Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
I agree. My trust in government evaporated with covid, and I am government (well, public sector). Example: I used to favour road pricing as a better and more effective solution to road tax (the externalities of you driving 10 miles down empty country roads in North Yorkshire are rather lower than you driving ten miles across Greater Manchester, and the public transport alternatives less apparent, so seemed a good solution to me) - but now there's no way I'd want to give government that level of information over my movements. I just don't trust them any more.
A significant and growing number of people have no faith in government, policing, legal system or the media. It's reflected in the current polling.
Hardly surprising when this week we have a woman in court because she is being forced to get changed with a man or lose her job. A man is arrested for burning a book and then has his name, address and full date of birth plastered on social media by the police, putting a big arrow on his back. (Amazing what the police are willing to reveal when they want to.) A 14 year boy is stabbed to death in school and it barely makes the news, because....reasons.
Which 14-year-old boy and what ....reasons?
15, apologies. Reasons why it has been dropped by the media like BBC into, 'also in the news', you'd have to guess. Would have thought it should be dominating the headlines.
I have no idea, except there's a lot of other news around, and stabbings of children are sadly not that rare.
edited to add: the age of victim and perpetrator also limit reporting.
What's your guess?
Personally I think Charlie's trying a bit too hard here. "Why is no one reporting this?" only works as a troll in the first couple of hours, when no one has got around to reporting it yet. This was being reported everywhere some time ago.
The usual suspects (GBN etc) will be watching to see if they can make it an anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant narrative, as it is adjacent to a Mosque, from where someone was interviewed in at least one account.
There are also reports of a recent increase in ASB in the area, as commented on iirc for example the local MP Louise Haigh.
As it is, I think they will be going with "Why does Starmer allow this in our schools?" and maybe another outing for "Starmer Must Resign".
Here are the papers for today. Only one mentions it at all on their front page - a 15 year old boy stabbed to death at school, it should be on more headlines that what actually makes some papers front page today. I'd suspect it will return to the headlines, with potential failures.
I'm not trying to hard. Or trolling (good try by the way). I mentioned it amongst two other points as for reasons why a certain number of people do not trust the government, police, legal system and media and how this is affecting polling.
I appreciate the reply, even though we disagree.
Here is the Breakfast Programme on the main BBC Channel - BBC1 - this morning.
It is item number one on their opening news report.
I( just don't believe that this is suppressed, and I think the evidence backs me up.
Also - the Letby case and the Nottingham triple murder are competing for the "bit of crime" slot in the "bit of crime, bit of Brexit, bit of Mountbatten-Windsor, bit of SKS hate" matrix in the newspapers.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
You think she should have been charged with deaths that the prosecution didn't think she had committed?
The problem was that thje prosecution didn't have any presentable evidence to think she didn't do them, until all the data were analysed ... but then the data fed into the analysis had already been pruned according to their preconceptions, no?
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
Obviously, it's physically possible for anyone to have committed such a crime, but I'd have thought that establishing that she was on shift for the cases being attributed to her was a key starting point for the prosecution.
But it is *not evidence that she did them*. It can't be presented as such in court.
IIRC other people came up on the matrix - if you get quite a lot of people there a lot, apparent hits happen at random surprisingly often, especially with deaths being genuinely doubtful in many cases.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
Obviously, it's physically possible for anyone to have committed such a crime, but I'd have thought that establishing that she was on shift for the cases being attributed to her was a key starting point for the prosecution.
But it is *not evidence that she did them*. It can't be presented as such in court.
IIRC other people came up on the matrix - if you get quite a lot of people there a lot, apparent hits happen at random surprisingly often, especially with deaths being genuinely doubtful in many cases.
Are you saying that it should have been taken as read that she was there at the time of any crime she was accused of?
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
I was one of the few people who said none of the lockdowns were worth it at the time.
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
I love the fact that he is a political donor and his surname is Lord. How amusing it could be if he were made a lord. One could say in surprise when meeting him; "Good Lord! Lord Lord!
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
Not having that. If the authoritarians have failed to deliver what they have promised, fine have a go at them. Don't blame people who have never had a sniff of making the choices.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
Obviously, it's physically possible for anyone to have committed such a crime, but I'd have thought that establishing that she was on shift for the cases being attributed to her was a key starting point for the prosecution.
One of the problems revealed by the people going through the prosecution case was that Dewi Evans kept changing his mind about which babies had been murdered & which hadn’t. IIRC there’s evidence that when it was pointed out to him that Letby wasn’t on shift when a death he’d identified as being suspect he changed his mind about whether that baby was suspicious or not (or possibly vice versa?)
This kind of “it’s only a genuine Champagne-level suspicious death if Letby is on the ward & otherwise it’s just sparkling malpractice” thinking is exactly the kind of post hoc ergo propter hoc approach that has led to previous miscarriages of justice.
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
There was no argument for locking down healthy young people who were about as likely to be struck by lightning as they were to die from COVID.
There was some argument for measures for over-70s or those who were otherwise vulnerable.
Instead we got a wildly excessive terror campaign and an economically devastating furlough scheme that we're still paying for. At least Starmer wasn't in power then - it would have been even worse with him.
The majority of older people that caught Covid & had serious consequences caught it from younger (probably asymptomatic) people in their own household. In old people’s homes care staff or support workers would have brought it in.
How are you going to prevent schoolkids giving Covid to their parents, or their grandparent who lives in the same household in your non-lockdown world? You’re not, which means in turn that the inevitable outcome would have been the collapse of the NHS as it became overwhelmed with Covid cases & the Covid death rate would probably have doubled.
As it was things were touch and go - I’ve talked to respiratory consultants around where I live & they were absolutely flat out, with no spare capacity whatsoever having dredged up every bit of healthcare support available & running the people involved into the ground. Any further serious cases would have simply been sent to the Nightingale tent hospitals to die (which is what they were for of course).
Lockdowns were the least worst option available to the government at the time.
What evidence do you have that the death rate would have doubled? Or even increased? That's just unsupported, meaningless conjecture. Covid got into care homes and circulated amongst old people despite the fact that we had lockdowns, so they were largely futile.
Sweden didn't have lockdowns, but had a lower excess mortality rate than we did, relying on accurate, reliable, non-sensationalised information and the common sense of the Swedish people.
We (and other countries) trashed our civil liberties, traumatised a generation of children and ruined our economy for no demonstrable gain.
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
Polls on any given issue only really mean much if the said issue is particularly salient. The electoral system clearly isn't, and indeed it wasn't much when there was a referendum on the issue in 2011.
Socialists often point out polls showing overwhelming public support for nationalising various industries. Ultra tough-on-crime types often point out polls showing strong support for capital punishment. Again, these issues aren't particularly salient and do not necessarily indicate the levels of support if they did become salient and/or referendums were held on them.
Farage should offer a referendum on capital punishment
“Let the people decide”
Who could argue with that?
Because it would get expanded.
Fine, death penalty for murderers, then it would to move to rapists etc, where the criminal justice fails badly.
Imagine being placed on remand for rape, I wonder where your mind would go if you knew you might get executed.
In any case, Farage opposes capital punishment.
I think, given the age we're in, it's very likely someone offers a referendum on this at some point, which will be won.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
You think she should have been charged with deaths that the prosecution didn't think she had committed?
If evidence suggests that statistically as many babies died off her watch as on her watch it would be presumably interesting circumstantial evidence. Bearing in mind she was exclusively convicted on circumstantial evidence, considering alternative circumstantial evidence might be compelling.
I have no idea whether David Davies has a point or not. I am nervous that were she not a nice, clean middle class white girl-next-door she would be allowed to rot in hell. But then being a middle class white girl- next-door shouldn't preclude her from justice.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
Obviously, it's physically possible for anyone to have committed such a crime, but I'd have thought that establishing that she was on shift for the cases being attributed to her was a key starting point for the prosecution.
One of the problems revealed by the people going through the prosecution case was that Dewi Evans kept changing his mind about which babies had been murdered & which hadn’t. IIRC there’s evidence that when it was pointed out to him that Letby wasn’t on shift when a death he’d identified as being suspect he changed his mind about whether that baby was suspicious or not (or possibly vice versa?)
This kind of “it’s only a genuine Champagne-level suspicious death if Letby is on the ward & otherwise it’s just sparkling malpractice” thinking is exactly the kind of post hoc ergo propter hoc approach that has led to previous miscarriages of justice.
The whole legal system of prosecution and defence seems really unsuited for cases of this type. It's a pity it's not possible to have a more scientfic approach, ideally with a team of disinterested experts considering all the evidence in order to determine firstly if the number and types of deaths were unusual and, if so, what the most likely reasons for this were. Only if that then points to any particular persons being guilty of a crime does it then make sense to move towards prosecution.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
I see the Lucy Letby story is dominating the airwaves again.
Out of curiosity did Rupert Lowe and Richard Tice call for her to be executed?
It's either her or one hell of a cover up job.
Or it’s just chance - a poorly run department taking very, very sick babies is going to end up with some of them dying. Letby was working more shifts than any other nurse in a week because she was saving for a house deposit & ends up on shift for more of the deaths, making her “prime suspect” when the consultants go looking for someone to blame for the deaths on their watch.
She wouldn’t be the first nurse to have been prosecuted for a statistical co-incidence if that turns out to be the real story.
Obviously this run into a degree of subjectivity, but the numbers weren't consistent with chance, and the babies dying were not ones who were expected to die. The babies stopped dying when she wasn't there. And there are the two incidents where she was seen doing dodgy things!
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
You think she should have been charged with deaths that the prosecution didn't think she had committed?
If evidence suggests that statistically as many babies died off her watch as on her watch it would be presumably interesting circumstantial evidence. Bearing in mind she was exclusively convicted on circumstantial evidence, considering alternative circumstantial evidence might be compelling.
So the defence should have brought it up and, if necessary, hired a statistics expert.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
You think she should have been charged with deaths that the prosecution didn't think she had committed?
If evidence suggests that statistically as many babies died off her watch as on her watch it would be presumably interesting circumstantial evidence. Bearing in mind she was exclusively convicted on circumstantial evidence, considering alternative circumstantial evidence might be compelling.
So the defence should have brought it up and, if necessary, hired a statistics expert.
The Defence opted not to offer clinical evidence to support her defence. That either suggests Defence incompetence or her guilt.
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
There was no argument for locking down healthy young people who were about as likely to be struck by lightning as they were to die from COVID.
There was some argument for measures for over-70s or those who were otherwise vulnerable.
Instead we got a wildly excessive terror campaign and an economically devastating furlough scheme that we're still paying for. At least Starmer wasn't in power then - it would have been even worse with him.
The majority of older people that caught Covid & had serious consequences caught it from younger (probably asymptomatic) people in their own household. In old people’s homes care staff or support workers would have brought it in.
How are you going to prevent schoolkids giving Covid to their parents, or their grandparent who lives in the same household in your non-lockdown world? You’re not, which means in turn that the inevitable outcome would have been the collapse of the NHS as it became overwhelmed with Covid cases & the Covid death rate would probably have doubled.
As it was things were touch and go - I’ve talked to respiratory consultants around where I live & they were absolutely flat out, with no spare capacity whatsoever having dredged up every bit of healthcare support available & running the people involved into the ground. Any further serious cases would have simply been sent to the Nightingale tent hospitals to die (which is what they were for of course).
Lockdowns were the least worst option available to the government at the time.
What evidence do you have that the death rate would have doubled? Or even increased? That's just unsupported, meaningless conjecture. Covid got into care homes and circulated amongst old people despite the fact that we had lockdowns, so they were largely futile.
Sweden didn't have lockdowns, but had a lower excess mortality rate than we did, relying on accurate, reliable, non-sensationalised information and the common sense of the Swedish people.
We (and other countries) trashed our civil liberties, traumatised a generation of children and ruined our economy for no demonstrable gain.
It’s very simple: if your case rate puts more people into hospital than there are staffed ventilators to support them then people will die who otherwise would have survived.
Yes, this is conjecture. But it seems to me to follow very logically from our knowledge of the prompt effects of serious Covid infections.
My rough calculations when I last looked at this suggested that without the first lockdown the death rate would have doubled, at least, with much worse knock on effects on the ability of the NHS to cope.
My personal base case is that, pre-vaccine, the lockdowns were the least worst out of a very unappealing range of options.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
It also shows how bad her defense team were to not bring up similar cases when she wasn’t around
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
There is also evidence that at least two babies received a drug overdose while in Letby's charge. While the test results have been challenged the informed consensus seems to be the results are solid.
I don't think you can viably claim there's no evidence against Letby. Maybe you can claim the evidence doesn't meet the beyond reasonable doubt bar.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
You think she should have been charged with deaths that the prosecution didn't think she had committed?
If evidence suggests that statistically as many babies died off her watch as on her watch it would be presumably interesting circumstantial evidence. Bearing in mind she was exclusively convicted on circumstantial evidence, considering alternative circumstantial evidence might be compelling.
So the defence should have brought it up and, if necessary, hired a statistics expert.
It is rather sad that the RSS, despite being aware of statistical errors causing miscarriages of justice (I imply no comment on Letby and none should be inferred) does not have a standing committee to deal with questions like this.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
An expert witness excluded deaths that were expected, without prior knowledge of whether Letby had been on duty or not in those cases. That is an appropriate way to proceed.
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
Not having that. If the authoritarians have failed to deliver what they have promised, fine have a go at them. Don't blame people who have never had a sniff of making the choices.
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
Not having that. If the authoritarians have failed to deliver what they have promised, fine have a go at them. Don't blame people who have never had a sniff of making the choices.
If the “authoritarians” haven’t actually done the authoritarianism, what are they?
I was pointing out that we have a massive disconnect between the perceived views of various politicians and their actions.
Then they wonder why people think that all politicians are the same and are liars.
O/T our electoral system and our unwritten constitution are not fit for purpose.
Whose is?
Most of the Western world is superior. FPTP based on highly arbitrary seat boundaries is a farce. For any party to have untrammelled power based on approximately 20% of those eligible to vote (as is the case with current government) is banana republic territory. It needs changing and fast, though I am not expecting Keir From HR to be doing the right thing.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
Drowning or having to eat a Dominos pizza.
I think we all know what the worst option is.
According to press reports some of it was Hawaiian pizza…
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
You think she should have been charged with deaths that the prosecution didn't think she had committed?
If evidence suggests that statistically as many babies died off her watch as on her watch it would be presumably interesting circumstantial evidence. Bearing in mind she was exclusively convicted on circumstantial evidence, considering alternative circumstantial evidence might be compelling.
So the defence should have brought it up and, if necessary, hired a statistics expert.
It is rather sad that the RSS, despite being aware of statistical errors causing miscarriages of justice (I imply no comment on Letby and none should be inferred) does not have a standing committee to deal with questions like this.
Indeed, especially as they did intervene when Professor Sir Roy Meadow helped deliver miscarriages of justice.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
From Wikipedia...
The mother of one victim described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. She testified that Letby had attributed the blood to a nasogastric tube, saying "trust me, I'm a nurse."[51] The baby's condition soon worsened and he died a few hours later.[51]
And:
A consultant testified that, in February 2016, he had walked in on Letby standing over a desaturating infant and failing to intervene. He said that Letby had responded to his questions by telling him that the infant had only just started declining. The infant in question survived the collapse.[3]: 22:55
... which is the stuff her defenders never mention.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
@rcs1000 has pointed (repeatedly) that self lockdown rapidly occurred in countries that didn’t go the legalistic route.
“Disease passed from person to person? Hmmm… If I stay 10 feet away from everyone….”
It was happening here too. All three lockdowns were enforced after infections had already peaked.
As far as I can see, that is wrong. The first Covid wave in 2020, for example, peaked on 19 April with about 5,113,000 confirmed new cases in the UK. But lockdown was first declared by Johnson on 23 March and gained legal force on 26 March, which was well before the peak.
You're forgetting the incubation period.
No, I'm not. The incubation period of Covid averaged about a week, so the peak in infections was still well after lockdown was initiated. If that's the reason you are claiming otherwise, then you are seriously misinformed.
Perhaps the official figures have been conveniently revised since, but on the numbers published at the time my statement is valid.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
It also shows how bad her defense team were to not bring up similar cases
That would have involved making the statistical argument that they clearly didn’t want to have to make.
I have wondered whether her defence actually thought she was guilty. They mounted the best professional legal defence money could buy by trying the undermine the prosecution case whilst not actually inquiring too deeply into the case itself: No one could accuse them of not doing their jobs to defend a deeply unlikeable defendant & they could hold their heads up high in front of their legal colleagues afterwards.
Given those self-imposed constraints they did an excellent job in court. The problem was that it was misconceived from the start because they were unwilling or unable to counter the “these babies died because someone tried to kill them” narrative. Why they hamstrung her defence in this way is unknowable of course: They would probably claim that they didn’t think they could make that argument clear to the jury. Perhaps they didn’t understand that argument themselves.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
“...according to Evans’s initial analysis, and as the below chart illustrates, Letby was not in the hospital when 10 of the 28 incidents he described as “suspicious” took place — more than a third of them. In other words, if Evans’s initial analysis suggested there had been multiple murders, Letby could not have committed all of them.”
Polls on any given issue only really mean much if the said issue is particularly salient. The electoral system clearly isn't, and indeed it wasn't much when there was a referendum on the issue in 2011.
Socialists often point out polls showing overwhelming public support for nationalising various industries. Ultra tough-on-crime types often point out polls showing strong support for capital punishment. Again, these issues aren't particularly salient and do not necessarily indicate the levels of support if they did become salient and/or referendums were held on them.
Farage should offer a referendum on capital punishment
“Let the people decide”
Who could argue with that?
Because it would get expanded.
Fine, death penalty for murderers, then it would to move to rapists etc, where the criminal justice fails badly.
Imagine being placed on remand for rape, I wonder where your mind would go if you knew you might get executed.
In any case, Farage opposes capital punishment.
I think, given the age we're in, it's very likely someone offers a referendum on this at some point, which will be won.
I abhor and despise it but most people don't.
I think I've shifted further to the right on this over the last few years, the father of Sara Sharif, the *terrorist* who killed those girls and a few others come to mind which have shifted me to the right. I still would vote to not have capital punishment but if there was a vote in favour I wouldn't be very upset as I would have been just a few years back.
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
I agree. My trust in government evaporated with covid, and I am government (well, public sector). Example: I used to favour road pricing as a better and more effective solution to road tax (the externalities of you driving 10 miles down empty country roads in North Yorkshire are rather lower than you driving ten miles across Greater Manchester, and the public transport alternatives less apparent, so seemed a good solution to me) - but now there's no way I'd want to give government that level of information over my movements. I just don't trust them any more.
A significant and growing number of people have no faith in government, policing, legal system or the media. It's reflected in the current polling.
Hardly surprising when this week we have a woman in court because she is being forced to get changed with a man or lose her job. A man is arrested for burning a book and then has his name, address and full date of birth plastered on social media by the police, putting a big arrow on his back. (Amazing what the police are willing to reveal when they want to.) A 14 year boy is stabbed to death in school and it barely makes the news, because....reasons.
Which 14-year-old boy and what ....reasons?
15, apologies. Reasons why it has been dropped by the media like BBC into, 'also in the news', you'd have to guess. Would have thought it should be dominating the headlines.
It absolutely led news outlets for a time yesterday. The cycle moves on fast, and it moves as a pack. Also, except in the most spectacular of crimes (Southport for example) the practical and legal restrictions on what you can say, what names and identities you can use, mean that for the story to survive needs large amounts of Polly Filla journalism, adding nothing to the actual story; without USPs (like Southport) interest disappears when there is nothing new to say.
This compares very starkly with how, for example, Victorian newspapers could report, speculate and theorise.
The story is one of the top stories on the front page of the BBC News site again now:
"Family of teen stabbed at Sheffield school say 'our hearts are broken'"
So "A 14 year boy is stabbed to death in school and it barely makes the news, because....reasons." and "Reasons why it has been dropped by the media like BBC into, 'also in the news', you'd have to guess." from @CharlieShark means I can safely file under bullshit attempt at stirring?
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
"Hyper-liberalism" is I think a coinage of the philosopher John Gray, who defines it a system of belief similar to a religion that allows people to construct their own identities and defends those identity groups. It is in contrast to Gray's conception of "liberalism" which tolerates but neither approves nor disapproves of such groups. Andy is a fan of John Gray and I am working thru Gray's "New Leviathans" as we speak. I'm not as big a fan, regarding it as a useful prism (ideas as tools) instead of a catch-all (ideas as facts), but I find it interesting and useful.
Slightly raised blood pressures in Chichester this week.
A developer is paying for a new "Dutch-style" (*) roundabout - at Westgate - which explicitly gives priority to people walking, wheeling and cycling.
(ie Gives them what we are already required to give them by the Highway Code.)
There's a bit of a drag-in-everything-you-can-think-of-and-shout-about-it dustup on Facebook. Blue rinse RefUK are alive and well in Chichester. My favourite comment (unless it *is* satire and I fell for it):
"Have you seen the state of Holland, do we all want to be wearing clogs and living in windmills with legalised drugs and prostitution and Muslims taking over the whole country, I don't think so so we don't need their stupid roundabouts either."
* TBF for once these are Dutch style, whereas in the UK that is normally the term for any old abortion that has been mackled together. The only problem with it is that the mobility track is one way not two way, so one is forced to wheel across 5 entrances not one.
British aid pays for private healthcare clinics in India, luxury hotels in South America and shopping malls in Mozambique. It’s often about a certain kind of ‘development’ for the 1%.
Polls on any given issue only really mean much if the said issue is particularly salient. The electoral system clearly isn't, and indeed it wasn't much when there was a referendum on the issue in 2011.
Socialists often point out polls showing overwhelming public support for nationalising various industries. Ultra tough-on-crime types often point out polls showing strong support for capital punishment. Again, these issues aren't particularly salient and do not necessarily indicate the levels of support if they did become salient and/or referendums were held on them.
Farage should offer a referendum on capital punishment
“Let the people decide”
Who could argue with that?
Because it would get expanded.
Fine, death penalty for murderers, then it would to move to rapists etc, where the criminal justice fails badly.
Imagine being placed on remand for rape, I wonder where your mind would go if you knew you might get executed.
In any case, Farage opposes capital punishment.
I think, given the age we're in, it's very likely someone offers a referendum on this at some point, which will be won.
I abhor and despise it but most people don't.
I think I've shifted further to the right on this over the last few years, the father of Sara Sharif, the *terrorist* who killed those girls and a few others come to mind which have shifted me to the right. I still would vote to not have capital punishment but if there was a vote in favour I wouldn't be very upset as I would have been just a few years back.
Unlikely there'd be a referendum. Much more probable that a Reform government would just change the law. The only way there might be a referendum is if there's a Ref-Con govt of some nature and they don't agree on the reform (the AV precedent) or the Tories are too worried about their vote being split and a referendum is the only way to resolve it.
Easy cases make bad examples for law changes (or indeed, any change to policy and process). It's how what's proposed deals with difficult, fringe cases that matters.
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
Not having that. If the authoritarians have failed to deliver what they have promised, fine have a go at them. Don't blame people who have never had a sniff of making the choices.
Everything's that happened with Farage and Trump has been totally predictable once the hyper-liberals took charge and started doing things like open borders which about 95% of people don't support.
Who are these hyper liberals in charge?
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
The disconnect is between the portrayed personas and action.
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
Not having that. If the authoritarians have failed to deliver what they have promised, fine have a go at them. Don't blame people who have never had a sniff of making the choices.
If the “authoritarians” haven’t actually done the authoritarianism, what are they?
I was pointing out that we have a massive disconnect between the perceived views of various politicians and their actions.
Then they wonder why people think that all politicians are the same and are liars.
They are still authoritians. Several on the list are incompetent, others purely interested in power and short term popularity. That is why they repeatedly fail. They are not liberals.
Slightly raised blood pressures in Chichester this week.
A developer is paying for a new "Dutch-style" (*) roundabout - at Westgate - which explicitly gives priority to people walking, wheeling and cycling.
(ie Gives them what we are already required to give them by the Highway Code.)
There's a bit of a drag-in-everything-you-can-think-of-and-shout-about-it dustup on Facebook. Blue rinse RefUK are alive and well in Chichester. My favourite comment (unless it *is* satire and I fell for it):
"Have you seen the state of Holland, do we all want to be wearing clogs and living in windmills with legalised drugs and prostitution and Muslims taking over the whole country, I don't think so so we don't need their stupid roundabouts either."
* TBF for once these are Dutch style, whereas in the UK that is normally the term for any old abortion that has been mackled together. The only problem with it is that the mobility track is one way not two way, so one is forced to wheel across 5 entrances not one.
Many years ago, I stayed in a very rural Dutch town, for work.
The place was weirdly perfect. The main road in the town, a meandering loop, was literally yellow brick. With not a brick out of place or even a blade of grass growing.
There was no dirt or rubbish. Anywhere.
It made the town in the Truman Show look chaotic and untidy.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
From Wikipedia...
The mother of one victim described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. She testified that Letby had attributed the blood to a nasogastric tube, saying "trust me, I'm a nurse."[51] The baby's condition soon worsened and he died a few hours later.[51]
And:
A consultant testified that, in February 2016, he had walked in on Letby standing over a desaturating infant and failing to intervene. He said that Letby had responded to his questions by telling him that the infant had only just started declining. The infant in question survived the collapse.[3]: 22:55
... which is the stuff her defenders never mention.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
“...according to Evans’s initial analysis, and as the below chart illustrates, Letby was not in the hospital when 10 of the 28 incidents he described as “suspicious” took place — more than a third of them. In other words, if Evans’s initial analysis suggested there had been multiple murders, Letby could not have committed all of them.”
What have the figures looked like since she was suspended?
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
There was no argument for locking down healthy young people who were about as likely to be struck by lightning as they were to die from COVID.
There was some argument for measures for over-70s or those who were otherwise vulnerable.
Instead we got a wildly excessive terror campaign and an economically devastating furlough scheme that we're still paying for. At least Starmer wasn't in power then - it would have been even worse with him.
The majority of older people that caught Covid & had serious consequences caught it from younger (probably asymptomatic) people in their own household. In old people’s homes care staff or support workers would have brought it in.
How are you going to prevent schoolkids giving Covid to their parents, or their grandparent who lives in the same household in your non-lockdown world? You’re not, which means in turn that the inevitable outcome would have been the collapse of the NHS as it became overwhelmed with Covid cases & the Covid death rate would probably have doubled.
As it was things were touch and go - I’ve talked to respiratory consultants around where I live & they were absolutely flat out, with no spare capacity whatsoever having dredged up every bit of healthcare support available & running the people involved into the ground. Any further serious cases would have simply been sent to the Nightingale tent hospitals to die (which is what they were for of course).
Lockdowns were the least worst option available to the government at the time.
What evidence do you have that the death rate would have doubled? Or even increased? That's just unsupported, meaningless conjecture. Covid got into care homes and circulated amongst old people despite the fact that we had lockdowns, so they were largely futile.
Sweden didn't have lockdowns, but had a lower excess mortality rate than we did, relying on accurate, reliable, non-sensationalised information and the common sense of the Swedish people.
We (and other countries) trashed our civil liberties, traumatised a generation of children and ruined our economy for no demonstrable gain.
It’s very simple: if your case rate puts more people into hospital than there are staffed ventilators to support them then people will die who otherwise would have survived.
Yes, this is conjecture. But it seems to me to follow very logically from our knowledge of the prompt effects of serious Covid infections.
My rough calculations when I last looked at this suggested that without the first lockdown the death rate would have doubled, at least, with much worse knock on effects on the ability of the NHS to cope.
My personal base case is that, pre-vaccine, the lockdowns were the least worst out of a very unappealing range of options.
I think that very probably true of lockdown 1. I'm not convinced later events could not have been far better managed.
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
I was one of the few people who said none of the lockdowns were worth it at the time.
The first was politically unavoidable. But it was mishandled so badly that it made the second and third politically unavoidable too.
Polls on any given issue only really mean much if the said issue is particularly salient. The electoral system clearly isn't, and indeed it wasn't much when there was a referendum on the issue in 2011.
Socialists often point out polls showing overwhelming public support for nationalising various industries. Ultra tough-on-crime types often point out polls showing strong support for capital punishment. Again, these issues aren't particularly salient and do not necessarily indicate the levels of support if they did become salient and/or referendums were held on them.
Farage should offer a referendum on capital punishment
“Let the people decide”
Who could argue with that?
Because it would get expanded.
Fine, death penalty for murderers, then it would to move to rapists etc, where the criminal justice fails badly.
Imagine being placed on remand for rape, I wonder where your mind would go if you knew you might get executed.
In any case, Farage opposes capital punishment.
I think, given the age we're in, it's very likely someone offers a referendum on this at some point, which will be won.
I abhor and despise it but most people don't.
I think I've shifted further to the right on this over the last few years, the father of Sara Sharif, the *terrorist* who killed those girls and a few others come to mind which have shifted me to the right. I still would vote to not have capital punishment but if there was a vote in favour I wouldn't be very upset as I would have been just a few years back.
Unlikely there'd be a referendum. Much more probable that a Reform government would just change the law. The only way there might be a referendum is if there's a Ref-Con govt of some nature and they don't agree on the reform (the AV precedent) or the Tories are too worried about their vote being split and a referendum is the only way to resolve it.
Easy cases make bad examples for law changes (or indeed, any change to policy and process). It's how what's proposed deals with difficult, fringe cases that matters.
Would there not just be a "beyond any doubt" bar on it rather than "beyond reasonable doubt". It then only really applies to the easy cases. There are people who commit crimes from which there is no way back, no redemption and no chance of being released safely into the community. On balance I'd still prefer the state not wield that power, though I'm much less bothered by the idea than I was.
O/T our electoral system and our unwritten constitution are not fit for purpose.
Whose is?
Most of the Western world is superior. FPTP based on highly arbitrary seat boundaries is a farce. For any party to have untrammelled power based on approximately 20% of those eligible to vote (as is the case with current government) is banana republic territory. It needs changing and fast, though I am not expecting Keir From HR to be doing the right thing.
Interesting to hear Conservative and Labour complaints about FPTP only from the opposition, and never the government, regardless of whichever happens to be in power. It is almost as if they dislike losing rather than FPTP. As a boring centrist I am consistently in favour of scrapping it.
And all electoral systems and constitutions have significant flaws hence the lack of a tangible response to my question.
Slightly raised blood pressures in Chichester this week.
A developer is paying for a new "Dutch-style" (*) roundabout - at Westgate - which explicitly gives priority to people walking, wheeling and cycling.
(ie Gives them what we are already required to give them by the Highway Code.)
There's a bit of a drag-in-everything-you-can-think-of-and-shout-about-it dustup on Facebook. Blue rinse RefUK are alive and well in Chichester. My favourite comment (unless it *is* satire and I fell for it):
"Have you seen the state of Holland, do we all want to be wearing clogs and living in windmills with legalised drugs and prostitution and Muslims taking over the whole country, I don't think so so we don't need their stupid roundabouts either."
* TBF for once these are Dutch style, whereas in the UK that is normally the term for any old abortion that has been mackled together. The only problem with it is that the mobility track is one way not two way, so one is forced to wheel across 5 entrances not one.
Many years ago, I stayed in a very rural Dutch town, for work.
The place was weirdly perfect. The main road in the town, a meandering loop, was literally yellow brick. With not a brick out of place or even a blade of grass growing.
There was no dirt or rubbish. Anywhere.
It made the town in the Truman Show look chaotic and untidy.
A nice little video about someone's street being rebuilt in NL, and he did a video diary:
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
I agree. My trust in government evaporated with covid, and I am government (well, public sector). Example: I used to favour road pricing as a better and more effective solution to road tax (the externalities of you driving 10 miles down empty country roads in North Yorkshire are rather lower than you driving ten miles across Greater Manchester, and the public transport alternatives less apparent, so seemed a good solution to me) - but now there's no way I'd want to give government that level of information over my movements. I just don't trust them any more.
A significant and growing number of people have no faith in government, policing, legal system or the media. It's reflected in the current polling.
Hardly surprising when this week we have a woman in court because she is being forced to get changed with a man or lose her job. A man is arrested for burning a book and then has his name, address and full date of birth plastered on social media by the police, putting a big arrow on his back. (Amazing what the police are willing to reveal when they want to.) A 14 year boy is stabbed to death in school and it barely makes the news, because....reasons.
Which 14-year-old boy and what ....reasons?
15, apologies. Reasons why it has been dropped by the media like BBC into, 'also in the news', you'd have to guess. Would have thought it should be dominating the headlines.
It absolutely led news outlets for a time yesterday. The cycle moves on fast, and it moves as a pack. Also, except in the most spectacular of crimes (Southport for example) the practical and legal restrictions on what you can say, what names and identities you can use, mean that for the story to survive needs large amounts of Polly Filla journalism, adding nothing to the actual story; without USPs (like Southport) interest disappears when there is nothing new to say.
This compares very starkly with how, for example, Victorian newspapers could report, speculate and theorise.
The story is one of the top stories on the front page of the BBC News site again now:
"Family of teen stabbed at Sheffield school say 'our hearts are broken'"
So "A 14 year boy is stabbed to death in school and it barely makes the news, because....reasons." and "Reasons why it has been dropped by the media like BBC into, 'also in the news', you'd have to guess." from @CharlieShark means I can safely file under bullshit attempt at stirring?
My, we are a touchy little Kamski today aren't we.
I've already responded, but if you are that needy, I will respond directly back to you.
Here are all of the front pages of the newspapers from today. Only one mentions at all, that a 15 year boy was stabbed to death while at school. I find that amazing (and disturbing).
At that time of posting, the BBC had already relegated it to 'also in the news'. It has now been pushed back up to eleventh on their list of news items on their website.
There is clearly a story here, a distressing one. One that will be revisited again. What happened a week previous for there to have been a lockdown at the school. In all the years of schooling, my kids have never had a lockdown. It only happens for something very serious. A lockdown on 29th January and a murder on 3rd Feb. I hadn't elaborated this much and wasn't going to, although has been previously reported.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
It also shows how bad her defense team were to not bring up similar cases
That would have involved making the statistical argument that they clearly didn’t want to have to make.
I have wondered whether her defence actually thought she was guilty. They mounted the best professional legal defence money could buy by trying the undermine the prosecution case whilst not actually inquiring too deeply into the case itself: No one could accuse them of not doing their jobs to defend a deeply unlikeable defendant & they could hold their heads up high in front of their legal colleagues afterwards.
Given those self-imposed constraints they did an excellent job in court. The problem was that it was misconceived from the start because they were unwilling or unable to counter the “these babies died because someone tried to kill them” narrative. Why they hamstrung her defence in this way is unknowable of course: They would probably claim that they didn’t think they could make that argument clear to the jury. Perhaps they didn’t understand that argument themselves.
Doesn't sound like "an excellent job in court" to me.
Stefan Kiszko had a terrible defence 50 years ago. Defence clearly thought he had done it.
His QC (David Waddington) was made Home Sec. then Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. So never did him any harm.
The crown dumped thousands of pages of additional unused materials to the defence at the last minute.
The prosecuting QC, Peter Taylor became Lord Chief Justice.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
He's been voice coached to say "I surrender", using different words
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
There was no argument for locking down healthy young people who were about as likely to be struck by lightning as they were to die from COVID.
There was some argument for measures for over-70s or those who were otherwise vulnerable.
Instead we got a wildly excessive terror campaign and an economically devastating furlough scheme that we're still paying for. At least Starmer wasn't in power then - it would have been even worse with him.
The majority of older people that caught Covid & had serious consequences caught it from younger (probably asymptomatic) people in their own household. In old people’s homes care staff or support workers would have brought it in.
How are you going to prevent schoolkids giving Covid to their parents, or their grandparent who lives in the same household in your non-lockdown world? You’re not, which means in turn that the inevitable outcome would have been the collapse of the NHS as it became overwhelmed with Covid cases & the Covid death rate would probably have doubled.
As it was things were touch and go - I’ve talked to respiratory consultants around where I live & they were absolutely flat out, with no spare capacity whatsoever having dredged up every bit of healthcare support available & running the people involved into the ground. Any further serious cases would have simply been sent to the Nightingale tent hospitals to die (which is what they were for of course).
Lockdowns were the least worst option available to the government at the time.
What evidence do you have that the death rate would have doubled? Or even increased? That's just unsupported, meaningless conjecture. Covid got into care homes and circulated amongst old people despite the fact that we had lockdowns, so they were largely futile.
Sweden didn't have lockdowns, but had a lower excess mortality rate than we did, relying on accurate, reliable, non-sensationalised information and the common sense of the Swedish people.
We (and other countries) trashed our civil liberties, traumatised a generation of children and ruined our economy for no demonstrable gain.
Sweden had restrictions tougher than ours at a few points; the main differences were mostly earlier on.[1] Sweden is a very different country, of course.
It also had excess mortality far higher than the more comparable neighbour countries, particularly earlier on, pre-vaccine, when Sweden's rules were most different.[2]
They made a choice, which was neither right nor wrong (it's all a balance of values) but it's daft to pretend that those choices didn't have immediate impacts on deaths, even if they may have had other/longer term benefits.
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
“...according to Evans’s initial analysis, and as the below chart illustrates, Letby was not in the hospital when 10 of the 28 incidents he described as “suspicious” took place — more than a third of them. In other words, if Evans’s initial analysis suggested there had been multiple murders, Letby could not have committed all of them.”
What have the figures looked like since she was suspended?
Around the time she was suspended her neonatal unit was downgraded from a Level 2 (that I’ve read somewhere was actually taking Level 3 cases - the most seriously vulnerable babies) to a Level 1 only unit.
So unfortunately we can’t make any statistical comparisons whatsoever.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
That’s half the point, he doesn’t have £9bn.
He’s a human rights lawyer obsessed with bowing down to international courts, he’s more concerned with upsetting some kangaroo court than he is in writing a massive cheque in the name of the British people. If he is willing to write the cheque, then write it to people who can do good in the world right now.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
You’d think so, but I honestly think it’s lawyer brain in action. You can’t possibly refuse to implement a legal ruling: what would the world come to if every country did that?! (Spoiler: we are in a world where every country does precisely that & they’re all laughing at us as we tie ourselves in knots over these islands.)
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
It’s ideological, that getting rid of the last remenants of “empire” will be his legacy.
See David Cameron saying that his biggest achievement in office was “Gay marriage”, when civil partnerships were already a thing beforehand and the difference was mostly the name.
If I recall correctly, Bernard Lewis, who knew a little about the subject, once wrote that -- at the time of the Crusades -- a majority of people in the Holy Land were Christians. Probably. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
It also shows how bad her defense team were to not bring up similar cases
That would have involved making the statistical argument that they clearly didn’t want to have to make.
I have wondered whether her defence actually thought she was guilty. They mounted the best professional legal defence money could buy by trying the undermine the prosecution case whilst not actually inquiring too deeply into the case itself: No one could accuse them of not doing their jobs to defend a deeply unlikeable defendant & they could hold their heads up high in front of their legal colleagues afterwards.
Given those self-imposed constraints they did an excellent job in court. The problem was that it was misconceived from the start because they were unwilling or unable to counter the “these babies died because someone tried to kill them” narrative. Why they hamstrung her defence in this way is unknowable of course: They would probably claim that they didn’t think they could make that argument clear to the jury. Perhaps they didn’t understand that argument themselves.
Doesn't sound like "an excellent job in court" to me.
Stefan Kiszko had a terrible defence 50 years ago. Defence clearly thought he had done it.
His QC (David Waddington) was made Home Sec. then Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. So never did him any harm.
The crown dumped thousands of pages of additional unused materials to the defence at the last minute.
The prosecuting QC, Peter Taylor became Lord Chief Justice.
My tongue may have been somewhat in cheek...by their own standards they did an excellent job no doubt.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
You’d think so, but I honestly think it’s lawyer brain in action. You can’t possibly refuse to implement a legal ruling: what would the world come to if every country did that?! (Spoiler: we are in a world where every country does precisely that & they’re all laughing at us as we tie ourselves in knots over these islands.)
Could anyone imagine the USA or France or Israel acting similarly?
Other bad news: Senator Susan Collins is going to support Tusli Gabbard’s nomination.
I blame Covid. In the first Trump administration the lunatics hadn't completely taken over the asylum like they have now. We all know people who went down rabbit holes during lockdown, and never came back. Happened to plenty of us ourselves to a certain extent.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
@rcs1000 has pointed (repeatedly) that self lockdown rapidly occurred in countries that didn’t go the legalistic route.
“Disease passed from person to person? Hmmm… If I stay 10 feet away from everyone….”
It was happening here too. All three lockdowns were enforced after infections had already peaked.
As far as I can see, that is wrong. The first Covid wave in 2020, for example, peaked on 19 April with about 5,113,000 confirmed new cases in the UK. But lockdown was first declared by Johnson on 23 March and gained legal force on 26 March, which was well before the peak.
You're forgetting the incubation period.
No, I'm not. The incubation period of Covid averaged about a week, so the peak in infections was still well after lockdown was initiated. If that's the reason you are claiming otherwise, then you are seriously misinformed.
Perhaps the official figures have been conveniently revised since, but on the numbers published at the time my statement is valid.
No, you are simply wrong. Covid infections did not peak before before the first lockdown began in March 2020. They peaked the following month in April, at least according to every set of figures* I could find in the internet. If you have any evidence at all to back up your claim that the figures have been revised to shift the peak later by a few weeks, I'd be interested to see it.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
You’d think so, but I honestly think it’s lawyer brain in action. You can’t possibly refuse to implement a legal ruling: what would the world come to if every country did that?! (Spoiler: we are in a world where every country does precisely that & they’re all laughing at us as we tie ourselves in knots over these islands.)
And yet the fact that we honour the rule of law in this country is one of our principal selling points and the reason we remain one of the leading destinations for inward investment. We abandon that at our peril.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
You’d think so, but I honestly think it’s lawyer brain in action. You can’t possibly refuse to implement a legal ruling: what would the world come to if every country did that?! (Spoiler: we are in a world where every country does precisely that & they’re all laughing at us as we tie ourselves in knots over these islands.)
And yet the fact that we honour the rule of law in this country is one of our principal selling points and the reason we remain one of the leading destinations for inward investment. We abandon that at our peril.
In the world we currently inhabit, it's bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Nor would I imagine any investor taking this dispute into account in their decisions.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
I could almost - almost - understand the last deal. Britain wants to curry favour with African countries, and more likely, India who effectively sees Mauritius and by extension Chagos in its sphere of influence.
20mph speed limits in most of London don't seem to have stopped accidents as much as in Wales.
"London road deaths 'crisis' as number of pedestrians killed in collisions soars 25 per cent 10 cyclists died in 2024, including rider hit by London bus who died a fortnight after suffering critical injuries"
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
It is worse than your father imagines – the police and prosecution excluded deaths where Letby was not on duty.
You think she should have been charged with deaths that the prosecution didn't think she had committed?
If evidence suggests that statistically as many babies died off her watch as on her watch it would be presumably interesting circumstantial evidence. Bearing in mind she was exclusively convicted on circumstantial evidence, considering alternative circumstantial evidence might be compelling.
I have no idea whether David Davies has a point or not. I am nervous that were she not a nice, clean middle class white girl-next-door she would be allowed to rot in hell. But then being a middle class white girl- next-door shouldn't preclude her from justice.
Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, Derek Bentley, Christopher Evans – there have been other campaigns against miscarriages of justice not involving middle class White girl-next-door types. Admittedly two of these men had already been hanged by then.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
You’d think so, but I honestly think it’s lawyer brain in action. You can’t possibly refuse to implement a legal ruling: what would the world come to if every country did that?! (Spoiler: we are in a world where every country does precisely that & they’re all laughing at us as we tie ourselves in knots over these islands.)
And yet the fact that we honour the rule of law in this country is one of our principal selling points and the reason we remain one of the leading destinations for inward investment. We abandon that at our peril.
The rulings of this particular court are advisory: We are not required to implement them by any treaty. If Mauritius is so intent on having them returned to Mauritian control, why are why having to pay them for the privilege? We could & should have found another way to return the Chagossians to their islands & fulfilled their moral claims to the islands without this ludicrous transfer to a nation which is almost certainly going to turn around & sell access to strategically crucial land to the Chinese.
"Rise in UK economic inactivity since Covid is genuine, says ONS chief
A rise in UK economic inactivity since the pandemic is not an illusion created by faulty data, the head of the Office for National Statistics has said, in his first public defence of the agency’s handling of deep-seated problems with a key survey. Sir Ian Diamond, the UK’s national statistician, told MPs on Tuesday that the ONS was “very confident” in official data showing a rise since Covid of some 2.8mn people neither in work nor looking for work, driven by ill health. "
Some good lines from Jones there 'With no clear vision, the government literally chose scrapping the universal winter fuel payment as a flagship policy, believing it would win the respect of the electorate by showing a willingness to take tough decisions - it’s never tough decisions for the rich, is it! - and were clearly blindsided by a general public who concluded they were sadistic monsters intent on freezing grannies to death. They thought they were oh so terribly clever preparing the ground for renewed cuts, when their doom and gloom speeches sucked business and consumer confidence out of the economy. They thought they had been supremely canny in ruling out multiple tax hikes on the well-off and big business before the election, backing themselves into a corner and then hiking employers’ national insurance contributions, an astonishingly stupid decision which harms wages and jobs....
Starmer’s aides are no such things. They are overwhelmingly mediocre, intellectually disinterested, on a personal level unpleasant, and defined by a hatred of the left and desire to score settle which did not define New Labour, which chose to largely exile the left from their thoughts altogether. They are middle managers who belong in a mid-brand clothing label. They are devoid of interesting ideas, and are driven by the same impulse that led them to do pretend conference speeches in front of bathroom mirrors when they were 13, where they borrowed Blair’s verbless sentences and power thumb - that is, an addiction to power for its own sake. They have no loyalty to anyone but themselves, which is why they are now publicly humiliating the man who made the extremely unfortunate mistake of doing everything they asked of him....
They have concluded that the real reason this has gone belly up is because Starmer isn’t really a true believer. Thus, they want to install the ultra-Blairite Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, in No. 10 instead. That he was nearly defeated from the left - his majority collapsed from 5,198 when Labour was smashed in 2019 to just 528 votes - in what was once a Tory constituency by a 23-year-old British-Palestinian wunderkind, Leanne Mohamad, is not something they’ve bothered to interrogate. Why? Because, again, they don’t see the left as legitimate political actors, and only respect and want to concede to political pressure from the right...'
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
It also shows how bad her defense team were to not bring up similar cases
That would have involved making the statistical argument that they clearly didn’t want to have to make.
I have wondered whether her defence actually thought she was guilty. They mounted the best professional legal defence money could buy by trying the undermine the prosecution case whilst not actually inquiring too deeply into the case itself: No one could accuse them of not doing their jobs to defend a deeply unlikeable defendant & they could hold their heads up high in front of their legal colleagues afterwards.
Given those self-imposed constraints they did an excellent job in court. The problem was that it was misconceived from the start because they were unwilling or unable to counter the “these babies died because someone tried to kill them” narrative. Why they hamstrung her defence in this way is unknowable of course: They would probably claim that they didn’t think they could make that argument clear to the jury. Perhaps they didn’t understand that argument themselves.
If the complaint is that lawyers do not understand statistics, then it follows that defence lawyers also do not understand statistics. No-one is saying the prosecution deliberately twisted the facts.
20mph speed limits in most of London don't seem to have stopped accidents as much as in Wales.
"London road deaths 'crisis' as number of pedestrians killed in collisions soars 25 per cent 10 cyclists died in 2024, including rider hit by London bus who died a fortnight after suffering critical injuries"
You can see how this is going to go, can't you? The Wales stats will be proof that 20mph zones are good, the London stats will show that we need more of them or lower limits.
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.
Jesus wept.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
Napoleon's maxim applies:
Never attribute to malice, that which might be otherwise explained by incompetence.
20mph speed limits in most of London don't seem to have stopped accidents as much as in Wales.
"London road deaths 'crisis' as number of pedestrians killed in collisions soars 25 per cent 10 cyclists died in 2024, including rider hit by London bus who died a fortnight after suffering critical injuries"
One thing I would say about the Lucy Letby case is that my father has followed the case with interest (given his professional background) and one thing bugs him about the case.
The prosecution made a big thing about Lucy Letby being on shift when the babies died but that in his view is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
A good defence team should have been able to point out correlation doesn’t imply causation.
The coincidence of only Letby being present at a number of otherwise unexplained deaths is a data point so I would say relevant to the case against her. The question I think is what the other evidence looks like. I haven't followed the case closely.
The counter from “Letby Truthers” on the statistical evidence effectively boils down to: the prosecution decided which deaths were suspicious by looking at whether Letby was on the ward or not. It’s therefore no surprise that Letby was on the ward for all the proposed suspicious deaths.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
“...according to Evans’s initial analysis, and as the below chart illustrates, Letby was not in the hospital when 10 of the 28 incidents he described as “suspicious” took place — more than a third of them. In other words, if Evans’s initial analysis suggested there had been multiple murders, Letby could not have committed all of them.”
What have the figures looked like since she was suspended?
That wouldn't necessarily be conclusive proof either way. Presumably precautions have subsequently been tightened up. So if a contributory factor was neglect as hinted by today's panel, deaths might be fewer.
20mph speed limits in most of London don't seem to have stopped accidents as much as in Wales.
"London road deaths 'crisis' as number of pedestrians killed in collisions soars 25 per cent 10 cyclists died in 2024, including rider hit by London bus who died a fortnight after suffering critical injuries"
You can see how this is going to go, can't you? The Wales stats will be proof that 20mph zones are good, the London stats will show that we need more of them or lower limits.
There are some pretty depressing stories in the stats, such as the poor kid who was killed by a bus while playing on the pavement.
Comments
"Corporations Control Our Governments: Here’s How
Aaron Bastani meets Matt Kennard"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDsp2apG5zQ
IIRC other people came up on the matrix - if you get quite a lot of people there a lot, apparent hits happen at random surprisingly often, especially with deaths being genuinely doubtful in many cases.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/04/lucy-letby-new-medical-evidence-live/
List of home secretaries this century.
Cooper, Cleverly, Braverman, Shapps, Braverman, Patel, Javid, Rudd, May, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith, John Reid, Charles Clarke, Blunkett, Straw.
My classifications have Rudd and Alan Johnson vaguely liberal. The rest either authoritarian or neutral. Yours?
Some here were frotting themselves at the thought of the British Government drowning babies in the Channel. As the Government had them fished out of the Channel, given Dominos pizza and housed them in 3 star hotels.
And while the Greek and Italian governments managed to actually drown some refugees.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/top-labour-backer-turns-on-party-over-reeves-crippling-budget/ar-AA1ynRtl?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=a9c5a63464714a838c635c4e38b50883&ei=7
I love the fact that he is a political donor and his surname is Lord. How amusing it could be if he were made a lord. One could say in surprise when meeting him; "Good Lord! Lord Lord!
This kind of “it’s only a genuine Champagne-level suspicious death if Letby is on the ward & otherwise it’s just sparkling malpractice” thinking is exactly the kind of post hoc ergo propter hoc approach that has led to previous miscarriages of justice.
Sweden didn't have lockdowns, but had a lower excess mortality rate than we did, relying on accurate, reliable, non-sensationalised information and the common sense of the Swedish people.
We (and other countries) trashed our civil liberties, traumatised a generation of children and ruined our economy for no demonstrable gain.
"Sweden school shooting: police warn ‘danger not over’ after five people shot in attack in Örebro – latest updates"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/feb/04/sweden-school-shooting-orebro-latest-updates-live-news
I think we all know what the worst option is.
I abhor and despise it but most people don't.
I have no idea whether David Davies has a point or not. I am nervous that were she not a nice, clean middle class white girl-next-door she would be allowed to rot in hell. But then being a middle class white girl- next-door shouldn't preclude her from justice.
If true, this was an impressive level of cart before horse thinking.
https://www.owenjones.news/p/keir-starmer-own-aides-say-he-isnt
Yes, this is conjecture. But it seems to me to follow very logically from our knowledge of the prompt effects of serious Covid infections.
My rough calculations when I last looked at this suggested that without the first lockdown the death rate would have doubled, at least, with much worse knock on effects on the ability of the NHS to cope.
My personal base case is that, pre-vaccine, the lockdowns were the least worst out of a very unappealing range of options.
I don't think you can viably claim there's no evidence against Letby. Maybe you can claim the evidence doesn't meet the beyond reasonable doubt bar.
I was pointing out that we have a massive disconnect between the perceived views of various politicians and their actions.
Then they wonder why people think that all politicians are the same and are liars.
Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
Exclusive from
@georgegrylls
Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions
Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base
He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia
He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease
He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1886773307443388559
The mother of one victim described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. She testified that Letby had attributed the blood to a nasogastric tube, saying "trust me, I'm a nurse."[51] The baby's condition soon worsened and he died a few hours later.[51]
And:
A consultant testified that, in February 2016, he had walked in on Letby standing over a desaturating infant and failing to intervene. He said that Letby had responded to his questions by telling him that the infant had only just started declining. The infant in question survived the collapse.[3]: 22:55
... which is the stuff her defenders never mention.
I have wondered whether her defence actually thought she was guilty. They mounted the best professional legal defence money could buy by trying the undermine the prosecution case whilst not actually inquiring too deeply into the case itself: No one could accuse them of not doing their jobs to defend a deeply unlikeable defendant & they could hold their heads up high in front of their legal colleagues afterwards.
Given those self-imposed constraints they did an excellent job in court. The problem was that it was misconceived from the start because they were unwilling or unable to counter the “these babies died because someone tried to kill them” narrative. Why they hamstrung her defence in this way is unknowable of course: They would probably claim that they didn’t think they could make that argument clear to the jury. Perhaps they didn’t understand that argument themselves.
“...according to Evans’s initial analysis, and as the below chart illustrates, Letby was not in the hospital when 10 of the 28 incidents he described as “suspicious” took place — more than a third of them. In other words, if Evans’s initial analysis suggested there had been multiple murders, Letby could not have committed all of them.”
A developer is paying for a new "Dutch-style" (*) roundabout - at Westgate - which explicitly gives priority to people walking, wheeling and cycling.
(ie Gives them what we are already required to give them by the Highway Code.)
There's a bit of a drag-in-everything-you-can-think-of-and-shout-about-it dustup on Facebook. Blue rinse RefUK are alive and well in Chichester. My favourite comment (unless it *is* satire and I fell for it):
"Have you seen the state of Holland, do we all want to be wearing clogs and living in windmills with legalised drugs and prostitution and Muslims taking over the whole country, I don't think so so we don't need their stupid roundabouts either."
You'd hope it was satire but...
https://www.facebook.com/reel/917935553496184
* TBF for once these are Dutch style, whereas in the UK that is normally the term for any old abortion that has been mackled together. The only problem with it is that the mobility track is one way not two way, so one is forced to wheel across 5 entrances not one.
Easy cases make bad examples for law changes (or indeed, any change to policy and process). It's how what's proposed deals with difficult, fringe cases that matters.
The place was weirdly perfect. The main road in the town, a meandering loop, was literally yellow brick. With not a brick out of place or even a blade of grass growing.
There was no dirt or rubbish. Anywhere.
It made the town in the Truman Show look chaotic and untidy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtKbjF6dME0
Lord Hermer is of course positively treacherous.
I'm not convinced later events could not have been far better managed.
And all electoral systems and constitutions have significant flaws hence the lack of a tangible response to my question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZvpCxW2H04
(10 minutes and it has the bricks, some of which are known as dikformat.)
https://x.com/officialpdc/status/1886776752829067557
The sports rights market is going to look very different five years from now.
I've already responded, but if you are that needy, I will respond directly back to you.
Here are all of the front pages of the newspapers from today. Only one mentions at all, that a 15 year boy was stabbed to death while at school. I find that amazing (and disturbing).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly52m78gzro
At that time of posting, the BBC had already relegated it to 'also in the news'. It has now been pushed back up to eleventh on their list of news items on their website.
There is clearly a story here, a distressing one. One that will be revisited again. What happened a week previous for there to have been a lockdown at the school. In all the years of schooling, my kids have never had a lockdown. It only happens for something very serious. A lockdown on 29th January and a murder on 3rd Feb. I hadn't elaborated this much and wasn't going to, although has been previously reported.
Hope you are feeling better now Kamski.
Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?
To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.
Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.
Stefan Kiszko had a terrible defence 50 years ago. Defence clearly thought he had done it.
His QC (David Waddington) was made Home Sec. then Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords.
So never did him any harm.
The crown dumped thousands of pages of additional unused materials to the defence at the last minute.
The prosecuting QC, Peter Taylor became Lord Chief Justice.
It also had excess mortality far higher than the more comparable neighbour countries, particularly earlier on, pre-vaccine, when Sweden's rules were most different.[2]
They made a choice, which was neither right nor wrong (it's all a balance of values) but it's daft to pretend that those choices didn't have immediate impacts on deaths, even if they may have had other/longer term benefits.
[1] OWiD Covid stringency index
[2] OWiD excess mortality
So unfortunately we can’t make any statistical comparisons whatsoever.
He’s a human rights lawyer obsessed with bowing down to international courts, he’s more concerned with upsetting some kangaroo court than he is in writing a massive cheque in the name of the British people. If he is willing to write the cheque, then write it to people who can do good in the world right now.
There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.
See David Cameron saying that his biggest achievement in office was “Gay marriage”, when civil partnerships were already a thing beforehand and the difference was mostly the name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis
*Here, for example:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-new-covid-cases
Nor would I imagine any investor taking this dispute into account in their decisions.
Britain wants to curry favour with African countries, and more likely, India who effectively sees Mauritius and by extension Chagos in its sphere of influence.
This new twist just seems surreally bad.
"London road deaths 'crisis' as number of pedestrians killed in collisions soars 25 per cent
10 cyclists died in 2024, including rider hit by London bus who died a fortnight after suffering critical injuries"
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-road-deaths-pedestrians-cyclists-killed-tfl-b1209012.html
Latest
Nanos: Con +15%
EKOS: Con +2%
EKOS: Con +3%
Leger: Con +18%
Abacaus: Con +21%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election#National_polls
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/uks-surrender-chagos-symptom-strategic-ineptitude
A rise in UK economic inactivity since the pandemic is not an illusion created by faulty data, the head of the Office for National Statistics has said, in his first public defence of the agency’s handling of deep-seated problems with a key survey.
Sir Ian Diamond, the UK’s national statistician, told MPs on Tuesday that the ONS was “very confident” in official data showing a rise since Covid of some 2.8mn people neither in work nor looking for work, driven by ill health. "
https://www.ft.com/content/c3ef9911-7991-4712-adbe-639beaf958e2
Some good lines from Jones there 'With no clear vision, the government literally chose scrapping the universal winter fuel payment as a flagship policy, believing it would win the respect of the electorate by showing a willingness to take tough decisions - it’s never tough decisions for the rich, is it! - and were clearly blindsided by a general public who concluded they were sadistic monsters intent on freezing grannies to death. They thought they were oh so terribly clever preparing the ground for renewed cuts, when their doom and gloom speeches sucked business and consumer confidence out of the economy. They thought they had been supremely canny in ruling out multiple tax hikes on the well-off and big business before the election, backing themselves into a corner and then hiking employers’ national insurance contributions, an astonishingly stupid decision which harms wages and jobs....
Starmer’s aides are no such things. They are overwhelmingly mediocre, intellectually disinterested, on a personal level unpleasant, and defined by a hatred of the left and desire to score settle which did not define New Labour, which chose to largely exile the left from their thoughts altogether. They are middle managers who belong in a mid-brand clothing label. They are devoid of interesting ideas, and are driven by the same impulse that led them to do pretend conference speeches in front of bathroom mirrors when they were 13, where they borrowed Blair’s verbless sentences and power thumb - that is, an addiction to power for its own sake. They have no loyalty to anyone but themselves, which is why they are now publicly humiliating the man who made the extremely unfortunate mistake of doing everything they asked of him....
They have concluded that the real reason this has gone belly up is because Starmer isn’t really a true believer. Thus, they want to install the ultra-Blairite Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, in No. 10 instead. That he was nearly defeated from the left - his majority collapsed from 5,198 when Labour was smashed in 2019 to just 528 votes - in what was once a Tory constituency by a 23-year-old British-Palestinian wunderkind, Leanne Mohamad, is not something they’ve bothered to interrogate. Why? Because, again, they don’t see the left as legitimate political actors, and only respect and want to concede to political pressure from the right...'
https://www.owenjones.news/p/keir-starmer-own-aides-say-he-isnt
Never attribute to malice, that which might be otherwise explained by incompetence.
This is traitorous levels of national sabotage from Starmer.
Yes we saved X lives and Y serious injuries, but at the cost of Z cumulative hours of extra travel time and ABC pounds of economic activity.