One thing that I do rate with the Labour relaunch is that they've recognised the problem of public sector productivity, I'm looking forwards to their solutions. If it doesn't include pay and hiring freezes as well as job cuts across departments including the NHS then they won't get anywhere. We need more output with a reduction in input. Businesses achieve this all the time, now it's time for the public sector to do the same.
You need to do the opposite in a lot of cases. Pay rises where necessary to reach market rates so all the vacancies can be filled, and those expensive consultants (like me) costing £1k+ per day to fill all the gaps can be given their marching orders. Then stuff might actually be done, for less.
(I should add I don't get anything like £1k per day, plenty of others are dipping their beaks in the trough ahead of me).
Ban consultancy and agency workers for a period of 2 years and implement a one in one out policy if they need expertise. Get rid of people before anyone can be hired. Also, most of the management consultants are shit anyway.
How are you going to implement any IT project, to improve productivity, with civil service pay scales and a ban on consultants?
Hire permanently at proper market rate. Don't get someone from a consultancy for £2-3k per day for 3 months who's expertise disappears and then hire another different consultant for another £2-3k per day when the system that was built by the first one fucks up.
As I'm currently in gardening leave and have the type of skillset that is desired for those projects I can reasonably say that the permanent salaries that I get contacted about even among the top brackets are pitiful. One was a £70k pay cut vs my last position and a full week vs a 4 day week I had before. It's fundamentally not competitive to be in the public sector for highly skilled people unless you're a doctor or medical consultant. The salaries are just awful and all of the people who work in the public sector just tell me how frustrating it is because morons at the top who don't know what they're doing are in charge so nothing gets done.
I'd also clear out the "management class" and put operational people in charge. I've been managed by non-technical people in the past and it always ends in disaster because they're idiots who think they know best but are generally clueless and hinder work and progress.
That's across all roles. In senior technical roles public sector salaries can be 30-40% lower than the private sector. What's ridiculous is that if the public sector shit canned consultants and pushed the fees into competitive salaries the gap would be a lot lower and stability much higher. The only downsides would be engineering management who aren't engineers but that can also be fixed by firing the existing management class in the state sector.
Just because you are a good engineer doesn't mean you make a good manager, not least as public sector managers to have manage a set budget from taxpayers
That's true but not all engineers want or need to be managers. EMs that can't code are useless. You only need a handful of engineers that are technically minded to be able to manage teams/departments it just means you need to pay them accordingly to get them in. The EM at my previous company made £180k per year but he was brilliant and worth the money. The chances of someone earning that for the same role in the state is less than zero.
Well of course they are as the taxpayer would be paying for it.
If you are really bright and talented in your field you will almost always prefer to work in the private sector as the pay is more and often comes with significant share options too. If you are only average or below average in skill then the public sector is often a better bet if you can get a job there as minimum and average pay tends to be higher with a better pension and often longer leave and more flexible working.
Yes but the problem, HYUFD, is that the skills are still necessary in the public sector and they end up getting in a series of consultants on £2-3k day rates instead of just getting a permanent hire with a skillset that can handle multiple projects at once. We still end up paying for it but instead of adding those skills permanently the taxpayer just gets ripped off by tech consultancy firms. I just don't think you properly understand how it works in the tech sector.
Public sector anecdata klaxon.
I have a meeting tomorrow about adopting an in-house application I wrote as the institution-wide go-to. Having previously been told it was useless. And after > £350,000 went to consultants who delivered a barely working 1/10th functional version over the course of a year (I had four days to make mine).
And now mine is over three years out of updates as I was instructed not to work on it as The Consultants Will Provide.
That money could have paid for almost 10 years of a public sector web developers time.
I was unfortunately in the van driving this morning, with R5 on as usual, when Starmer started his speech with that arse achingly awful "joke"
It was such an embarrassingly weak effort at humour. Two or three people laughed; one of those was Starmer
It was excruciatingly petty to start his speech with an immediate attack on Badenoch. He' was supposed to talking about his big plans for the future
He also misrepresented what she'd actually said about being working class, and stated that she only worked "a few shifts" at McD's (I have no idea how many shifts she worked, does Slalom?)
He then said "by that logic" followed by an idiotically illogical "punchline"
If you're going to make a "joke", at least make a point if you're incapable of being remotely amusing
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Woman on ITN waiting 3 years for a leg op... Asked who she blamed
Not Boris, Not Truss, Not Sunak or their predecessors who destroyed the NHS...
No.. It's all Starmer fault.
Independent investigative Journalism is dead in the UK
RIP
Rules of the game. Part of Starmer's problem is that he's now the face of the government, even if the actions of the government are still largely about the decisions of the last lot.
No, it's not fair, but being PM isn't about experiencing fair. Don't take a job in the kitchen if you don't like unfair heat.
(None of which is going to stop me pointing and laughing at Conservative 'thinkers' saying how bad things are in the UK right now.)
Labour's best bet in 2028/9 will to be run on a version of "yes it hurt, yes it worked". For which, all of this has to work. Let's see.
It's just Cameron 2.0. This has been obvious that his was his strategy since 2020.
But the difference is that Cameron didn't put up taxes by £30bn that will increase prices and cause wage freezes for anyone not on the minimum wage.
That £30bn will raise prices and wages in the public sector but do virtually nothing to raise output. Because this bunch of muppets are ideological sixth-formers who really do deify the state and believe that if you give it all the inputs you can muster that's all that's needed.
Then, people really will be angry.
And Starmer's comments today about public sector productivity is why the budget didn't make sense. All of the new spending commitments could have been funded out of existing money without needing to raise taxes if they had the cojones to make the necessary cuts in employment among the unproductive classes.
I guess my question would be, why did the Tories not do any of this stuff - and is Badenoch proposing to?
If she was offering to increase public sector salaries significantly and cut the pension I'd be all ears.
I'm not sure what the Tory view is currently. The only actually Tory budgets we had since 2015 were from Hunt when Rishi was PM. All of the others talked right but implemented left, huge increases in spending, massive increases state employment and no reforms to ensure the money was spent properly so we saw a huge drop in public sector productivity.
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Well they've just built a bridge where, previously, a ferry was required. So you may be disappointed.
More on this. Turns out "the Blob" wasn't just a Tory fantasy.
"Keir Starmer is right: the “paranoid” civil service does need change Starmer's former advisor, Peter Hyman, calls for dramatic Whitehall reform.
Hyman, who served under both Tony Blair and Keir Starmer, discusses the difficulties Labour will face in implementing their missions and is scathing about Whitehall, saying resistance from staffers is stifling innovation. “Three permanent secretaries I’ve heard in the last month have been resisting having outsiders come in to help,” he says."
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Well they've just built a bridge where, previously, a ferry was required. So you may be disappointed.
This is a good rule for anywhere, I think. Just popping across to Eigg or something transforms a holiday from tartan tat and coachloads of tourists to idyllic Hebridean adventure.
Of course, your bicycle or your feet can always take you further.
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Well they've just built a bridge where, previously, a ferry was required. So you may be disappointed.
This is a good rule for anywhere, I think. Just popping across to Eigg or something transforms a holiday from tartan tat and coachloads of tourists to idyllic Hebridean adventure.
Of course, your bicycle or your feet can always take you further.
It also makes it feel like the holiday has started, I find.
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Well they've just built a bridge where, previously, a ferry was required. So you may be disappointed.
I crossed that bridge - it’s been around a few years now - and it means a 9-12 hour journey is reduced to six hours if you really go for it - and there is nothing else to do here. It’s just mompox. It’s not on the road to anywhere else. It is a quintessential backwater
Thankfully I reckon it’s enough to dissuade all but the most determined. And of course few have heard of it anyway
Amazon Prime should be banned from showing Premier League football until they can speed up their stream. Even on cable, the pictures are 120 seconds behind live! It’s absolutely dismal and ruins it as an experience because people see (and report) the goals on LiveScores two minutes before they are shown on screen.
Amazon Prime should be banned from showing Premier League football until they can speed up their stream. Even on cable, the pictures are 120 seconds behind live! It’s absolutely dismal and ruins it as an experience because people see (and report) the goals on LiveScores two minutes before they are shown on screen.
Streaming sports sucks. Sort it out.
You just need to put some coins in the meter and it will all speed up.
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Well they've just built a bridge where, previously, a ferry was required. So you may be disappointed.
I crossed that bridge - it’s been around a few years now - and it means a 9-12 hour journey is reduced to six hours if you really go for it - and there is nothing else to do here. It’s just mompox. It’s not on the road to anywhere else. It is a quintessential backwater
Thankfully I reckon it’s enough to dissuade all but the most determined. And of course few have heard of it anyway
I did the bus, ferry, motorbike taxi option. I did add to the magic. I don't think the bridge existed back then.
Amazon Prime should be banned from showing Premier League football until they can speed up their stream. Even on cable, the pictures are 120 seconds behind live! It’s absolutely dismal and ruins it as an experience because people see (and report) the goals on LiveScores two minutes before they are shown on screen.
Streaming sports sucks. Sort it out.
You just need to put some coins in the meter and it will all speed up.
A strong candidate for the most oblique segue ever to PB’s bizarre obsession! Bravo sir!
I was unfortunately in the van driving this morning, with R5 on as usual, when Starmer started his speech with that arse achingly awful "joke"
It was such an embarrassingly weak effort at humour. Two or three people laughed; one of those was Starmer
It was excruciatingly petty to start his speech with an immediate attack on Badenoch. He' was supposed to talking about his big plans for the future
He also misrepresented what she'd actually said about being working class, and stated that she only worked "a few shifts" at McD's (I have no idea how many shifts she worked, does Slalom?)
He then said "by that logic" followed by an idiotically illogical "punchline"
If you're going to make a "joke", at least make a point if you're incapable of being remotely amusing
One thing that I do rate with the Labour relaunch is that they've recognised the problem of public sector productivity, I'm looking forwards to their solutions. If it doesn't include pay and hiring freezes as well as job cuts across departments including the NHS then they won't get anywhere. We need more output with a reduction in input. Businesses achieve this all the time, now it's time for the public sector to do the same.
You need to do the opposite in a lot of cases. Pay rises where necessary to reach market rates so all the vacancies can be filled, and those expensive consultants (like me) costing £1k+ per day to fill all the gaps can be given their marching orders. Then stuff might actually be done, for less.
(I should add I don't get anything like £1k per day, plenty of others are dipping their beaks in the trough ahead of me).
Ban consultancy and agency workers for a period of 2 years and implement a one in one out policy if they need expertise. Get rid of people before anyone can be hired. Also, most of the management consultants are shit anyway.
How are you going to implement any IT project, to improve productivity, with civil service pay scales and a ban on consultants?
Hire permanently at proper market rate. Don't get someone from a consultancy for £2-3k per day for 3 months who's expertise disappears and then hire another different consultant for another £2-3k per day when the system that was built by the first one fucks up.
As I'm currently in gardening leave and have the type of skillset that is desired for those projects I can reasonably say that the permanent salaries that I get contacted about even among the top brackets are pitiful. One was a £70k pay cut vs my last position and a full week vs a 4 day week I had before. It's fundamentally not competitive to be in the public sector for highly skilled people unless you're a doctor or medical consultant. The salaries are just awful and all of the people who work in the public sector just tell me how frustrating it is because morons at the top who don't know what they're doing are in charge so nothing gets done.
I'd also clear out the "management class" and put operational people in charge. I've been managed by non-technical people in the past and it always ends in disaster because they're idiots who think they know best but are generally clueless and hinder work and progress.
I'm a big fan of recruiting permanent staff and retaining institutional knowledge, it's just so frustrating that the big two reasons why it won't happen is the fuss that the Unions would kick up on one side, and the Daily Mail on the other.
Amazon Prime should be banned from showing Premier League football until they can speed up their stream. Even on cable, the pictures are 120 seconds behind live! It’s absolutely dismal and ruins it as an experience because people see (and report) the goals on LiveScores two minutes before they are shown on screen.
Streaming sports sucks. Sort it out.
Actually a very interesting technical problem. But Amazon won't be investing as they are losing the rights.
But with multicast BT got the delay down to the same as satellite and Sky has got it down to 5 seconds on Stream.
More on this. Turns out "the Blob" wasn't just a Tory fantasy.
"Keir Starmer is right: the “paranoid” civil service does need change Starmer's former advisor, Peter Hyman, calls for dramatic Whitehall reform.
Hyman, who served under both Tony Blair and Keir Starmer, discusses the difficulties Labour will face in implementing their missions and is scathing about Whitehall, saying resistance from staffers is stifling innovation. “Three permanent secretaries I’ve heard in the last month have been resisting having outsiders come in to help,” he says."
Big Dom in his interview with Chris Williamson made another sensible point. This culture is a vicious circle where those who join wishing to be innovative leave due to all the roadblocks and in the knowledge that promotion is driven by time served / seen as a safe pair of hands or to get rid and fail them up. Its the corporate Japan problem.
Labour have just leaked that the Tories want rid of the triple lock.
YES! Good policy, get rid! Go Badenoch!
Mel Stride saying in long term unsustainable but not good given pensioners are our core vote, thank goodness he was not elected leader. If we take a poll hit on this after today's great Tory lead poll Kemi will have to sack him
He does strike me as a bit of a fat useless lump of Lib Dem lard in that interview sadly. Everything that's going wrong for the Government, you'd think there might be a few better things for him to do than pontificate on whether some of Labour's least popular policies are actually jolly good wheezes.
Amazon Prime should be banned from showing Premier League football until they can speed up their stream. Even on cable, the pictures are 120 seconds behind live! It’s absolutely dismal and ruins it as an experience because people see (and report) the goals on LiveScores two minutes before they are shown on screen.
Streaming sports sucks. Sort it out.
Amazon dabble into sports coverage has been terrible. I remember their tennis coverage had cameras placed so it missed some of the action. They never really seemed to have a plan or clear direction what they are trying to achieve.
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Well they've just built a bridge where, previously, a ferry was required. So you may be disappointed.
I crossed that bridge - it’s been around a few years now - and it means a 9-12 hour journey is reduced to six hours if you really go for it - and there is nothing else to do here. It’s just mompox. It’s not on the road to anywhere else. It is a quintessential backwater
Thankfully I reckon it’s enough to dissuade all but the most determined. And of course few have heard of it anyway
I did the bus, ferry, motorbike taxi option. I did add to the magic. I don't think the bridge existed back then.
I’m sure it did. And yet the city is exactly as described in that article, right down to the five-strong-families on one motorbike. It hasn’t changed at all - the bridge seems to have changed nothing, except maybe brought better fresh food….
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
Re government IT....a big success of covid was the dashboard. It wasn't the actual dashboard (that isn't that hard), it was the data processing that was a super tricky job that was achieved very quickly. But the whole team was disbanded.
We haven't heard much from Patrick Valance so far but i know that one of his big visions of getting data collection by the public sector dragged into the 21st Century, from which you can then get better insights and hopefully drive productivity.
The problem is as mentioned down thread, the people who do this in the private sector well get paid a lot of money, and we see so often like the infamous cyber security role that they often get put at low salaries so you are never going to get anybody good.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
One thing that I do rate with the Labour relaunch is that they've recognised the problem of public sector productivity, I'm looking forwards to their solutions. If it doesn't include pay and hiring freezes as well as job cuts across departments including the NHS then they won't get anywhere. We need more output with a reduction in input. Businesses achieve this all the time, now it's time for the public sector to do the same.
You need to do the opposite in a lot of cases. Pay rises where necessary to reach market rates so all the vacancies can be filled, and those expensive consultants (like me) costing £1k+ per day to fill all the gaps can be given their marching orders. Then stuff might actually be done, for less.
(I should add I don't get anything like £1k per day, plenty of others are dipping their beaks in the trough ahead of me).
Ban consultancy and agency workers for a period of 2 years and implement a one in one out policy if they need expertise. Get rid of people before anyone can be hired. Also, most of the management consultants are shit anyway.
How are you going to implement any IT project, to improve productivity, with civil service pay scales and a ban on consultants?
Hire permanently at proper market rate. Don't get someone from a consultancy for £2-3k per day for 3 months who's expertise disappears and then hire another different consultant for another £2-3k per day when the system that was built by the first one fucks up.
As I'm currently in gardening leave and have the type of skillset that is desired for those projects I can reasonably say that the permanent salaries that I get contacted about even among the top brackets are pitiful. One was a £70k pay cut vs my last position and a full week vs a 4 day week I had before. It's fundamentally not competitive to be in the public sector for highly skilled people unless you're a doctor or medical consultant. The salaries are just awful and all of the people who work in the public sector just tell me how frustrating it is because morons at the top who don't know what they're doing are in charge so nothing gets done.
I'd also clear out the "management class" and put operational people in charge. I've been managed by non-technical people in the past and it always ends in disaster because they're idiots who think they know best but are generally clueless and hinder work and progress.
That's across all roles. In senior technical roles public sector salaries can be 30-40% lower than the private sector. What's ridiculous is that if the public sector shit canned consultants and pushed the fees into competitive salaries the gap would be a lot lower and stability much higher. The only downsides would be engineering management who aren't engineers but that can also be fixed by firing the existing management class in the state sector.
Just because you are a good engineer doesn't mean you make a good manager, not least as public sector managers to have manage a set budget from taxpayers
That's true but not all engineers want or need to be managers. EMs that can't code are useless. You only need a handful of engineers that are technically minded to be able to manage teams/departments it just means you need to pay them accordingly to get them in. The EM at my previous company made £180k per year but he was brilliant and worth the money. The chances of someone earning that for the same role in the state is less than zero.
Well of course they are as the taxpayer would be paying for it.
If you are really bright and talented in your field you will almost always prefer to work in the private sector as the pay is more and often comes with significant share options too. If you are only average or below average in skill then the public sector is often a better bet if you can get a job there as minimum and average pay tends to be higher with a better pension and often longer leave and more flexible working.
Yes but the problem, HYUFD, is that the skills are still necessary in the public sector and they end up getting in a series of consultants on £2-3k day rates instead of just getting a permanent hire with a skillset that can handle multiple projects at once. We still end up paying for it but instead of adding those skills permanently the taxpayer just gets ripped off by tech consultancy firms. I just don't think you properly understand how it works in the tech sector.
When I first joined an IT consultancy firm in 2017, almost all of its projects were in the private sector. My current employer does still have a couple of private sector clients, but I'd estimate about 80% of our income is from government departments now. It makes us pretty vulnerable to the government facing a crisis situation and cutting off all consultancy spending, but I guess we make the most of it while we can. Three new starters this week straight into government projects.
I just can't see the civil service paying market rates for IT staff. The humanities graduates who make the decisions wouldn't stand for it.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Professor Karol Sikora @ProfKarolSikora · 4h We are told that the NHS is under 'unprecedented' pressure every winter - you can set your calendar by it.
Why does seasonal flu push the service to 'breaking point' every year?
Perhaps it's time for a mature conversation about how healthcare is delivered in our country.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Salem Woke Trials....are you going to lead as Woke Finder General?
A dad and his 10 year old daughter - both barefoot - yet she’s in a cool Stetson - have both just gone to the riverbank in front of me to do some fishing. Next to the pier where Simón Bolivar landed his troops as he began the liberation of South America
A 90cm yellow iguana with magnificent spinal flares is glaring at me as I ponder whether to have the postre del dio. Two beautiful girls are in rocking chairs five rocking chairs down talking about art (I think, or maybe it’s sex)
I can hear jamiroquai playing. Also parrots screeching from the banana trees. Otherwise it’s quiet. The River Maddalena floats by, eternally and magnificently indifferent. Like God
From wikivoyage:
"The former botanical gardens are now permanently closed due to lack of funding. Information is retained here for historical reasons, or in case you can persuade someone to show you round! The botanical gardens appear, at first sight, to be rather unkept and overgrown. The principal reason to visit this place may be to talk to the guide, Don Ernesto, who resembles a living encyclopedia with his extensive knowledge about all the plants and trees in the garden, including their medicinal properties. Although this man has never received a formal education he is extremely knowledgeable in general. Sadly, the future of the botanic garden seems to be uncertain, as the local council are not supporting it, and the owners are considering selling it as they cannot afford to keep it running."
I wonder what the status is now, and whether Don Ernesto survives.
Is it terrible that I’m glad they’re closed? I don’t want any more tourists here. There is a smattering now. Just enough to support a dozen nice bars and bistros and a few exquisite boutique hotels. Zero chain hotels. Zero resorts. Zero coach parties
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Well they've just built a bridge where, previously, a ferry was required. So you may be disappointed.
I crossed that bridge - it’s been around a few years now - and it means a 9-12 hour journey is reduced to six hours if you really go for it - and there is nothing else to do here. It’s just mompox. It’s not on the road to anywhere else. It is a quintessential backwater
Thankfully I reckon it’s enough to dissuade all but the most determined. And of course few have heard of it anyway
I did the bus, ferry, motorbike taxi option. I did add to the magic. I don't think the bridge existed back then.
I’m sure it did. And yet the city is exactly as described in that article, right down to the five- strong-families on one motorbike. It hasn’t changed at all - the bridge seems to have changed nothing, except maybe brought better fresh food…
Blissful
Which puts you in a quandary, no?
Pen a lyrical article for the Gazette and before you know it there will be hordes of well-heeled Londoners expressing mild concern about the lack of helmet-wearing on said motorbike.
Can you at least get the directions wrong in your forthcoming article?
As an aside, I only found out about Mompos through a slightly inebriated conversation with a hotel owner in Medellin. I think it should stay that way. Perhaps we could ask the mods to erase all mention on this thread?
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Salem Woke Trials....are you going to lead as Woke Finder General?
There will be trials. I’m not joking. Especially around the trans madness. Thousands of kids were mutilated, castrated, sterilised - for no sane reason
Fascinating thread. Lister has more knowledge about Syria than anyone on PB, obviously.
Having worked on #Syria full-time since the crisis began nearly 14yrs ago, there really is no understating how remarkable the losses imposed on #Assad's regime have been over the past week.
Darren Millar elected new leader of the conservatives in the Senedd
I know Darren and he is an excellent choice
He's the only Conservative MS who voted against default 20mph limits in 2020.
Something of a hypocrite, as he himself led a successful campaign for a 20mph limit inside his own constituency.
Err he campaigned for it around a school which absolutely nobody objects to
Typical Yimbys
Schools and hospitals should have 20mph zones and he campaigned for this in his constituency which isn't even a political issue
But not where people actually live, work and shop?
Absolutely, no. Why should it?
Our roads are safe. Casualties are at the lowest they've been in decades and cars and pedestrians are getting safer annually at existing speeds.
Because people have been forced off the roads gradually. Drivers have the same effect as paedophile panics.
BTW I was nearly run over this afternoon. On the pavement. A driver just wanted to do a U turn without enough room.
File under: Total bullshit.
Pedestrian casualties are collapsing even as pedestrian traffic is rising, but you don't let actual facts get in the way of a good rant, do you?
That's still abominable. Mass murder. In any case much of the fall is down to covid.
And getting worse again thanks to the cowardice by too manyu politicians over the hysterical gabbling about 20mph zones.
Mass murder?
You're the one engaging in hysterical crap. Get a grip.
Accidents will happen but that's not a reason to shut down life, we've lived with accidents for a century but the numbers have steadily fallen not risen and even removing Covid the trendline is still down as technology is improving (not because of 20mph zones).
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
I don’t think there's a good Mayoral candidate on the right yet. I did quite like the idea of Cleverly but I think he's been a bit left behind by events. Reform's rampage means they'll be much less likely to go softly softly, especially for a wet Tory. And the Tories won't want to do a token effort as they will feel they're more suited to a London electorate than Reform. That's a classic split vote, and I don’t see anyone to unite them.
Boris Johnson is the only one who springs to mind. There's still Reform resentment of him, so they would still run a vigorous campaign, but I think with a following wind, he'd maybe bring in most of their voters.
Fascinating thread. Lister has more knowledge about Syria than anyone on PB, obviously.
Having worked on #Syria full-time since the crisis began nearly 14yrs ago, there really is no understating how remarkable the losses imposed on #Assad's regime have been over the past week.
Whether this is true or not, time will tell. But Lister has far more knowledge of what going on than those saying "it's just ISIS".
Don't understate the significance of #HTS's recent statements & rhetoric towards Christians, Alawites, Kurds etc. That cannot merely be "PR" as it sets an irreversible precedent.
Jolani has spent years purging those who'd critique such steps. He's walking on stabler ground now...
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Salem Woke Trials....are you going to lead as Woke Finder General?
There will be trials. I’m not joking. Especially around the trans madness. Thousands of kids were mutilated, castrated, sterilised - for no sane reason
If Trump and Musk are planning to cull 50% of the population there won't be enough prison places so what's the plan?
Will you be cleansing the PB family when the time arrives. We need names of the guilty to plan our early escape.
Do you think it's a good idea to have names for the different Overground lines? I think, probably yes.
Yes because it means it's easier to see what part of the overground has a problem at the moment.
Today I woke up to supposedly major problems on the Elizabeth line and it was only after checking did I discover it was between Paddington and Ealing so didn't impact me at all.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
A new law enforcement agency should be set up to resolve it. They will need a name. How about Gestapo?
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
I am not predicting it survives, but it could become the settled position of the right wing parties and therefore likely to become future Government policy.
On topic: Trouble is, Starmer is NOT Thatcher, lol! 😂
Thank God
Both are lawyers, both have troubled relationships with their predecessors (as party leaders), both were written off early in their first terms, both closed the mines, the comparisons go on.
Starmer is the new Thatcher.
He didn't help to invent an ice-cream which would upset many of us if we were offered it today.
I don't have problems with Mr Whippy - quite appropriate for a number of Tory MPs of her generation by all accounts who were habitues of King's Cross.
But I'm please that she did not invent the Chorleywood industrialised bread process - turning a loaf into the type of sponge one would use to dry off a car.
Colombians REALLY go for Christmas. The whole shebang. Christmas trees. Santas. Massive decks of lights
It is quite jarring to see all the symbolism and iconography of the Northern European Christmas/yule - the pagan midwinter - celebrated in supremely tropical environs. Fake snow around windows. Sleighs and reindeer. Yule logs. “Jingle bells” (in Spanish) ringing out of one storey tropical Spanish colonial houses
I am not predicting it survives, but it could become the settled position of the right wing parties and therefore likely to become future Government policy.
That solution was already proposed by the Boris government and rejected by the EU as they wanted to crowbar the UK into a customs union. I don't think the EU stance has changed enough to allow for customs pre-clearance but I guess it might be worth asking again. I don't think they will allow it without the UK being in the single market, having a third party nation in a customs pre-clearance zone would basically eliminate all trade friction for exports into the EU, especially around food where they've been attempting to force the UK into dynamic regulatory alignment to get low/no check market access.
The private members bill may get the government to adopt that negotiating position but it doesn't force the EU to accept it as a solution. The Boris deal is the current reasonable best case solution that is acceptable to the EU. We can't unilaterally force them to accept something they don't want.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
A new law enforcement agency should be set up to resolve it. They will need a name. How about Gestapo?
Colombians REALLY go for Christmas. The whole shebang. Christmas trees. Santas. Massive decks of lights
It is quite jarring to see all the symbolism and iconography of the Northern European Christmas/yule - the pagan midwinter - celebrated in supremely tropical environs. Fake snow around windows. Sleighs and reindeer. Yule logs. “Jingle bells” (in Spanish) ringing out of one storey tropical Spanish colonial houses
I have spent a number of Christmas out that way. Rich people import Douglas-fir and the poor things can't take the heat / humidity. New Year is also fun, they make these effigies of people they hate (some of them can be absolutely huge) and burn them.
Woman on ITN waiting 3 years for a leg op... Asked who she blamed
Not Boris, Not Truss, Not Sunak or their predecessors who destroyed the NHS...
No.. It's all Starmer fault.
Independent investigative Journalism is dead in the UK
RIP
Rules of the game. Part of Starmer's problem is that he's now the face of the government, even if the actions of the government are still largely about the decisions of the last lot.
No, it's not fair, but being PM isn't about experiencing fair. Don't take a job in the kitchen if you don't like unfair heat.
(None of which is going to stop me pointing and laughing at Conservative 'thinkers' saying how bad things are in the UK right now.)
Labour's best bet in 2028/9 will to be run on a version of "yes it hurt, yes it worked". For which, all of this has to work. Let's see.
It's just Cameron 2.0. This has been obvious that his was his strategy since 2020.
But the difference is that Cameron didn't put up taxes by £30bn that will increase prices and cause wage freezes for anyone not on the minimum wage.
No he didn't but he was prepared to make unpopular decisions with the promise of being able to benefit from them later.
It's obvious to me that SKS thinks if he makes unpopular decisions that he thinks will work now, he can get a pay off later. I don't know what other strategy he really had to pursue, because he boxed himself in.
Personally I'd have put taxes on people like me up instead.
No, he should have thought about public sector productivity before putting up taxes. There's almost 1m more people working for the state than in 2017 and state output is worse than ever. Make those people productive or get rid and save the money, push the savings into areas where it's most necessary. Putting up taxes by £30bn and increasing spending is just going to result in productivity going to down, not up. Wages will rise, they'll hire more people and further decrease output.
“State output is worse than ever”. On what metric? You can’t just quote random statistics that could be made up.
Not doing so would be most unusual in political discourse.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Labour have just leaked that the Tories want rid of the triple lock.
YES! Good policy, get rid! Go Badenoch!
Mel Stride saying in long term unsustainable but not good given pensioners are our core vote, thank goodness he was not elected leader. If we take a poll hit on this after today's great Tory lead poll Kemi will have to sack him
Really? What does it matter if you take a poll hit 4-5 years out from an election?
A lot, especially for oppositions, pensioners never forgive nor forget betrayals and if the Tories abandon the Triple Lock after Labour cut WFA pensioners would abandon both for the LDs who have promised to keep the WFA and Triple Lock
The fact pensioners have so much influence is something that Starmer should have dealt with already.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Salem Woke Trials....are you going to lead as Woke Finder General?
There will be trials. I’m not joking. Especially around the trans madness. Thousands of kids were mutilated, castrated, sterilised - for no sane reason
Which reminds me. Somebody ( @kinabalu ?) asked what Trump's trans policies were. I looked it up and then forgot. It's here
The TL:DR is basically Order 66. The first part - the expulsion of ~15,000 trans US warfighters from the US armed forces - is due to take place on day 1 of the New Regime, the rest will follow. There was an article in the Spectator today - you may be aware of that magazine - about it, where they expressed surprise that anybody would do such a thing, and I am sure they were very sincere in that surprise.
Professor Karol Sikora @ProfKarolSikora · 4h We are told that the NHS is under 'unprecedented' pressure every winter - you can set your calendar by it.
Why does seasonal flu push the service to 'breaking point' every year?
Perhaps it's time for a mature conversation about how healthcare is delivered in our country.
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
You do know that Windrush has been a name used in geographical features in the UK for decades don't you? There are at least 5 towns in the Midlands with streets named Windrush which date back to the 60s and 70s. Not to mention of course the original river that gave its name to the ship.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
You do know that Windrush has been a name used in geographical features in the UK for decades don't you? There are at least 5 towns in the Midlands with streets named Windrush which date back to the 60s and 70s. Not to mention of course the original river that gave its name to the ship.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
I'm slightly sympathetic to criticisms of excesses of 'woke' cultural expression (yes things can be hard to precisely define, it doesn't mean they are not a thing at all), but a Windrush line strikes me as very low down on a wokeometer.
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
You do know that Windrush has been a name used in geographical features in the UK for decades don't you? There are at least 5 towns in the Midlands with streets named Windrush which date back to the 60s and 70s. Not to mention of course the original river that gave its name to the ship.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
Look at all the colours on the tube map. Not a coincidence that it resembles the Intersex Inclusive Progress Pride Flag.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
You've become really boring on this.
Another scintillating rhetorical point
I'm not trying to entertain you.
But you did, nonetheless
You complained I was boring on a thread which - until I joined - was three hours of detailed discussion of the daily price of IT consultancy for the government as against the cost advantages of bringing it in-house
Don’t get me wrong; such discussions are worthy and informative and I never seek to censor others, if people want to talk about that fair enough! I just wouldn’t regard it as “not boring”
Something has to give to pay for the billionaire tax cut.
Donald on DOGE: We can't just continue to do everything for everyone, because at that rate, we'll be doing nothing for everyone. We will simply run out of money and it will destroy our country. We've got a responsibility to fix it. https://x.com/ChadPergram/status/1864797833812980075
I think they're planning to start with Vets' healthcare.
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
You do know that Windrush has been a name used in geographical features in the UK for decades don't you? There are at least 5 towns in the Midlands with streets named Windrush which date back to the 60s and 70s. Not to mention of course the original river that gave its name to the ship.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
Some people get a real kick out of being outraged.
Would I have called the lines Windrush or Lioness? Nope.
Am I going to get outraged and want it changed? Nope.
I have better things to do than get by blood pressure up about something that really doesn't matter.
I am not predicting it survives, but it could become the settled position of the right wing parties and therefore likely to become future Government policy.
That solution was already proposed by the Boris government and rejected by the EU as they wanted to crowbar the UK into a customs union. I don't think the EU stance has changed enough to allow for customs pre-clearance but I guess it might be worth asking again. I don't think they will allow it without the UK being in the single market, having a third party nation in a customs pre-clearance zone would basically eliminate all trade friction for exports into the EU, especially around food where they've been attempting to force the UK into dynamic regulatory alignment to get low/no check market access.
The private members bill may get the government to adopt that negotiating position but it doesn't force the EU to accept it as a solution. The Boris deal is the current reasonable best case solution that is acceptable to the EU. We can't unilaterally force them to accept something they don't want.
With the recent changes in the US, we may be in a better negotiating position than we were. The EU needs all the friends it can get right now.
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
You do know that Windrush has been a name used in geographical features in the UK for decades don't you? There are at least 5 towns in the Midlands with streets named Windrush which date back to the 60s and 70s. Not to mention of course the original river that gave its name to the ship.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
Some people get a real kick out of being outraged.
Would I have called the lines Windrush or Lioness? Nope.
Am I going to get outraged and want it changed? Nope.
I have better things to do than get by blood pressure up about something that really doesn't matter.
We all get a kick out of being outraged. That’s how social media WORKS
Professor Karol Sikora @ProfKarolSikora · 4h We are told that the NHS is under 'unprecedented' pressure every winter - you can set your calendar by it.
Why does seasonal flu push the service to 'breaking point' every year?
Perhaps it's time for a mature conversation about how healthcare is delivered in our country.
I'd say our healthcare system is actually crap, but sadly I lack sufficient knowledge of other healthcare systems to say so definitively.
But it really really does not seem like we do a good job with it.
As a recipient including hospital stays, I have been far more impressed with French, Dutch and Norwegian health services than with the NHS. Not sure it makes ours crap but it needs a vast amount of improvement.
Woke really is over. Even academia is now retreating
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
How do we stop those in charge falling for the next version of it next time though?
Severe punishment of the guilty as a deterrent. Crush the wokesters. Jail them. Cancel them. Make their lives miserable. Do as they would do. It won’t immunise us for ever but it will deter for a generation or two
Salem Woke Trials....are you going to lead as Woke Finder General?
There will be trials. I’m not joking. Especially around the trans madness. Thousands of kids were mutilated, castrated, sterilised - for no sane reason
Which reminds me. Somebody ( @kinabalu ?) asked what Trump's trans policies were. I looked it up and then forgot. It's here
The TL:DR is basically Order 66. The first part - the expulsion of ~15,000 trans US warfighters from the US armed forces - is due to take place on day 1 of the New Regime, the rest will follow. There was an article in the Spectator today - you may be aware of that magazine - about it, where they expressed surprise that anybody would do such a thing, and I am sure they were very sincere in that surprise.
"British adults healthier in midlife than US peers 3 October 2024 Rates of obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are lower among British adults in their 30s and 40s compared to their counterparts in the US, according to a new study led by UCL researchers."
The next mayor can and will change this contemptible shit
You do know that Windrush has been a name used in geographical features in the UK for decades don't you? There are at least 5 towns in the Midlands with streets named Windrush which date back to the 60s and 70s. Not to mention of course the original river that gave its name to the ship.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
Some people get a real kick out of being outraged.
Would I have called the lines Windrush or Lioness? Nope.
Am I going to get outraged and want it changed? Nope.
I have better things to do than get by blood pressure up about something that really doesn't matter.
We all get a kick out of being outraged. That’s how social media WORKS
Sure, but some kicks are more visceral than others.
Here's an example of the anti-woke backlash causing real issues for some people: A doctor in Fife is currently being attacked because a common test, currently known as the red-light reflex test, does not accurately describe the appearance of the retina for anyone with dark skin, where it's more of a yellow colour.
Very sensibly, he's suggested renaming the test so that junior doctors don't mess up when the retina is an unexpected colour. And it's useful highlighting stuff like this in general because most medical textbooks use white men as their reference point, and therefore some incorrect diagnoses can come about because of variances across ethnicities, genders, ages and so on.
I am not predicting it survives, but it could become the settled position of the right wing parties and therefore likely to become future Government policy.
That solution was already proposed by the Boris government and rejected by the EU as they wanted to crowbar the UK into a customs union. I don't think the EU stance has changed enough to allow for customs pre-clearance but I guess it might be worth asking again. I don't think they will allow it without the UK being in the single market, having a third party nation in a customs pre-clearance zone would basically eliminate all trade friction for exports into the EU, especially around food where they've been attempting to force the UK into dynamic regulatory alignment to get low/no check market access.
The private members bill may get the government to adopt that negotiating position but it doesn't force the EU to accept it as a solution. The Boris deal is the current reasonable best case solution that is acceptable to the EU. We can't unilaterally force them to accept something they don't want.
With the recent changes in the US, we may be in a better negotiating position than we were. The EU needs all the friends it can get right now.
The whole of the UK should just rejoin the customs Union. If Trump delivers on tariffs we will want to be in rather than out.
Comments
I have a meeting tomorrow about adopting an in-house application I wrote as the institution-wide go-to. Having previously been told it was useless. And after > £350,000 went to consultants who delivered a barely working 1/10th functional version over the course of a year (I had four days to make mine).
And now mine is over three years out of updates as I was instructed not to work on it as The Consultants Will Provide.
That money could have paid for almost 10 years of a public sector web developers time.
"Why the British Government Killed Birmingham
[Adam Smith Institute]"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7PVEaPh6Fw
It was such an embarrassingly weak effort at humour. Two or three people laughed; one of those was Starmer
It was excruciatingly petty to start his speech with an immediate attack on Badenoch. He' was supposed to talking about his big plans for the future
He also misrepresented what she'd actually said about being working class, and stated that she only worked "a few shifts" at McD's (I have no idea how many shifts she worked, does Slalom?)
He then said "by that logic" followed by an idiotically illogical "punchline"
If you're going to make a "joke", at least make a point if you're incapable of being remotely amusing
And all the tourists seem to be Colombians. Maybe one or two Europeans - maybe. Virtually no English is spoken
Perfetto. AND it’s incredibly beautiful. You keep turning a corner expecting the colonial beauty to expire but it keeps going
Matt Gertz of Media Matters explains the campaign by MAGA media to bully GOP senators into supporting Trump’s nomination for defense secretary—and why so much is at stake in the outcome.
https://newrepublic.com/article/189057/transcript-maga-rages-gopers-quietly-move-sink-pete-hegseth
https://colombiareports.com/amp/building-a-bridge-to-colombias-past-mompox/
Controlled laser attack by his satellites whose trackers NASA has disabled
He is the Bond Villain.
Trump and the US will regret the day they even allowed the meglamoniac in.
Of course, your bicycle or your feet can always take you further.
Thankfully I reckon it’s enough to dissuade all but the most determined. And of course few have heard of it anyway
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-12-05/elon-musk-denies-reports-hes-going-to-donate-80m-to-nigel-farages-reform
Streaming sports sucks. Sort it out.
But with multicast BT got the delay down to the same as satellite and Sky has got it down to 5 seconds on Stream.
Blissful
University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements
The school, a bastion of D.E.I., will no longer require the statements in hiring decisions and is considering a broader shift in its policies
(NYT)
That’s it. This is the end and the retreat will turn into a rout and then people will want revenge. The wokesters left wounded will be bayoneted
We haven't heard much from Patrick Valance so far but i know that one of his big visions of getting data collection by the public sector dragged into the 21st Century, from which you can then get better insights and hopefully drive productivity.
The problem is as mentioned down thread, the people who do this in the private sector well get paid a lot of money, and we see so often like the infamous cyber security role that they often get put at low salaries so you are never going to get anybody good.
I just can't see the civil service paying market rates for IT staff. The humanities graduates who make the decisions wouldn't stand for it.
@ProfKarolSikora
·
4h
We are told that the NHS is under 'unprecedented' pressure every winter - you can set your calendar by it.
Why does seasonal flu push the service to 'breaking point' every year?
Perhaps it's time for a mature conversation about how healthcare is delivered in our country.
https://x.com/ProfKarolSikora/status/1864725344588091551
Pen a lyrical article for the Gazette and before you know it there will be hordes of well-heeled
Londoners expressing mild concern about the
lack of helmet-wearing on said motorbike.
Can you at least get the directions wrong in your forthcoming article?
As an aside, I only found out about Mompos through a slightly inebriated conversation with a hotel owner in Medellin. I think it should stay that way. Perhaps we could ask the mods to erase all mention on this thread?
And getting worse again thanks to the cowardice by too manyu politicians over the hysterical gabbling about 20mph zones.
Lister has more knowledge about Syria than anyone on PB, obviously.
Having worked on #Syria full-time since the crisis began nearly 14yrs ago, there really is no understating how remarkable the losses imposed on #Assad's regime have been over the past week.
A large reason for this lies with #HTS — a 🧵:
https://x.com/Charles_Lister/status/1864693167133544741
You're the one engaging in hysterical crap. Get a grip.
Accidents will happen but that's not a reason to shut down life, we've lived with accidents for a century but the numbers have steadily fallen not risen and even removing Covid the trendline is still down as technology is improving (not because of 20mph zones).
Boris Johnson is the only one who springs to mind. There's still Reform resentment of him, so they would still run a vigorous campaign, but I think with a following wind, he'd maybe bring in most of their voters.
But Lister has far more knowledge of what going on than those saying "it's just ISIS".
Don't understate the significance of #HTS's recent statements & rhetoric towards Christians, Alawites, Kurds etc. That cannot merely be "PR" as it sets an irreversible precedent.
Jolani has spent years purging those who'd critique such steps. He's walking on stabler ground now...
FPPT https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/5051652/#Comment_5051652
C.A.S.H.
Will you be cleansing the PB family when the time arrives. We need names of the guilty to plan our early escape.
Today I woke up to supposedly major problems on the Elizabeth line and it was only after checking did I discover it was between Paddington and Ealing so didn't impact me at all.
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/jim-allister-says-new-bill-30520390
I am not predicting it survives, but it could become the settled position of the right wing parties and therefore likely to become future Government policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:1983_Election_Polls.svg
But I'm please that she did not invent the Chorleywood industrialised bread process - turning a loaf into the type of sponge one would use to dry off a car.
That would be unforgiveable.
It is quite jarring to see all the symbolism and iconography of the Northern European Christmas/yule - the pagan midwinter - celebrated in supremely tropical environs. Fake snow around windows. Sleighs and reindeer. Yule logs. “Jingle bells” (in Spanish) ringing out of one storey tropical Spanish colonial houses
The private members bill may get the government to adopt that negotiating position but it doesn't force the EU to accept it as a solution. The Boris deal is the current reasonable best case solution that is acceptable to the EU. We can't unilaterally force them to accept something they don't want.
Main difference is, of course, that Keir isn't even fit to be mentioned in the same breath as the Blessed Margaret lol!
https://news.met.police.uk/news/woman-charged-with-dangerous-dogs-offences-after-man-suffers-fatal-injuries-491533
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/president-trumps-plan-to-protect-children-from-left-wing-gender-insanity
The TL:DR is basically Order 66. The first part - the expulsion of ~15,000 trans US warfighters from the US armed forces - is due to take place on day 1 of the New Regime, the rest will follow. There was an article in the Spectator today - you may be aware of that magazine - about it, where they expressed surprise that anybody would do such a thing, and I am sure they were very sincere in that surprise.
But it really really does not seem like we do a good job with it.
Not everything has to be judged against the measure of wokeness.
You complained I was boring on a thread which - until I joined - was three hours of detailed discussion of the daily price of IT consultancy for the government as against the cost advantages of bringing it in-house
Don’t get me wrong; such discussions are worthy and informative and I never seek to censor others, if people want to talk about that fair enough! I just wouldn’t regard it as “not boring”
How many of the 937* episodes of Murder She Wrote were filmed in similar places?
I never adapted to it, even when it was on the 14th or 15th repeat, because the main character always made me think of Mrs Slocombe.
Highlights - I am STILL reminded of Mrs Slocombe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uq2ezQYer0
* Actually 264.
Donald on DOGE: We can't just continue to do everything for everyone, because at that rate, we'll be doing nothing for everyone. We will simply run out of money and it will destroy our country. We've got a responsibility to fix it.
https://x.com/ChadPergram/status/1864797833812980075
I think they're planning to start with Vets' healthcare.
Would I have called the lines Windrush or Lioness? Nope.
Am I going to get outraged and want it changed? Nope.
I have better things to do than get by blood pressure up about something that really doesn't matter.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/nz-vs-eng-over-rate-penalties-frustrated-ben-stokes-wants-clear-communication-from-icc-1463366
Wonderful line from Starmer today.
"British adults healthier in midlife than US peers
3 October 2024
Rates of obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are lower among British adults in their 30s and 40s compared to their counterparts in the US, according to a new study led by UCL researchers."
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/oct/british-adults-healthier-midlife-us-peers
Very sensibly, he's suggested renaming the test so that junior doctors don't mess up when the retina is an unexpected colour. And it's useful highlighting stuff like this in general because most medical textbooks use white men as their reference point, and therefore some incorrect diagnoses can come about because of variances across ethnicities, genders, ages and so on.