They're needed because people are thought to be scared to get into trains without a human driver. Even though that's the safe way to travel.
It's also a warning to all those who think that people vote rationally.
Would you fly on a plane without pilots?
I presume you mean human pilots. Indeed I have - and went to sleep, too: it was a redeye from Vancouver to LHR. (There were human pilots on the plane, but they spent time in the passenger cabin...) And in Vancouver I rode the Skytrain, which only has a conductor. But all that was in my drinking days!!
You're talking about an autopilot: there are still pilots (or should have been!) at the controls in case anything went wrong.
One of the smoothest landings I have ever experienced (*) was an automated landing in fog at Singapore. But a failure of Autoland has already cause done fatal crash:
But trains are intrinsically easier to automate than either cars or planes, and should become more commonplace with the advent of modern signalling systems.
(*) I don't fly a great deal. The scariest was a landing at Iasi in Romania, which apparently has a short runway.
Mr Jessop, apologies for being a pedant on a first post but..... The accident you cite was not a failure of autoland. It was good old pilot error. The a/c had a known fault with the left hand rad alt which caused the a/t to retard for landing. Basically the a/c decided it was going to land and the crew (there were 3, senior training captain, low hours F/O under training and check pilot on the jump seat) were behind with their final checks and failed to notice.
There was an element of bad luck, but nothing that should have caused the crash and loss of life.
If the don't knows break like the rest of the electorate then 60:40 it is.
I think that the concept of momentum is an odd one with polling. This is not a vehicle with mass and velocity. If someone else changes their mind about an issue, then why should I?
The thoery is that for every one who's switched, there will be a couple more who are wavering and will come over in a month or two. The Tories are making the same calculation - they are up from 31ish to 34ish, therefore they will be on 40ish by next year.
Like you I'm not convinced politics always works that way.
Mr. Fett, I'd show you a picture but (as well as loathing them) I wouldn't want to scare you. Mwahahaha!
[Honestly, in the first few months at university three separate people, including the girl doing the photos for the ID cards, said I looked like a serial killer/psychopath].
Mr. Patrick, we're not seeking to make with Miliband! We're trying to select a leader, not a toy boy.
" try and distill exactly what's so off putting about the finger-wagging puritans of the Left. Never lose an opportunity to emphasise their dourness, their sanctimoniousness, their political correctness .
This is currently territory staked out by Nigel Farage, but the Tories need to reclaim it. (Steve Webb's comment that pensioners should be free to spend their savings on Lamborghinis if they wanted to was a perfect example of this.)
When Miliband unveils his various "vote-winning" policies in the run-up to the next election, the Conservatives need to tease out the puritanical fanaticism that will be lurking just beneath the surface "
Toby projecting his dislike of the liberal elite that he is so clearly a part of onto lots of people who really could not give a toss. "We're just like you, ordinary folk," say Dave and George as they play bingo and drink Guinness having just done their weekly Asda shop. It's a sure fire vote winner!!
It's the old Boeing versus Airbus control philosophies: Boeing prefers the pilot to be firmly in the loop, Airbus prefers the software to have ultimate control.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Think you underestimate how much of an asset those five are. Did you see Liz Kendall on QT? Not only did she look great (shouldn't matter, but does) she was on top of her arguments and showed a twinkle-eyed sense of humour when Phil Hammond very ungallantly kept getting her name wrong.
Minorly pleasurable Indy Yougov last night, all grist to the trend mill.
John Curtice scathing about the Dambusters:
Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon 2 hrs John Curtice in the Times - 'the no campaign...at risk of becoming an irritating background noise to which nobody listens anymore'
That is a very astute way of putting it. The pathetic BT "Project Fear" effort became "an irritating background noise" sometime last year. You can only cry wolf so many times before everybody stops listening.
The longer they carry on the fewer will listen.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
Mr. Fett, I'd show you a picture but (as well as loathing them) I wouldn't want to scare you. Mwahahaha!
[Honestly, in the first few months at university three separate people, including the girl doing the photos for the ID cards, said I looked like a serial killer/psychopath].
It's always the quiet ones. You have a fridge full of body parts, I'll wager. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!
Steve Webb will be remembered for his Lambourghini comment, but is not a Tory.
As the average pension pot is in the tens rather than hundreds of thousands, I suspect more likely to spend on a Honda Civic than a Lambo. That iseven before considering the getting in and out aged 65!
But the point is well made, Miliband and co do have a certain hair shirted puritanism about them. It does rather appeal to folk like me who have a rather Calvinist mindset, that everything worth doing should be painful and difficult.
The appeal of Puritanism may be difficult for some to understand, but it was very dominant in Northern Europe historically. The mindset of fundamentalist Islam is not very different and also proving quite popular. Cavaliers will never understand.
" try and distill exactly what's so off putting about the finger-wagging puritans of the Left. Never lose an opportunity to emphasise their dourness, their sanctimoniousness, their political correctness .
This is currently territory staked out by Nigel Farage, but the Tories need to reclaim it. (Steve Webb's comment that pensioners should be free to spend their savings on Lamborghinis if they wanted to was a perfect example of this.)
When Miliband unveils his various "vote-winning" policies in the run-up to the next election, the Conservatives need to tease out the puritanical fanaticism that will be lurking just beneath the surface "
Minorly pleasurable Indy Yougov last night, all grist to the trend mill.
John Curtice scathing about the Dambusters:
Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon 2 hrs John Curtice in the Times - 'the no campaign...at risk of becoming an irritating background noise to which nobody listens anymore'
That is a very astute way of putting it. The pathetic BT "Project Fear" effort became "an irritating background noise" sometime last year. You can only cry wolf so many times before everybody stops listening.
The longer they carry on the fewer will listen.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
I agree. If the Scots want a divorce it should be done as quickly as possible. And if they want one despite the gaping holes in the SNP's economic arguments, then clearly a divorce is the best thing for all concerned.
Mr. Dickson, many months to go until the vote. Neither side should be complacent. A flaring up of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis or similar event could have very significant implications.
I do fear that if Yes wins then the ramping up of division by the likes of Salmond will make the immediate bilateral relationship rather less cordial than would otherwise be the case.
People understimate the propensity of the Scottish electorate to ticket split between Scottish and General Elections. The Nats need that propensity to reduce, if they are to win most seats at a GE.
Quite. Hitherto SNP MPs have been swamped - inevitably - by the unionist parties at Westminster, so people tended to vote for the latter, if only to keep the Tories out: not a small factor in UK politics, as PBers comment almost daily.
However, the experience of the current Westminster term also seems important. If people think we are perhaps heading for another hung UK pmt, with a chance that the SNP, or more precisely a group of smaller parties including the SNP, could hold the balance of power, voting SNP becomes more attractive for those inclined that way and those who see others doing so. A decline in the attractiveness of Labour would also contribute to this. Far too early to say whether this is going to happen, but a possibility to bear in mind especially given recent polling.
Perhaps also true for PC?
That is quite independent (no pun intended) ofthe indy referendum result, except insofar as any resulting perceived increase in the SNP vote will contribute to make voting for them more attractive.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Will the public hold their noses and vote en masse for someone that they just don't rate?
1992 and Neil Kinnock shows that when push comes to shove, the voters will go for an underwhelming but safe-pair-of-hands Tory rather than an unlikeable Lefty.
And Kinnock at least had the power of rhetoric to call upon. Ed Miliband - not so much...
"Elect me - by the Power of Rubiks. Cubed!"
It is the sheer confidence of the Tories that I find interesting. You see it on here daily - if the polls tighten, it's crossover in x days. When they widen again, it's panic, blame the electorate for its stupidity and start murmuring among yourself about how to protect your assets from a Marxist government.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
The gap will widen, and narrow, and widen again over the next year, and all that matters is the actual vote. What is encouraging about the narrowings is the clarity with which they reveal that Miliband's political batterie de cuisine contains at most one instrument - a slight poll lead, when he has one - and that his party is fully aware of this.
Mr. Fett, I'd show you a picture but (as well as loathing them) I wouldn't want to scare you. Mwahahaha!
[Honestly, in the first few months at university three separate people, including the girl doing the photos for the ID cards, said I looked like a serial killer/psychopath].
Mr. Patrick, we're not seeking to make with Miliband! We're trying to select a leader, not a toy boy.
Toby Young does inadvertently reveal a very important point about Tories like him and the "lower orders": the belief that if the Tories can deliver cheap booze and fags and bingo they will be happy with their lot and less inclined to upset the establishment apple cart which delivers such privileges to Tories like Toby Young.
Think you underestimate how much of an asset those five are. Did you see Liz Kendall on QT? Not only did she look great (shouldn't matter, but does) she was on top of her arguments and showed a twinkle-eyed sense of humour when Phil Hammond very ungallantly kept getting her name wrong.
The odd favourable appearance on QT doesn't alter the core media narrative coming as it does from an MP who isn't famous in her own household let alone to Percy Punter.
Will Kendall be front and centre day in day out in the coming months ? - No. It will be the usual suspects and that doesn't bode well for Labour.
Will the public hold their noses and vote en masse for someone that they just don't rate?
1992 and Neil Kinnock shows that when push comes to shove, the voters will go for an underwhelming but safe-pair-of-hands Tory rather than an unlikeable Lefty.
And Kinnock at least had the power of rhetoric to call upon. Ed Miliband - not so much...
"Elect me - by the Power of Rubiks. Cubed!"
It is the sheer confidence of the Tories that I find interesting. You see it on here daily - if the polls tighten, it's crossover in x days. When they widen again, it's panic, blame the electorate for its stupidity and start murmuring among yourself about how to protect your assets from a Marxist government.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
The gap will widen, and narrow, and widen again over the next year, and all that matters is the actual vote. What is encouraging about the narrowings is the clarity with which they reveal that Miliband's political batterie de cuisine contains at most one instrument - a slight poll lead, when he has one - and that his party is fully aware of this.
Avery has been calling crossover for months, most famously for 24 December.
So far as I can see, Jacks ARSE and McARSE are very regular and consistent. Both have moved very little over the years. I put this down this down to plenty of BRAN* in his diet.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Dearie, dearie me Jack. You can maybe pull the wool over the eyes of a newbie, but puhrleeese, don't give us yer "17 points" guff.
You're talking about an autopilot: there are still pilots (or should have been!) at the controls in case anything went wrong.
One of the smoothest landings I have ever experienced (*) was an automated landing in fog at Singapore. But a failure of Autoland has already cause done fatal crash:
But trains are intrinsically easier to automate than either cars or planes, and should become more commonplace with the advent of modern signalling systems.
(*) I don't fly a great deal. The scariest was a landing at Iasi in Romania, which apparently has a short runway.
Mr Jessop, apologies for being a pedant on a first post but..... The accident you cite was not a failure of autoland. It was good old pilot error. The a/c had a known fault with the left hand rad alt which caused the a/t to retard for landing. Basically the a/c decided it was going to land and the crew (there were 3, senior training captain, low hours F/O under training and check pilot on the jump seat) were behind with their final checks and failed to notice.
There was an element of bad luck, but nothing that should have caused the crash and loss of life.
Edited for txt correction
In my defence, we were talking about removing pilots from planes and having fully automated systems. In this case, the automated system failed, and yet the pilots chose to use it. But the automated system failure was a major causal factor.
The plane would still have crashed if it had no pilots on board.
There's also a question as to whether too many automated systems can create problems for pilots. Not just in information overload, but in the fact they're sitting around not doing much, and are not fully aware of the plane's situation when the trouble starts. And does the usual metric of pilot competence - number of hours in the air - count when they're not doing the majority of the flying?
Minorly pleasurable Indy Yougov last night, all grist to the trend mill.
John Curtice scathing about the Dambusters:
Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon 2 hrs John Curtice in the Times - 'the no campaign...at risk of becoming an irritating background noise to which nobody listens anymore'
That is a very astute way of putting it. The pathetic BT "Project Fear" effort became "an irritating background noise" sometime last year. You can only cry wolf so many times before everybody stops listening.
The longer they carry on the fewer will listen.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
I agree. If the Scots want a divorce it should be done as quickly as possible. And if they want one despite the gaping holes in the SNP's economic arguments, then clearly a divorce is the best thing for all concerned.
- "gaping holes in economic arguments"
Err... have you seen Johann Lamont's arithmetic car crash? I've not stopped chuckling yet.
If the don't knows break like the rest of the electorate then 60:40 it is.
I think that the concept of momentum is an odd one with polling. This is not a vehicle with mass and velocity. If someone else changes their mind about an issue, then why should I?
The thoery is that for every one who's switched, there will be a couple more who are wavering and will come over in a month or two. The Tories are making the same calculation - they are up from 31ish to 34ish, therefore they will be on 40ish by next year.
Like you I'm not convinced politics always works that way.
I agree entirely about momentum - it's a metaphor that irritates me as well (though there is something like it in the way that people tend to vote for parties in FPTP only if they are seen as having a decent chance of winning in polls - imagine voting for UKIP if you had not seen the polls over the last year).
However, the expression that has been used by some I've seen elsewhere on the net is 'ratchet effect'. The logic seems to be from the fundamental asymmetry. Indy is new and unfamiliar so the default is to say one will vote for the same old status quo if asked e.g. by a pollster. But when one becomes more familiar with the arguments a proportion of the DKs and even noes go for Yes, and stay there once they have decided. So this gives a tendency for Yes to increase with time, especially as many folk ignore the question till nearer the time.
This is irrespective of all other factors (Mr Osborne, Mr Bowie, Ms Lamont ...) and was surely always going to happen given that asymmetry and the underlying reality that yes and no percentages were of the same order of magnitude and actually much closer, to within a factor of 2x or so (and now clearly much less). It's not like an election where we all know (or think we know) what the Tories and Labour are like, after all.
Whether this is the explanation for the actual trend I don't know, but the pattern we are seeing is exactly what I expected a year and more ago if the ratchet is working. Whether it s enough in conjunction or competition with other factors I don't know.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Dearie, dearie me Jack. You can maybe pull the wool over the eyes of a newbie, but puhrleeese, don't give us yer "17 points" guff.
Forgive me I rounded the numbers to the nearest half percentage. The lead is 16.8 points unless of course you believe "don't know" will be on the ballot paper.
Minorly pleasurable Indy Yougov last night, all grist to the trend mill.
John Curtice scathing about the Dambusters:
Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon 2 hrs John Curtice in the Times - 'the no campaign...at risk of becoming an irritating background noise to which nobody listens anymore'
That is a very astute way of putting it. The pathetic BT "Project Fear" effort became "an irritating background noise" sometime last year. You can only cry wolf so many times before everybody stops listening.
The longer they carry on the fewer will listen.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
I agree. If the Scots want a divorce it should be done as quickly as possible. And if they want one despite the gaping holes in the SNP's economic arguments, then clearly a divorce is the best thing for all concerned.
- "gaping holes in economic arguments"
Err... have you seen Johann Lamont's arithmetic car crash? I've not stopped chuckling yet.
People in glass houses should not chuck stones.
I have no idea what Lamont has said. However, that has no bearing on the complete lack of credibility there is in the economic, financial and monetary arguments for independence put forward by the SNP leadership. As I say, if Scottish voters do not have a problem with those gaping holes it means that they have decided that the Union has run its course.
"Ed Miliband must take into the election “a vision of a much more equal and sustainable society” said a letter by figures from across the Labour Party on Monday. But what does that mean? Sunny Hundal argues it's easier to unite Labour members on a vision of decentralisation and bold ideas than have agreement on what they mean in practice - so he's suggested 8 big ideas that a Miliband government could support".
Let go or lose? Labour can’t win unless it redistributes power
"We have, at last, a real battle within the Labour party, says Jon Wilson. It’s not between left and right. It’s about something far more important. It’s about the state of British politics, the nature of power in British society and, above all, whether Labour has any interest at all in winning the next election. Wilson says if Labour pursues the idea of ‘captur[ing] political control of the machinery of government’, it will be electoral suicide..."
Here Jon Wilson wants to give more power to the metropolitan areas where most of Labour's voters exist.
It's the old Boeing versus Airbus control philosophies: Boeing prefers the pilot to be firmly in the loop, Airbus prefers the software to have ultimate control.
On a Boeing 737 taking control authority from the pilot
Yes, it's a matter of degree. :-)
As an example, and AIUI, Airbus planes will not allow the pilot to perform high-g manoeuvres that will cause the plane structural damage - the computers will put the plane into the best possible attitude to fulfil the pilot's wishes without risking damage. Boeing lets the pilot overrule the computer - which may be useful when trying to avoid a mountain at the last minute, where limited damage to the plane is the least worst option.
Both these systems (pilot overruling computer, and computer overruling pilot) can prevent, and worsen, incidents.
Will the public hold their noses and vote en masse for someone that they just don't rate?
1992 and Neil Kinnock shows that when push comes to shove, the voters will go for an underwhelming but safe-pair-of-hands Tory rather than an unlikeable Lefty.
And Kinnock at least had the power of rhetoric to call upon. Ed Miliband - not so much...
"Elect me - by the Power of Rubiks. Cubed!"
It is the sheer confidence of the Tories that I find interesting. You see it on here daily - if the polls tighten, it's crossover in x days. When they widen again, it's panic, blame the electorate for its stupidity and start murmuring among yourself about how to protect your assets from a Marxist government.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
The gap will widen, and narrow, and widen again over the next year, and all that matters is the actual vote. What is encouraging about the narrowings is the clarity with which they reveal that Miliband's political batterie de cuisine contains at most one instrument - a slight poll lead, when he has one - and that his party is fully aware of this.
Avery has been calling crossover for months, most famously for 24 December.
Bobajobb became an intergalactic bounty hunter. Welcome Aboard! February 27 Comment
It's the old Boeing versus Airbus control philosophies: Boeing prefers the pilot to be firmly in the loop, Airbus prefers the software to have ultimate control.
On a Boeing 737 taking control authority from the pilot
Yes, it's a matter of degree. :-)
As an example, and AIUI, Airbus planes will not allow the pilot to perform high-g manoeuvres that will cause the plane structural damage - the computers will put the plane into the best possible attitude to fulfil the pilot's wishes without risking damage. Boeing lets the pilot overrule the computer - which may be useful when trying to avoid a mountain at the last minute, where limited damage to the plane is the least worst option.
Both these systems (pilot overruling computer, and computer overruling pilot) can prevent, and worsen, incidents.
Minorly pleasurable Indy Yougov last night, all grist to the trend mill.
John Curtice scathing about the Dambusters:
Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon 2 hrs John Curtice in the Times - 'the no campaign...at risk of becoming an irritating background noise to which nobody listens anymore'
That is a very astute way of putting it. The pathetic BT "Project Fear" effort became "an irritating background noise" sometime last year. You can only cry wolf so many times before everybody stops listening.
The longer they carry on the fewer will listen.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
I agree. If the Scots want a divorce it should be done as quickly as possible. And if they want one despite the gaping holes in the SNP's economic arguments, then clearly a divorce is the best thing for all concerned.
- "gaping holes in economic arguments"
Err... have you seen Johann Lamont's arithmetic car crash? I've not stopped chuckling yet.
People in glass houses should not chuck stones.
I have no idea what Lamont has said. However, that has no bearing on the complete lack of credibility there is in the economic, financial and monetary arguments for independence put forward by the SNP leadership. As I say, if Scottish voters do not have a problem with those gaping holes it means that they have decided that the Union has run its course.
Ho ho. A Labourite lecturing others on a "complete lack of credibility in the economic, financial and monetary arguments". You couldn't make it up.
Mr. Jessop, I hope you and your lady wife have a very nice time.
Thanks. Mrs J's rather stupendously overexcited. As, in fact, am I. We're just hoping we can go ...
The great thing is that we got the tickets early, and that the plebs have to wait a whole two days before they can buy tickets. We have two whole days in which to lord it over the massed hordes of the unwashed, knowing that we've got tickets and they have not.
In my defence, we were talking about removing pilots from planes and having fully automated systems. In this case, the automated system failed, and yet the pilots chose to use it. But the automated system failure was a major causal factor.
The plane would still have crashed if it had no pilots on board.
There's also a question as to whether too many automated systems can create problems for pilots. Not just in information overload, but in the fact they're sitting around not doing much, and are not fully aware of the plane's situation when the trouble starts. And does the usual metric of pilot competence - number of hours in the air - count when they're not doing the majority of the flying?
I respectfully disagree. In this instance the crew were aware of the fault. Each pilot has a rad alt and there is a pressure altimeter. The r/h rad alt and the PA were ok there was therefore ample serviceable equipment on the a/c for this accident to be prevented. In an automated cockpit I suggest one of the redundant pieces of equipment would have overridden the failed unit. The crew simply took their eye off the ball and let the a/c get to too slow.
On a wider point, the (in my opinion) over automation of the Airbus brand is unsettling. Using QF52 as an example, following an uncontained engine failure the crew were confronted with dozens of failure messages - many contradictory. I wonder how much the system contributed to the stress of the situation for the crew rather than assist?
People on here often make confident predictions of what the consequences of various actions will be, and it's always worth revisiting this when the consequences start to become clear. This is beginning to happen with Miliband's energy price freeze pledge.
Firstly, SSE has pledged to freeze energy prices until after the election. This is contrary to the confident assertion of many of Miliband's critics that the energy companies would increase their prices prior to the election in anticipation of the price freeze.
However:
"The company, the UK's second-largest energy provider, also announced it will reduce its investment in offshore windfarms and cut 500 jobs as part of a cost-cutting plan."
The prediction that Miliband's policy would deter (much-needed) investment in Britain's energy infrastructure is proving to be true. This will create problems for whichever party, or parties, form the next government.
Denmark - Home to what looks like one of the greenest, friendliest most liberal cities in the world full of bikes and cafes, Copenhagen. Terrible place to be a pig or a cow.
Think you underestimate how much of an asset those five are. Did you see Liz Kendall on QT? Not only did she look great (shouldn't matter, but does) she was on top of her arguments and showed a twinkle-eyed sense of humour when Phil Hammond very ungallantly kept getting her name wrong.
The odd favourable appearance on QT doesn't alter the core media narrative coming as it does from an MP who isn't famous in her own household let alone to Percy Punter.
Will Kendall be front and centre day in day out in the coming months ? - No. It will be the usual suspects and that doesn't bode well for Labour.
Stella Creasy is a perfect example of a leftie in London.
Brought up in Manchester, then Colchester, now buzzes about at the "vibrant diverse " community of Walthamstow, in the way that only someone who wasn't brought up in Walthamstow, hasn't seen friends and family move away to be replaced by waves of immigrants, and doesn't think of it as "home" can.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Dearie, dearie me Jack. You can maybe pull the wool over the eyes of a newbie, but puhrleeese, don't give us yer "17 points" guff.
Forgive me I rounded the numbers to the nearest half percentage. The lead is 16.8 points unless of course you believe "don't know" will be on the ballot paper.
Mr. Pulpstar, 'leading' is debatable. Helmut Marko has great sway, and Vettel ignored a direct team order, and suffered no punishment, last year (the multi-21 issue).
He's getting something of a record of playing politics and attempting to use the media to get rules changed in order to advantage Red Bull, even if it screws over the sport in general. To a greater or lesser extent all dominant teams have done this, but the fuel sensor issue was clearly a decision to play chicken with the FIA. The sensor isn't as great as it should be for technical reasons and all teams agreed before the race to use it and follow FIA guidance because of those reasons. Red Bull decided to ignore a direct instruction from the FIA during the race to suit themselves, and then kicked up a fuss afterwards.
The tyre issue last year is somewhat comparable, although there were also genuine safety concerns. Nevertheless, Red Bull went from contenders to total dominance (9 straight wins for Vettel) after the tyres were changed.
They also, I believe, had the camera mounted in an illegal position, but this has not been deemed serious enough for a penalty.
Horner comes across as a political creature, not a racing one.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Dearie, dearie me Jack. You can maybe pull the wool over the eyes of a newbie, but puhrleeese, don't give us yer "17 points" guff.
Forgive me I rounded the numbers to the nearest half percentage. The lead is 16.8 points unless of course you believe "don't know" will be on the ballot paper.
Dearie, dearie me. What an amateur.
Well indeed.
Just think how insufferably accurate I'd be if I had to make a living out it !!
Minorly pleasurable Indy Yougov last night, all grist to the trend mill.
John Curtice scathing about the Dambusters:
Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon 2 hrs John Curtice in the Times - 'the no campaign...at risk of becoming an irritating background noise to which nobody listens anymore'
That is a very astute way of putting it. The pathetic BT "Project Fear" effort became "an irritating background noise" sometime last year. You can only cry wolf so many times before everybody stops listening.
The longer they carry on the fewer will listen.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
I agree. If the Scots want a divorce it should be done as quickly as possible. And if they want one despite the gaping holes in the SNP's economic arguments, then clearly a divorce is the best thing for all concerned.
- "gaping holes in economic arguments"
Err... have you seen Johann Lamont's arithmetic car crash? I've not stopped chuckling yet.
As I said the other day, I'll just close my eyes and listen. Given our seats, we might not get a good view anyway. ;-)
But the promotional picture released for the tour shows her in rather a better light, if half-drowned. She is in her fifties. But if her recent albums are anything to go by, then her voice is still superb. And that's the reason we go to concerts... right?
I've just thought of a brilliant Internet scam: wait for an event that loads of people want to see: for instance a reunion concert of the remaining Beatles. Wait for the news to be released, and then create a copy of the event coordinators website. Then send an email out to people (preferably from a fan's mailing list) stating that you have the chance to get tickets early.
Create a hype for a couple of days, and then scrape up all the credit card details.
Minorly pleasurable Indy Yougov last night, all grist to the trend mill.
John Curtice scathing about the Dambusters:
Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon 2 hrs John Curtice in the Times - 'the no campaign...at risk of becoming an irritating background noise to which nobody listens anymore'
That is a very astute way of putting it. The pathetic BT "Project Fear" effort became "an irritating background noise" sometime last year. You can only cry wolf so many times before everybody stops listening.
The longer they carry on the fewer will listen.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
I agree. If the Scots want a divorce it should be done as quickly as possible. And if they want one despite the gaping holes in the SNP's economic arguments, then clearly a divorce is the best thing for all concerned.
- "gaping holes in economic arguments"
Err... have you seen Johann Lamont's arithmetic car crash? I've not stopped chuckling yet.
People in glass houses should not chuck stones.
I have no idea what Lamont has said. However, that has no bearing on the complete lack of credibility there is in the economic, financial and monetary arguments for independence put forward by the SNP leadership. As I say, if Scottish voters do not have a problem with those gaping holes it means that they have decided that the Union has run its course.
Ho ho. A Labourite lecturing others on a "complete lack of credibility in the economic, financial and monetary arguments". You couldn't make it up.
No lecture Stuart. Just a statement of fact. However, I do understand that for a Scottish nationalist such as yourself, the economic, monetary and fiscal arguments are irrelevant. You want an independent Scotland, full stop; thus, for you, whatever happens post-Yes will be better than the way things are now or could ever be within the Union.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Dearie, dearie me Jack. You can maybe pull the wool over the eyes of a newbie, but puhrleeese, don't give us yer "17 points" guff.
Hardly a newbie Mr Dickson. Been lurking for years! I go by the old adage though, better to let people think I'm stupid than open my gob and prove it!!
@Isam doesn't realise that E17 is a honeypot for middle class young families of all colours and has among the fastest growing house prices in London and a rapidly growing cultural and gastronomic scene. He prefers Hornchurch.
I respectfully disagree. In this instance the crew were aware of the fault. Each pilot has a rad alt and there is a pressure altimeter. The r/h rad alt and the PA were ok there was therefore ample serviceable equipment on the a/c for this accident to be prevented. In an automated cockpit I suggest one of the redundant pieces of equipment would have overridden the failed unit. The crew simply took their eye off the ball and let the a/c get to too slow.
On a wider point, the (in my opinion) over automation of the Airbus brand is unsettling. Using QF52 as an example, following an uncontained engine failure the crew were confronted with dozens of failure messages - many contradictory. I wonder how much the system contributed to the stress of the situation for the crew rather than assist?
All good points. But the problem with relying on redundant pieces of equipment is that they can go wrong as well and provide contradictory information. Computers can only act on information, and it might not be able to tell which had failed. GIGO rules.
Hence we could have a situation where the plane thinks it is either 500 feet from the ground, or 100, and not know which to choose. Having a pilot with Mk 1 eyeballs is a good redundant system to have. ;-)
The QF52 point is particularly well made, and I hope Airbus, Boeing and operators will learn from it.
As someone with knowledge of airlines, any thoughts on flight 570? Does the idea of a plane load of asphixiated passengers and crew flying on autopilot have any possibility?
With the plane seemingly deep under the Southern Ocean we may never know.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Dearie, dearie me Jack. You can maybe pull the wool over the eyes of a newbie, but puhrleeese, don't give us yer "17 points" guff.
Hardly a newbie Mr Dickson. Been lurking for years! I go by the old adage though, better to let people think I'm stupid than open my gob and prove it!!
@Isam doesn't realise that E17 is a honeypot for middle class young families of all colours and has among the fastest growing house prices in London and a rapidly growing cultural and gastronomic scene. He prefers Hornchurch.
The Victoria Line. It's great. Lots of our younger employees live in Walthamstow. Some are brown-skinned, I fear, but others are white-skinned.
I'll say it again, The Indy ref is going to be close, only the heir to Kingdom of Idiots thinks No is nailed on to win.
Yes is closing the gender gap, the childcare policy is proving popular, and the gap between those who think an Independent Scotland will be worse off is narrowing.
In this month’s Economist/Ipsos MORI March Issues Index, 36% of the public mention the economy amongst the most important issues facing Britain – a fall of three percentage points since last month, and the lowest percentage to do so since June 2008, as concern was increasing as a result of the financial crisis.
I'll say it again, The Indy ref is going to be close, only the heir to Kingdom of Idiots thinks No is nailed on to win.
Yes is closing the gender gap, the childcare policy is proving popular, and the gap between those who think an Independent Scotland will be worse off is narrowing.
This PB Romney is now calling it for Yes! The Union has run its course.
All good points. But the problem with relying on redundant pieces of equipment is that they can go wrong as well and provide contradictory information. Computers can only act on information, and it might not be able to tell which had failed. GIGO rules.
Hence we could have a situation where the plane thinks it is either 500 feet from the ground, or 100, and not know which to choose. Having a pilot with Mk 1 eyeballs is a good redundant system to have. ;-)
The QF52 point is particularly well made, and I hope Airbus, Boeing and operators will learn from it.
Edit: and welcome to PB!
True enough. I for one would certainly not fly on a totally automated aircraft without the back up of a pilots brain to potentially get the plane out of the merde using an unconventional technique or just plain, good old fashioned guts!
And thank you, too kind. Hope you and Mrs J have a wonderful time at the KB concert...
On topic - the timescale of that graph is to be noted - just three weeks. I'm not sure, therefore, that it tells us anything comparable to Ed Miliband's long-term poor ratings.
I find it somewhat hard to believe that people really had changed their views of the relative merits of Callaghan and Thatcher so much in such a short time (especially as they went on to elect Thatcher in the ballot box). It's impossible now to know, but I wonder if the significance of the change was perhaps a sort of valedictory thank you to Callaghan for trying? He was quite a popular figure, and even his political opponents didn't doubt his decency and the sincerity of his attempts to sort out the mess, feeble though they were.
Stella Creasy is a perfect example of a leftie in London.
Brought up in Manchester, then Colchester, now buzzes about at the "vibrant diverse " community of Walthamstow, in the way that only someone who wasn't brought up in Walthamstow, hasn't seen friends and family move away to be replaced by waves of immigrants, and doesn't think of it as "home" can.
It's actually an example of quite a typical Brit nowadays. People who grow up in one place and stay there throughout their lives are a minority.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
There have been quite a few on this site predicting/hoping for crossover in the imminent future, none of which materialised. I'm familiar with the "election campaign will sort it out" theory. Been there, got the T-shirt. It doesn't usually work.
Stripping out the "don't knows" from the overnight YouGov Independence Referendum poll gives us :
YES 41.5% .. NO 58.5%
Tick tock ....
' ...if we take the (Yougov) headline numbers at face value, the gap has literally halved over the last seven months, with another six months still to go.'
Tick, and indeed tock.
Trend is only Jack's friend if the trend is to Con. The trend to Yes can be safely ignored in Jack World. Long may that continue.
Far from ignoring the trend my McARSE noted it on 18 Mar.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
Dearie, dearie me Jack. You can maybe pull the wool over the eyes of a newbie, but puhrleeese, don't give us yer "17 points" guff.
Hardly a newbie Mr Dickson. Been lurking for years! I go by the old adage though, better to let people think I'm stupid than open my gob and prove it!!
That makes you a heck of a lot wiser than most PBers.
They have a duty to point out the complete lack of credibility in what the SNP is saying. But whether Scottish voters want to hear this is another thing entirely. If they do not - and it is certainly beginning to look that way - it suggests to me that the Union has run its natural course rather than that BT have played it all horribly wrong.
That the Union had "run its natural course" was obvious long ago. Nothing the Unionist parties can do will alter that fact. The only thing they can perhaps affect now is the date of the coming dissolution. It would be better for all concerned if it was sooner rather than later.
I agree. If the Scots want a divorce it should be done as quickly as possible. And if they want one despite the gaping holes in the SNP's economic arguments, then clearly a divorce is the best thing for all concerned.
- "gaping holes in economic arguments"
Err... have you seen Johann Lamont's arithmetic car crash? I've not stopped chuckling yet.
People in glass houses should not chuck stones.
I have no idea what Lamont has said. However, that has no bearing on the complete lack of credibility there is in the economic, financial and monetary arguments for independence put forward by the SNP leadership. As I say, if Scottish voters do not have a problem with those gaping holes it means that they have decided that the Union has run its course.
Ho ho. A Labourite lecturing others on a "complete lack of credibility in the economic, financial and monetary arguments". You couldn't make it up.
No lecture Stuart. Just a statement of fact. However, I do understand that for a Scottish nationalist such as yourself, the economic, monetary and fiscal arguments are irrelevant. You want an independent Scotland, full stop; thus, for you, whatever happens post-Yes will be better than the way things are now or could ever be within the Union.
Indeed. Independence has been an unmitigated disaster for our neighbours Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Ireland. They are all crippled by chronic poverty and they all want to join the glorious Yoonyon so that they can benefit from the BritNats' benevolence.
Even the USA and Canada will be wanting back in soon, so terrific is the Yoonyon.
It is true enough. I have only been in Leicester 20 years so I do not miss what I do not know of the old Leicester.
But what is true of the professional class is much less true of others. A few weeks ago I was talking to one of our receptionists about visiting my brother in London. I could have been talking of outer Monglolia. She had never been there despite it being a little over an hour by train. Those of us who flit around the world do not recognise that most peoples horizons are much closer. The flipside is that they tend to be much more attached to a place than we rootless cosmopolitans.
Stella Creasy is a perfect example of a leftie in London.
Brought up in Manchester, then Colchester, now buzzes about at the "vibrant diverse " community of Walthamstow, in the way that only someone who wasn't brought up in Walthamstow, hasn't seen friends and family move away to be replaced by waves of immigrants, and doesn't think of it as "home" can.
It's actually an example of quite a typical Brit nowadays. People who grow up in one place and stay there throughout their lives are a minority.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
There have been quite a few on this site predicting/hoping for crossover in the imminent future, none of which materialised. I'm familiar with the "election campaign will sort it out" theory. Been there, got the T-shirt. It doesn't usually work.
As someone with knowledge of airlines, any thoughts on flight 570? Does the idea of a plane load of asphixiated passengers and crew flying on autopilot have any possibility?
With the plane seemingly deep under the Southern Ocean we may never know.
Morning Dr Fox
Frankly no. Radio 4 had a talking head on yesterday espousing this theory or something similar. He was talking about one of the crew on a suicide mission, locking his co-pilot out then climbing to over FL400 then turning off the air con blah blah blah... If a pilot was going to take a plane down surely he would just put a boot on the column and dive it to the ocean? Quick, easy and no chance of being stopped.
The hypoxia theory doesn't explain loss of transponder etc., Also, the a/c wouldn't change course/alter altitude. It would just continue on its merry way cf Helios 522.
My gut instinct is hijack. The SeanT part of my brain says the a/c is sitting on an island somewhere with the valuable (if there was any) cargo gone, along with the complicit crew. The rational part though suspects a hostile takeover (hence the transponder being switched off so the crew couldn't transmit 7500), with an attempt made to fly to Oz for asylum reasons. Sadly the attempt was botched somewhere off Perth.
Indeed. Independence has been an unmitigated disaster for our neighbours Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Ireland.
Otoh, an Indy Scotland may descend into a frenzy of zoo-icides à la Denmark. 'Pandas? Pfft, you've done yer job of humiliating Scottish Tories. Pass me ma revolver.'
Very odd article from YouGov about British attitudes towards the Russian oligarchs. Effectively saying there is little public appetite for a freeze on their assests and property. Is that really what their findings show? Let's analyse it.
32% support freezing the assets and property of Russian oligarchs living in Britain. 33% oppose such measures and 35% didn't know. That doesn't suggest little appetite to me. And let's not forget we aren't talking about oligarchs who are necessarily close to Putin. It is ANY Russian oligarch.
32% isn't massive but it's far higher than the % that will vote for Tory or Labour at the next election. Yougov tends to ignore the don't knows from its political polling, so they might as well open all their polls - even the ones with Lab/Tory over 40% with 'there is little public appetite'.
If we exclude the don't knows from the poll:
49% back asset freezes against oligarchs 51% oppose them
Given we are a country in which you are innocent until proven guilty, these are remarkable findings. Indeed I would like to see a poll done that asked people how they felt if said oligarchs were believed to be close to Putin. It would surely show majority approval for freezes amongst those expressing a view. And yet Yougov interprets this as 'little appetite'.
Against specific people, 26% support freezing Abramovich's assests and 36% oppose. That's 42% in favour, 58% against for those expressing an opinion. And that's without knowing whether he is close to Putin. Similar figures for Arsenal owner Usmanov. There's clearly widespread national concern about the oligarchs though perhaps a London based polling firm like Yougov finds it hard to get it's head around this stuff. Why are they trying to defend Abramovich Britain? Do they have a vested interest here?
Miliband's poor best PM ratings seem to be because of a large number of don't know's.
This is very different to people choosing Cameron over him.
Is that really true? If so, you make an important point.
It was something I remember seeing in some recent YouGov polls, when I was looking for best Chancellor figures. The tracker is here.
On the question "Which of these would make the best Prime Minister?" Cameron leads Miliband by 34% to 22%. Clegg is on 6% and there are 37% don't knows.
The proportion of people who say Cameron would make the best Prime Minister tends to be a smidgen above their headline poll rating. Miliband's is clearly well below. I don't interpret this to mean that there are many people who say they will vote Labour who prefer Cameron as PM to Miliband, but that there are many voters who remain to be convinced about Miliband.
The question is still open, but I would say that not enough people believe the current Prime Minister would be the best to give that Prime Minister a majority following the next election.
On your question about how this relates to the 2011 Holyrood elections what I would say is that while I do not know Alex Salmond and I cannot claim to be a friend of Alex Salmond, I do know that Cameron is no Alex Salmond.
I'll say it again, The Indy ref is going to be close, only the heir to Kingdom of Idiots thinks No is nailed on to win.
Yes is closing the gender gap, the childcare policy is proving popular, and the gap between those who think an Independent Scotland will be worse off is narrowing.
This PB Romney is now calling it for Yes! The Union has run its course.
Given the result last night and the fact Citeh play Arsenal on Saturday night, my Spurs to get a Champs League bet is looking good.
For me the most important point arising from the Budget was John McTernan's comment that "people can't be trusted to spend their own money sensibly". That encapsulates everything that is wrong with Labour's view of us.
If Labour can't or won't trust us, why the hell do they think that I should trust them with power?
Stella Creasy is a perfect example of a leftie in London.
Brought up in Manchester, then Colchester, now buzzes about at the "vibrant diverse " community of Walthamstow, in the way that only someone who wasn't brought up in Walthamstow, hasn't seen friends and family move away to be replaced by waves of immigrants, and doesn't think of it as "home" can.
It's actually an example of quite a typical Brit nowadays. People who grow up in one place and stay there throughout their lives are a minority.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
There have been quite a few on this site predicting/hoping for crossover in the imminent future, none of which materialised. I'm familiar with the "election campaign will sort it out" theory. Been there, got the T-shirt. It doesn't usually work.
Its not true of many working class and poor people, but those aren't important to Labour politicians anymore are they?
@Isam doesn't realise that E17 is a honeypot for middle class young families of all colours and has among the fastest growing house prices in London and a rapidly growing cultural and gastronomic scene. He prefers Hornchurch.
The Victoria Line. It's great. Lots of our younger employees live in Walthamstow. Some are brown-skinned, I fear, but others are white-skinned.
Is there any need for that pathetic insinuation? If you think of immigrants as people of different coloured skin you are showing your own prejudice and that you are way out of touch
Indeed. Independence has been an unmitigated disaster for our neighbours Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Ireland.
Otoh, an Indy Scotland may descend into a frenzy of zoo-icides à la Denmark. 'Pandas? Pfft, you've done yer job of humiliating Scottish Tories. Pass me ma revolver.'
Scottish Tories. Gotta love them. The only political party capable of getting duffed up by a couple of pandas.
Indeed. Independence has been an unmitigated disaster for our neighbours Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Ireland.
Otoh, an Indy Scotland may descend into a frenzy of zoo-icides à la Denmark. 'Pandas? Pfft, you've done yer job of humiliating Scottish Tories. Pass me ma revolver.'
The same pandas the same Tories and[edit: /or] their chums told us the UK [sic] wouldn't let us keep in an indy Scotland?
It is true enough. I have only been in Leicester 20 years so I do not miss what I do not know of the old Leicester.
But what is true of the professional class is much less true of others. A few weeks ago I was talking to one of our receptionists about visiting my brother in London. I could have been talking of outer Monglolia. She had never been there despite it being a little over an hour by train. Those of us who flit around the world do not recognise that most peoples horizons are much closer. The flipside is that they tend to be much more attached to a place than we rootless cosmopolitans.
Stella Creasy is a perfect example of a leftie in London.
Brought up in Manchester, then Colchester, now buzzes about at the "vibrant diverse " community of Walthamstow, in the way that only someone who wasn't brought up in Walthamstow, hasn't seen friends and family move away to be replaced by waves of immigrants, and doesn't think of it as "home" can.
It's actually an example of quite a typical Brit nowadays. People who grow up in one place and stay there throughout their lives are a minority.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
There have been quite a few on this site predicting/hoping for crossover in the imminent future, none of which materialised. I'm familiar with the "election campaign will sort it out" theory. Been there, got the T-shirt. It doesn't usually work.
I'll say it again, The Indy ref is going to be close, only the heir to Kingdom of Idiots thinks No is nailed on to win.
Yes is closing the gender gap, the childcare policy is proving popular, and the gap between those who think an Independent Scotland will be worse off is narrowing.
This PB Romney is now calling it for Yes! The Union has run its course.
Given the result last night and the fact Citeh play Arsenal on Saturday night, my Spurs to get a Champs League bet is looking good.
I'll say it again, The Indy ref is going to be close, only the heir to Kingdom of Idiots thinks No is nailed on to win.
Yes is closing the gender gap, the childcare policy is proving popular, and the gap between those who think an Independent Scotland will be worse off is narrowing.
I will say it again , Yes is toast and has been from the start . There has been no closing of the gap , views are entrenched and the only movements you see are MofE and methodology changes from poll to poll and this will remain the case for the next 6 months . I know you do not like that there is no exciting story to tell about a close race hence the almost complete ignoring of yesterday's TNS-BMRB poll which had the Yes % down 1 , in reality no change other than MofE .
Surely the loser's score in the "would make the best PM" stakes simply tracks the opposition's core vote?
29% or so of the electorate voted for Gordon Brown to stay in office at the last election. The idea that as many people as that thought he was fit to be PM is just mind-boggling. If you put Gordon Brown and King bleedin' Solomon up against each other in a "who'd make the bets PM" poll I reckon 29% would say Solomon was less suited to the role than Gordon Brown.
Very odd article from YouGov about British attitudes towards the Russian oligarchs. Effectively saying there is little public appetite for a freeze on their assests and property. Is that really what their findings show? Let's analyse it.
32% support freezing the assets and property of Russian oligarchs living in Britain. 33% oppose such measures and 35% didn't know. That doesn't suggest little appetite to me. And let's not forget we aren't talking about oligarchs who are necessarily close to Putin. It is ANY Russian oligarch.
32% isn't massive but it's far higher than the % that will vote for Tory or Labour at the next election. Yougov tends to ignore the don't knows from its political polling, so they might as well open all their polls - even the ones with Lab/Tory over 40% with 'there is little public appetite'.
If we exclude the don't knows from the poll:
49% back asset freezes against oligarchs 51% oppose them
Given we are a country in which you are innocent until proven guilty, these are remarkable findings. Indeed I would like to see a poll done that asked people how they felt if said oligarchs were believed to be close to Putin. It would surely show majority approval for freezes amongst those expressing a view. And yet Yougov interprets this as 'little appetite'.
Against specific people, 26% support freezing Abramovich's assests and 36% oppose. That's 42% in favour, 58% against for those expressing an opinion. And that's without knowing whether he is close to Putin. Similar figures for Arsenal owner Usmanov. There's clearly widespread national concern about the oligarchs though perhaps a London based polling firm like Yougov finds it hard to get it's head around this stuff. Why are they trying to defend Abramovich Britain? Do they have a vested interest here?
As with a lot of these 'obscure question ' polls the first time many of the respondents will have thought about the question will be when they are asked it in the survey . People who then offer an opinion will mainly do so for the sake of it and not really care either way . You need a very large percentage for action in these kind of surveys to be able to say the GBP want it done
Many pressure groups use polls like this to indicate a massive force to change something when there isn't really. Most people are fussed about very little beyond family and politics that affect them directly
I'll say it again, The Indy ref is going to be close, only the heir to Kingdom of Idiots thinks No is nailed on to win.
Yes is closing the gender gap, the childcare policy is proving popular, and the gap between those who think an Independent Scotland will be worse off is narrowing.
This PB Romney is now calling it for Yes! The Union has run its course.
Given the result last night and the fact Citeh play Arsenal on Saturday night, my Spurs to get a Champs League bet is looking good.
It is true enough. I have only been in Leicester 20 years so I do not miss what I do not know of the old Leicester.
But what is true of the professional class is much less true of others. A few weeks ago I was talking to one of our receptionists about visiting my brother in London. I could have been talking of outer Monglolia. She had never been there despite it being a little over an hour by train. Those of us who flit around the world do not recognise that most peoples horizons are much closer. The flipside is that they tend to be much more attached to a place than we rootless cosmopolitans.
Stella Creasy is a perfect example of a leftie in London.
Brought up in Manchester, then Colchester, now buzzes about at the "vibrant diverse " community of Walthamstow, in the way that only someone who wasn't brought up in Walthamstow, hasn't seen friends and family move away to be replaced by waves of immigrants, and doesn't think of it as "home" can.
It's actually an example of quite a typical Brit nowadays. People who grow up in one place and stay there throughout their lives are a minority.
Show us a post saying "it's crossover in x days". The only people who go on about crossover are wannabe leftie comics, as far as I can see.
There have been quite a few on this site predicting/hoping for crossover in the imminent future, none of which materialised. I'm familiar with the "election campaign will sort it out" theory. Been there, got the T-shirt. It doesn't usually work.
I think that's a major problem with PB: there are very few 'ordinary' posters on here. The site veers towards the highly intelligent, better-off and highly-mobile type of person, whatever their political persuasion.
There are exceptions to all of the above, of course. ;-)
Thus we talk about the best restaurants in Nice, ancient wars, the law and all sorts of other highfalutin things.
One idiot even witters endlessly on about HS2 and engineering.
Few of us are the 'common man', if such a thing even exists.
Comments
There was an element of bad luck, but nothing that should have caused the crash and loss of life.
Edited for txt correction
Like you I'm not convinced politics always works that way.
[Honestly, in the first few months at university three separate people, including the girl doing the photos for the ID cards, said I looked like a serial killer/psychopath].
Mr. Patrick, we're not seeking to make with Miliband! We're trying to select a leader, not a toy boy.
Think you underestimate how much of an asset those five are. Did you see Liz Kendall on QT? Not only did she look great (shouldn't matter, but does) she was on top of her arguments and showed a twinkle-eyed sense of humour when Phil Hammond very ungallantly kept getting her name wrong.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2564647/Defence-Secretary-Philip-Hammond-TWICE-mistakes-Labours-Liz-Kendall-Rachel-Reeves-Question-Time.html
Restful after the exertions of yesterday would be a sound prognosis but also mindful of the substantial work ahead in the coming 14 months.
As the average pension pot is in the tens rather than hundreds of thousands, I suspect more likely to spend on a Honda Civic than a Lambo. That iseven before considering the getting in and out aged 65!
But the point is well made, Miliband and co do have a certain hair shirted puritanism about them. It does rather appeal to folk like me who have a rather Calvinist mindset, that everything worth doing should be painful and difficult.
The appeal of Puritanism may be difficult for some to understand, but it was very dominant in Northern Europe historically. The mindset of fundamentalist Islam is not very different and also proving quite popular. Cavaliers will never understand.
I do fear that if Yes wins then the ramping up of division by the likes of Salmond will make the immediate bilateral relationship rather less cordial than would otherwise be the case.
Most kind of you to enquire.
Restful after the exertions of yesterday would be a sound prognosis but also mindful of the substantial work ahead in the coming 14 months.
Quite. I'd expect some chaffing along the way!
However, the experience of the current Westminster term also seems important. If people think we are perhaps heading for another hung UK pmt, with a chance that the SNP, or more precisely a group of smaller parties including the SNP, could hold the balance of power, voting SNP becomes more attractive for those inclined that way and those who see others doing so. A decline in the attractiveness of Labour would also contribute to this. Far too early to say whether this is going to happen, but a possibility to bear in mind especially given recent polling.
Perhaps also true for PC?
That is quite independent (no pun intended) ofthe indy referendum result, except insofar as any resulting perceived increase in the SNP vote will contribute to make voting for them more attractive.
However as I indicated to Div if you're happy to be trailing by 17 points then let me share your joy and let it be unbounded.
The gap will widen, and narrow, and widen again over the next year, and all that matters is the actual vote. What is encouraging about the narrowings is the clarity with which they reveal that Miliband's political batterie de cuisine contains at most one instrument - a slight poll lead, when he has one - and that his party is fully aware of this.
Will Kendall be front and centre day in day out in the coming months ? - No. It will be the usual suspects and that doesn't bode well for Labour.
*BRAN: British Regal Aristocratic Nous.
The plane would still have crashed if it had no pilots on board.
There's also a question as to whether too many automated systems can create problems for pilots. Not just in information overload, but in the fact they're sitting around not doing much, and are not fully aware of the plane's situation when the trouble starts. And does the usual metric of pilot competence - number of hours in the air - count when they're not doing the majority of the flying?
Err... have you seen Johann Lamont's arithmetic car crash? I've not stopped chuckling yet.
People in glass houses should not chuck stones.
However, the expression that has been used by some I've seen elsewhere on the net is 'ratchet effect'. The logic seems to be from the fundamental asymmetry. Indy is new and unfamiliar so the default is to say one will vote for the same old status quo if asked e.g. by a pollster. But when one becomes more familiar with the arguments a proportion of the DKs and even noes go for Yes, and stay there once they have decided. So this gives a tendency for Yes to increase with time, especially as many folk ignore the question till nearer the time.
This is irrespective of all other factors (Mr Osborne, Mr Bowie, Ms Lamont ...) and was surely always going to happen given that asymmetry and the underlying reality that yes and no percentages were of the same order of magnitude and actually much closer, to within a factor of 2x or so (and now clearly much less). It's not like an election where we all know (or think we know) what the Tories and Labour are like, after all.
Whether this is the explanation for the actual trend I don't know, but the pattern we are seeing is exactly what I expected a year and more ago if the ratchet is working. Whether it s enough in conjunction or competition with other factors I don't know.
8 Big Ideas for a Miliband Government
"Ed Miliband must take into the election “a vision of a much more equal and sustainable society” said a letter by figures from across the Labour Party on Monday. But what does that mean? Sunny Hundal argues it's easier to unite Labour members on a vision of decentralisation and bold ideas than have agreement on what they mean in practice - so he's suggested 8 big ideas that a Miliband government could support".
Let go or lose? Labour can’t win unless it redistributes power
"We have, at last, a real battle within the Labour party, says Jon Wilson. It’s not between left and right. It’s about something far more important. It’s about the state of British politics, the nature of power in British society and, above all, whether Labour has any interest at all in winning the next election. Wilson says if Labour pursues the idea of ‘captur[ing] political control of the machinery of government’, it will be electoral suicide..."
Here Jon Wilson wants to give more power to the metropolitan areas where most of Labour's voters exist.
As an example, and AIUI, Airbus planes will not allow the pilot to perform high-g manoeuvres that will cause the plane structural damage - the computers will put the plane into the best possible attitude to fulfil the pilot's wishes without risking damage. Boeing lets the pilot overrule the computer - which may be useful when trying to avoid a mountain at the last minute, where limited damage to the plane is the least worst option.
Both these systems (pilot overruling computer, and computer overruling pilot) can prevent, and worsen, incidents.
Edit: this is useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_control_modes_(electronic)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26734377
WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!
We're going to see Kate's Bush! Ahem. I mean we're going to see Kate Bush!
WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!
Not the best seats, but still:
WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26729567
Welcome Aboard!
February 27 Comment
And next year they really need to get some more pots on the engine !
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/kate-bush-warns-everyone-she-now-looks-like-lemmy-2014032184900
The great thing is that we got the tickets early, and that the plebs have to wait a whole two days before they can buy tickets. We have two whole days in which to lord it over the massed hordes of the unwashed, knowing that we've got tickets and they have not.
Hahahahahaha. And all that. ;-)
In my defence, we were talking about removing pilots from planes and having fully automated systems. In this case, the automated system failed, and yet the pilots chose to use it. But the automated system failure was a major causal factor.
The plane would still have crashed if it had no pilots on board.
There's also a question as to whether too many automated systems can create problems for pilots. Not just in information overload, but in the fact they're sitting around not doing much, and are not fully aware of the plane's situation when the trouble starts. And does the usual metric of pilot competence - number of hours in the air - count when they're not doing the majority of the flying?
I respectfully disagree. In this instance the crew were aware of the fault. Each pilot has a rad alt and there is a pressure altimeter. The r/h rad alt and the PA were ok there was therefore ample serviceable equipment on the a/c for this accident to be prevented. In an automated cockpit I suggest one of the redundant pieces of equipment would have overridden the failed unit. The crew simply took their eye off the ball and let the a/c get to too slow.
On a wider point, the (in my opinion) over automation of the Airbus brand is unsettling. Using QF52 as an example, following an uncontained engine failure the crew were confronted with dozens of failure messages - many contradictory. I wonder how much the system contributed to the stress of the situation for the crew rather than assist?
Firstly, SSE has pledged to freeze energy prices until after the election. This is contrary to the confident assertion of many of Miliband's critics that the energy companies would increase their prices prior to the election in anticipation of the price freeze.
However:The prediction that Miliband's policy would deter (much-needed) investment in Britain's energy infrastructure is proving to be true. This will create problems for whichever party, or parties, form the next government.
Brought up in Manchester, then Colchester, now buzzes about at the "vibrant diverse " community of Walthamstow, in the way that only someone who wasn't brought up in Walthamstow, hasn't seen friends and family move away to be replaced by waves of immigrants, and doesn't think of it as "home" can.
He's getting something of a record of playing politics and attempting to use the media to get rules changed in order to advantage Red Bull, even if it screws over the sport in general. To a greater or lesser extent all dominant teams have done this, but the fuel sensor issue was clearly a decision to play chicken with the FIA. The sensor isn't as great as it should be for technical reasons and all teams agreed before the race to use it and follow FIA guidance because of those reasons. Red Bull decided to ignore a direct instruction from the FIA during the race to suit themselves, and then kicked up a fuss afterwards.
The tyre issue last year is somewhat comparable, although there were also genuine safety concerns. Nevertheless, Red Bull went from contenders to total dominance (9 straight wins for Vettel) after the tyres were changed.
They also, I believe, had the camera mounted in an illegal position, but this has not been deemed serious enough for a penalty.
Horner comes across as a political creature, not a racing one.
Just think how insufferably accurate I'd be if I had to make a living out it !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWFgjuQy30c
But the promotional picture released for the tour shows her in rather a better light, if half-drowned. She is in her fifties. But if her recent albums are anything to go by, then her voice is still superb. And that's the reason we go to concerts... right?
I've just thought of a brilliant Internet scam: wait for an event that loads of people want to see: for instance a reunion concert of the remaining Beatles. Wait for the news to be released, and then create a copy of the event coordinators website. Then send an email out to people (preferably from a fan's mailing list) stating that you have the chance to get tickets early.
Create a hype for a couple of days, and then scrape up all the credit card details.
If only I was evil... ;-)
Hence we could have a situation where the plane thinks it is either 500 feet from the ground, or 100, and not know which to choose. Having a pilot with Mk 1 eyeballs is a good redundant system to have. ;-)
The QF52 point is particularly well made, and I hope Airbus, Boeing and operators will learn from it.
Edit: and welcome to PB!
With the plane seemingly deep under the Southern Ocean we may never know.
Just wow, effing wow.
Extra scenes during/after the trailers as per usual and lots of Scarlett in a tight leather catsuit.
Does Ed look like a PM in waiting
Does 19, Doesn't 63, DK 17
When the same Q was asked in Sep 2008 of Dave it was
Does 49. Doesn't 34, DK 16
Is the Lab Party ready for government
Ready 26, Not Ready 52, DK 22
When the same Q was asked in Sep 2008 of The Tories it was
Ready 43, Not Ready 36, DK 21.
Yes is closing the gender gap, the childcare policy is proving popular, and the gap between those who think an Independent Scotland will be worse off is narrowing.
In this month’s Economist/Ipsos MORI March Issues Index, 36% of the public mention the economy amongst the most important issues facing Britain – a fall of three percentage points since last month, and the lowest percentage to do so since June 2008, as concern was increasing as a result of the financial crisis.
http://ipsos-mori.co.uk/researchpublications/researcharchive/3360/EconomistIpsos-MORI-March-2014-Issues-Index.aspx
All good points. But the problem with relying on redundant pieces of equipment is that they can go wrong as well and provide contradictory information. Computers can only act on information, and it might not be able to tell which had failed. GIGO rules.
Hence we could have a situation where the plane thinks it is either 500 feet from the ground, or 100, and not know which to choose. Having a pilot with Mk 1 eyeballs is a good redundant system to have. ;-)
The QF52 point is particularly well made, and I hope Airbus, Boeing and operators will learn from it.
Edit: and welcome to PB!
True enough. I for one would certainly not fly on a totally automated aircraft without the back up of a pilots brain to potentially get the plane out of the merde using an unconventional technique or just plain, good old fashioned guts!
And thank you, too kind. Hope you and Mrs J have a wonderful time at the KB concert...
I find it somewhat hard to believe that people really had changed their views of the relative merits of Callaghan and Thatcher so much in such a short time (especially as they went on to elect Thatcher in the ballot box). It's impossible now to know, but I wonder if the significance of the change was perhaps a sort of valedictory thank you to Callaghan for trying? He was quite a popular figure, and even his political opponents didn't doubt his decency and the sincerity of his attempts to sort out the mess, feeble though they were.
Even the USA and Canada will be wanting back in soon, so terrific is the Yoonyon.
Much better than the shrill-voiced stamp licker from the Bank of England.
But she needs to develop bottom.
I am hoping JackW can help.
But what is true of the professional class is much less true of others. A few weeks ago I was talking to one of our receptionists about visiting my brother in London. I could have been talking of outer Monglolia. She had never been there despite it being a little over an hour by train. Those of us who flit around the world do not recognise that most peoples horizons are much closer. The flipside is that they tend to be much more attached to a place than we rootless cosmopolitans.
Frankly no. Radio 4 had a talking head on yesterday espousing this theory or something similar. He was talking about one of the crew on a suicide mission, locking his co-pilot out then climbing to over FL400 then turning off the air con blah blah blah... If a pilot was going to take a plane down surely he would just put a boot on the column and dive it to the ocean? Quick, easy and no chance of being stopped.
The hypoxia theory doesn't explain loss of transponder etc., Also, the a/c wouldn't change course/alter altitude. It would just continue on its merry way cf Helios 522.
My gut instinct is hijack. The SeanT part of my brain says the a/c is sitting on an island somewhere with the valuable (if there was any) cargo gone, along with the complicit crew. The rational part though suspects a hostile takeover (hence the transponder being switched off so the crew couldn't transmit 7500), with an attempt made to fly to Oz for asylum reasons. Sadly the attempt was botched somewhere off Perth.
Isn't conjecture a wonderful thing....
'Pandas? Pfft, you've done yer job of humiliating Scottish Tories. Pass me ma revolver.'
32% support freezing the assets and property of Russian oligarchs living in Britain. 33% oppose such measures and 35% didn't know. That doesn't suggest little appetite to me. And let's not forget we aren't talking about oligarchs who are necessarily close to Putin. It is ANY Russian oligarch.
32% isn't massive but it's far higher than the % that will vote for Tory or Labour at the next election. Yougov tends to ignore the don't knows from its political polling, so they might as well open all their polls - even the ones with Lab/Tory over 40% with 'there is little public appetite'.
If we exclude the don't knows from the poll:
49% back asset freezes against oligarchs
51% oppose them
Given we are a country in which you are innocent until proven guilty, these are remarkable findings. Indeed I would like to see a poll done that asked people how they felt if said oligarchs were believed to be close to Putin. It would surely show majority approval for freezes amongst those expressing a view. And yet Yougov interprets this as 'little appetite'.
Against specific people, 26% support freezing Abramovich's assests and 36% oppose. That's 42% in favour, 58% against for those expressing an opinion. And that's without knowing whether he is close to Putin. Similar figures for Arsenal owner Usmanov. There's clearly widespread national concern about the oligarchs though perhaps a London based polling firm like Yougov finds it hard to get it's head around this stuff. Why are they trying to defend Abramovich Britain? Do they have a vested interest here?
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/03/25/little-public-support-oligarch-clampdown/
If Labour can't or won't trust us, why the hell do they think that I should trust them with power?
I thought that an hospital consultant who converses with a receptionist was most unlikely to be rootless.
Or is that just in Holby rather than Leicester City?
I know you do not like that there is no exciting story to tell about a close race hence the almost complete ignoring of yesterday's TNS-BMRB poll which had the Yes % down 1 , in reality no change other than MofE .
29% or so of the electorate voted for Gordon Brown to stay in office at the last election. The idea that as many people as that thought he was fit to be PM is just mind-boggling. If you put Gordon Brown and King bleedin' Solomon up against each other in a "who'd make the bets PM" poll I reckon 29% would say Solomon was less suited to the role than Gordon Brown.
Many pressure groups use polls like this to indicate a massive force to change something when there isn't really. Most people are fussed about very little beyond family and politics that affect them directly
There are exceptions to all of the above, of course. ;-)
Thus we talk about the best restaurants in Nice, ancient wars, the law and all sorts of other highfalutin things.
One idiot even witters endlessly on about HS2 and engineering.
Few of us are the 'common man', if such a thing even exists.