of women interested in politics.
I very much doubt that assertion. In my experience most women glaze over at the mere mention of politics.
That has to be a parody post or have you mistakenly logged on here instead of the Victorian forum.
I am surprised he didn't say they only come from fat ugly slappers who don't get any....that seems to be in keeping with his patter.
The question is, yet again, everybody seemed to know what he was like, while nobody seemed to do anything about it. All in plain sight, but can't upset the talent....Wuselly Brand, Huw Edwards, etc.
What is the inverse of a chicken and egg problem? I've not read every account but there is a pattern of behaviour going back a decade or more. It is that duration and repetition that make this scandalous. No single incident amounts to a crime. There is no rape or indecent assault. Nothing that could not have been nipped in the bud by a stern warning from HR or the producers, if only people had responded at the time rather than waiting till now. It's not like Savile or Al-Fayed, or even like Schofield or Edwards.
Agree strongly with that post. What had been reported is not criminal but unpleasant and offensive. I don't understand why he was warned and if so after repeated offences fired. I've met people who act like this and they are unpleasant and it is even worse if you are a woman because it can feel threatening even if it isn't.
I think that's likely to have the same effect as the Guardian getting involved in the US election.
Cash is different; especially in those quantities. Being able to buy your way to electoral competitiveness with billionaire cash is a deeply malign development that I hope we don't import from the US. But it looks possible.
It is against the law, of course, and I hope we strictly enforce things, so that the malign American way of doing things is stopped.
I’m not sure it is - if it’s Twitter UK that makes the donation? It’s certainly against the intention of the law, but that’s not what matters.
And there are only spending restrictions for a few weeks ahead of the election.
I think that's likely to have the same effect as the Guardian getting involved in the US election.
Cash is different; especially in those quantities. Being able to buy your way to electoral competitiveness with billionaire cash is a deeply malign development that I hope we don't import from the US. But it looks possible.
It is against the law, of course, and I hope we strictly enforce things, so that the malign American way of doing things is stopped.
I’m not sure it is - if it’s Twitter UK that makes the donation? It’s certainly against the intention of the law, but that’s not what matters.
And there are only spending restrictions for a few weeks ahead of the election.
On the issue of parking fines I got a fixed penalty from a pair of traffic wardens in Wigan in about February. After we moved couldn't find a local dentist so have to drive to Wigan to see one.
Gone to take my daughter to a dentist appointment, all the spaces in front of the dentist are pay and display but were all occupied. Next to the spaces was a single yellow line so I checked the only visible signage to see what restrictions apply and it just says to pay and display so I did.
Got out of the dentist after her appointment and saw a parking fine stuck to the car. Also saw the traffic wardens just down the road so went to politely speak to then and said I'd paid and displayed.
The male warden was a dick who just said there's a single yellow line there so read the Highway Code (he should, it just means restrictions apply and those are normally on signage). I replied I'd checked the signage and it says pay and display and I had paid.
The female warden was much more polite, she replied apologetically to say that she had made a note on her system to say I had a valid paid for parking ticket displayed. She also explained that Wigan doesn't have signage for its single yellow lines (where I live they do) and said that she'd make a further note that I said I'd checked the signage and suggested I appeal.
Was busy and forgot to appeal in time, so thought I'd appeal when the inevitable fine came through the post. None ever did. That was nearly 10 months ago so not sure one ever will now. No idea if someone saw the notes and chose to cancel it, or if they're just less organised at chasing unpaid fines than the parasitical private firms.
So, tell us, what does @malcolmg look like in real life?
Comments
Fun to speculate, but there are some problems that might not have occurred to Addled Space Karen.
For a start, it wouldn't be that easy to spend that much money. Not impossible, but not easy.
Second, for all those who get excited about PM Nigel, remember that he will be an oldish 65 when the next election comes round. Fresh-faced across the Atlantic, but past It here. It would also imply most of his cabinet being newbie MPs.
Basically, This Is Not America. Thank goodness.
https://youtu.be/LS37SNYjg8w?feature=shared
The reality is that there are lots of women active in politics and expressing their views on social media, but very few here.
Self-obsessed doesn't begin to cover it.
Terrible for our democracy, though. As you're mentioning.
Gregg Wallace's situation is a relatively minor one, but is shows that the BBC is still letting the 'talent' do whatever it wants, and is not protecting other, lesser, staff members and the public.
A very different category of offence compared to many of the other BBC names that have been in the news in recent years.
As tim used to get called out when he was being a misogynist oaf.
It's about professionalism. He did not act professionally.
He also, allegedly, appeared with a sock over his todger !!
All stuff that would have been dismissed as banter 40 years ago.
Make of that what you will.
NEW THREAD
Opinions vary as to whether this is a good idea, but we live in a centralised social democracy. While that is the case it is unavoidable. We, not the government, decide which bits of their responsibility matters to us. It might be pot holes, it might be NHS dentistry, it might be our foreign policy towards Bulgaria. We should not allow them to choose.
https://x.com/bdsixsmith/status/1863114593024827611?s=61
I don't think we know enough about how the current rebels will behave to comment on whether it's a good thing for humanity in the long-term. But from a geopolitical angle I'll take a defeat for Russia and Iran as a win. Especially given Russia is the primary threat to Europe and the UK at present.
This stuff is the dog whistles that Lee Anderson shoehorns into his social media posts.
One of the hotels turned out to contain nurses employed by the NHS.
His career is more over than the Ottoman Empire. I assume he must paying quite a bit to the lawyers who are making increasingly ridiculous statements of complete innocence on his behalf, maybe time to cut and run.
How often we get other pandemics is harder to determine. But other pandemics are possibly becoming commoner. Since inventing the classification in 2005, the WHO has declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern 8 times already, although that’s not the same as a pandemic. Those 8 have been swine flu, 2014 polio outbreaks, the West African Ebola epidemic, Zika, the Kivu Ebola epidemic, COVID-19 and the two mpox outbreaks. (MERS notably wasn’t declared a PHEIC.) They vary in death toll. Most of those had total deaths in the thousands of lower, the exceptions being COVID and swine flu (~284,000 deaths). So, in the first quarter of the current century, we’ve had two big pandemics with COVID and swine flu.
And there are only spending restrictions for a few weeks ahead of the election.
But it would be a concerning development
And there are only spending restrictions for a few weeks ahead of the election.
But it would be a concerning development
Getting a header approved on PB is a bit like Sauron must have felt, helping the Elves make Rings of Power.