Question for @Foxy if you have time and inclination to answer..
Please could you tell me, how high is a C-Reactive Protein level of 279 mg/dL?
High enough that you should be seeing someone not posting on here
Without wishing to worry anyone - if I was seeing that number, it would go straight to hospital. Right now.
Where are you getting it from?
That was what my reading was when I was in hospital just over three weeks ago. They gave me loads of antibiotics and I feel better, but I don't know if I'm well
When I went to hospital, it was because I had excruciating pain in my chest; I didn't think I felt otherwise unwell. The follow up from the hospital was to tell me to get a chest x-ray in eight weeks, but nothing about a follow-up blood test, which my Dad thought was insane
After many long phone calls, I finally managed today to get my doctors surgery to get my GP to look at the details and get me booked in for a blood test. They offered me their earliest appointment for a blood test - in nine days time; I'm hoping to go back to work a week today
After some slightly terse discussion about the practicalities of their earliest appointment, they've booked me in for 7:30am tomorrow
If you have any doubt about your condition, go to A&E.
The cost, to the NHS, of 5 minutes with a doctor saying you are actually OK is small. The cost, to the NHS, of catching a problem early is vastly less than if you get to the 999/Ambulance stage.
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
UK governmental is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to understand and "mitigate" any risk that China-made imported electric buses could be remotely accessed and potentially disabled.
This follows concerns raised by Norwegian public transport service operator, Ruter, which conducted cybersecurity tests on a new vehicle made by bus maker Yutong and said it identified vulnerabilities in its on-board systems.
Did we not once discuss the danger of Tesla remotely disabling cars?
It isnt the same though. Tesla is a traded company, and can be regulated. There are competitive checks and balances in there, that dont always get it right, but it isnt the same. I have a chinese EV but its pretty damn dumb, it can't even get BST right..
Hell mend you for buying cheap Tat.
70,000 miles over four years. Has cost me three sets of new tyres, annual third party service, and only since a few weeks ago a penny of road tax. Has not had a single day off the road (other than the morning/afternoon of the service).
An apology is the right thing to do. Compensation is not.
Probably, although we've seen how he likes his praise - the more sickeningly obsequeous the better - so not sure if an apology could be made that could satisfy him. Hopefully the mere act of being made to grovel would mollify him enough.
Sky reporting Starmer admitting unfortunate error over David Koga !!!
How long can this go on
I am so glad the uncorruptable growns up are back in charge....
Standards and conflicts of interest are one of those things that can, in edge cases, be somewhat complex, but are nowhere near as complicated or confusing as politicians later claim them to be when they fail to do something correctly.
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
You never know, we could have an island with maurading Nazis, like jurnazi park?
Oh, we are part the way there already with Nazis and Gammons outside asylum seeker centres. Farage could be a latter day Attenborough figure but a lot less friendly and nice.
Question for @Foxy if you have time and inclination to answer..
Please could you tell me, how high is a C-Reactive Protein level of 279 mg/dL?
High enough that you should be seeing someone not posting on here
Without wishing to worry anyone - if I was seeing that number, it would go straight to hospital. Right now.
Where are you getting it from?
That was what my reading was when I was in hospital just over three weeks ago. They gave me loads of antibiotics and I feel better, but I don't know if I'm well
When I went to hospital, it was because I had excruciating pain in my chest; I didn't think I felt otherwise unwell. The follow up from the hospital was to tell me to get a chest x-ray in eight weeks, but nothing about a follow-up blood test, which my Dad thought was insane
After many long phone calls, I finally managed today to get my doctors surgery to get my GP to look at the details and get me booked in for a blood test. They offered me their earliest appointment for a blood test - in nine days time; I'm hoping to go back to work a week today
After some slightly terse discussion about the practicalities of their earliest appointment, they've booked me in for 7:30am tomorrow
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
I will be surprised if one or more of the House Republicans who have signed on to the Epstein discharge petition aren't strong-armed by Trump into changing their votes after Grijalva is sworn in, thus leaving the signers short of 218
Question for @Foxy if you have time and inclination to answer..
Please could you tell me, how high is a C-Reactive Protein level of 279 mg/dL?
High enough that you should be seeing someone not posting on here
Without wishing to worry anyone - if I was seeing that number, it would go straight to hospital. Right now.
Where are you getting it from?
That was what my reading was when I was in hospital just over three weeks ago. They gave me loads of antibiotics and I feel better, but I don't know if I'm well
When I went to hospital, it was because I had excruciating pain in my chest; I didn't think I felt otherwise unwell. The follow up from the hospital was to tell me to get a chest x-ray in eight weeks, but nothing about a follow-up blood test, which my Dad thought was insane
After many long phone calls, I finally managed today to get my doctors surgery to get my GP to look at the details and get me booked in for a blood test. They offered me their earliest appointment for a blood test - in nine days time; I'm hoping to go back to work a week today
After some slightly terse discussion about the practicalities of their earliest appointment, they've booked me in for 7:30am tomorrow
If you have any doubt about your condition, go to A&E.
The cost, to the NHS, of 5 minutes with a doctor saying you are actually OK is small. The cost, to the NHS, of catching a problem early is vastly less than if you get to the 999/Ambulance stage.
My faith in A&E has somewhat diminished since they took very good care of me when I'd been hit by the car
Even with the CRP of 279 it took them over twenty hours to give me a bed and antibiotics
I did have a really lovely thing happen in A&E, that I haven't yet reported on
About an hour after my arrival, an older lady sat down in the waiting room about five yards away from me, in quite a huge and busy waiting room. I thought I recognised her and tilted my head and frowned.. She looked up and we both said each others' names at the same time. She's a really sweet lady who I deliver mail to, and have chatted to loads of times
Then her daughter sat down next to her, having brought her to the hospital. I also deliver mail to her, she has one of my favourite dogs on my route (a lovely lady Lab called Muddy). I chatted to them, and then just the Mum after the daughter had to go, for about three hours
She got a room much sooner than me, but I somehow bumped into her three more times while we were both in the hospital. We're now friends, and I've met up with her three times in the three weeks since we've been out of hospital
More than 4million Universal Credit claimants now have no requirement to work - that's predominantly people who are sick along with students and those with caring responsibilities
The rise is extraordinary - it's gone up from from 2.896million in October 2024 to 4.027million in October 2025, a **39% rise** in the space of a year
The government has long-grassed any significant welfare reforms after being forced to abandon changes following a mass revolt by Labour MPs. Few think they are possible given Starmer's fragile authority
On topic, why has political leadership been so volatile in the last decade?
Were May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer really so bad as politicians compared with their predecessors? I’d argue that among that crew one stands out as being morally unsuited for the position: Boris. Yet of those, he was the one who managed to hang on with decent polling - actually leading the opposition - for the longest time.
The rest, even Truss, might not have been stellar leaders but the rapidity of their falls from grace seems to me to point to something else. Something in the zeitgeist. See also the tribulations of the last 2 German administrations, or the chaos in France.
But what?
Brexit? That was certainly a factor in the downfall of May, but the others? Not so much.
Social media? I think this is part of it. Not only does it divide, it also undermines official narratives (good), allows foreign governments to influence and shape discourse (bad), allows smaller political party voices airtime (good) and encourages character assassination (bad).
Economics: we have a toxic mix in the developed world of a shrinking working age population, GDP stagnation, reduced upward mobility and declining public services. PMs of the past didn’t have to deal with that. They had other challenges, like unemployment or inflation, but ones that seemed somehow soluble - not least because there were always other developed countries showing the way.
You are right that things no longer stay stable. I guess social media does play a part. A government cant really manage a message. Maybe Cameron and Osborne were the last government that could. As soon as they are elected they are knee deep in problems. In a state the spends so much doing so many things, there is always something going wrong somewhere and theyll be a phone to record it.
In 1997 the Blair government had a hand on the press, and there was no alternative, except newsgroups (i was a uk.politics.misc veteran), even a decade later, there was no real alternative. Now its the alternatives that are pushing the agenda around. Kids watch youtube for what seems like an unhealthy amount of time, with many oldiwinks just having GBNews on rolling as background in the house. I would be bold to say that there's no such thing as a political honeymoon in the age of social media.
Someone posted, upthread, an example of an *MP* who is so mired in social media that he doesn't understand the difference between the US and UK constitutions.
Not quite.
When my mentor was lord chancellor he got to appoint judges as he saw fit. It’s since been decided that’s too much political involvement so we have moved to a situation whereby the lord chancellor appoints the judges but has to take the recommendation of (I think) the master of the rolls.
So we’ve created a self perpetuating oligarchy of lawyers rather than have democratic oversight of the judicial system
The appointment of the judiciary, especially at the highest level, sets a problem that can't be resolved, since the judiciary are the body who can require the government (which automatically commands the democratic consent of parliament) to obey it. Setting government above courts is the Russian and now USA approach. Good luck. A democratic system of appointment, whether by election or by a government stooge, gives courts only the same authority as the rest of the system.
It is essential to have some bodies who are beyond democracy, in order to hold the ring and hold it to account. An obvious example is the Boundary Commission. Another in part is the monarchy. That and the judiciary are among the most delicate and fragile elements of the set up. IMHO it's best not to look hard at it unless you have to. There is no logical and consistent answer to 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes' because there can't be.
Our top judges are of startlingly stellar quality. If only our politicians were half as good.
What's the Latin for 'Don't spit on your luck'?
What's the evidence that our top judges are of startlingly stellar quality?
I would start with the intellectual quality of their judgments, beginning with the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) and the Supreme Court; and the standards of academic law in England.
Then have a look at their global reputation, followed by a glance at how England is a preferred forum internationally.
BTW I have lots of criticisms, especially about access and cost.
That looks like a massive earthquake/landslide that took out the whole of the mao-ntainside...
I’m aware that I’m guilty of taking the view which is most comforting to hold, but I’m deeply sceptical of the genius of China. They’ve built a metric shit-tonne of stuff over the past 20 years; it will be interesting to see how much of it is still standing in another 20. I would be unsurprised to find a large proportion of their flats live no longer than 40 years and have to be knocked down before they collapse. Which will at least solve their problems of massive oversupply of housing (how many empty units are there in China? Conservative estimates are that there is more empty housing in China than there is housing in the UK; more radical estimates are that there is enough empty housing in China to house the entire world). And similarly their transport projects are impressive, but impressive exercises in expensively shuttling empty air around. China’s economy doesn’t work like ours. They decide in advance what growth will be, then do as much *stuff* - whether needed or not – so that their GDP matches up to that. That way a reckoning lies.
But of course other view are available and I'd invite @Leon to present a counterpoint.
I am using an Oppo Find N phone.
It is the same size as an iPhone Max. But it folds. It has incredible battery life. It is by far the best folding phone out there. It could well be the best smartphone on the market. (For those who aren't wedded to the Apple ecosystem.)
When Japan started doing electronics, companies in the West (like RCA and Philips and Grundig) laughed and said they were just doing cheap low end stuff. Then Sony and Pioneer became the dominant names.
Korea then came along, and suddenly Samsung was eating the Japanese companies lunches.
And now it is the Chinese eating the Koreans lunches.
In time, someone else - someone younger, hungrier and poorer - will end up surpassing the Chinese. But right now, they are the ones in the ascendent.
New e-mails show Mandy was in contact with Epstein 6 years later than previously admitted....
Oops.
Are you suggesting that a man who was forced to resign twice thrice from the cabinet because of... ethical issues... might still have have ethical issues?
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
The BBC's "anti-bias" dossier that called out Panorama for splicing together disconnected quotes itself spliced together disconnected quotes.
According to Michael Prescott Trump actually said the following, which indicated there was no incitement to riot:
We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
What Trump actually, actually said it appears was the following, with the bit that Prescott cut out in italics and a clear incitement to riot;
We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Did Mr Prescott not use ellipses - [...] most explicitly?
Mind it doesn't always work. Slab once put out a press release bitterly attacking the SNP for misquoting someone or other by leaving stuff out full stop. Slab hadn't realised what the funny characters meant.
He did not. No indication that these were disconnected quotes. He based his assertion that there was no incitement and that Panorama was misleading the viewer on his misquotation when the full quotation would have made clear there was incitement.
Arguably worse than what Panorama did.
Thanks. How utterly extraordinary.
Not really, it was a politically motivated hatchet job. The Newsagent podcast on this is the most revealing about what has been going on inside BBC news. Clearly they're not impartial, but their accounts have not been rebutted (just ignored).
The News Agents podcast is an excellent rebuttal of @Cyclefree's BBC critique from yesterday.
The irony is we are criticising the BBC for a poor edit, the biased dossier which raised this does itself have a similarly poor edit; and the subject of complaint is the most egregious liar in democratic political history.
The tail is not so much wagging the dog, it is throttling it.
They must not have got the "Cyclefree is never wrong on anything" memo
UK governmental is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to understand and "mitigate" any risk that China-made imported electric buses could be remotely accessed and potentially disabled.
This follows concerns raised by Norwegian public transport service operator, Ruter, which conducted cybersecurity tests on a new vehicle made by bus maker Yutong and said it identified vulnerabilities in its on-board systems.
Now about all those CCTV cameras, especially "smart" ones that are everywhere in the UK. I am pretty sure the vast vast vast majority are Chinese from Hikvision or Dahua.
And this is why you put them on a separate subnet with no access to the Internet.
New e-mails show Mandy was in contact with Epstein 6 years later than previously admitted....
Oops.
Are you suggesting that a man who was forced to resign twice thrice from the cabinet because of... ethical issues... might still have have ethical issues?
UK governmental is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to understand and "mitigate" any risk that China-made imported electric buses could be remotely accessed and potentially disabled.
This follows concerns raised by Norwegian public transport service operator, Ruter, which conducted cybersecurity tests on a new vehicle made by bus maker Yutong and said it identified vulnerabilities in its on-board systems.
Now about all those CCTV cameras, especially "smart" ones that are everywhere in the UK. I am pretty sure the vast vast vast majority are Chinese from Hikvision or Dahua.
And this is why you put them on a separate subnet with no access to the Internet.
I am sure all government departments, councils and private companies have done that...nods like the Chuchill dog....
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
Probably explains what Turi King was wibbling about in her department email earlier in the week… (All very cloak and dagger, no mention of Bath in the doc etc)
Ukraine's energy and justice ministers have resigned in the wake of a major investigation into corruption in the country's energy sector.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk and Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko's removal on Wednesday.
On Monday anti-corruption bodies accused several people of orchestrating a embezzlement scheme in the energy sector worth about $100m (£76m), including at the national nuclear operator Enerhoatom.
An apology is the right thing to do. Compensation is not.
Probably, although we've seen how he likes his praise - the more sickeningly obsequeous the better - so not sure if an apology could be made that could satisfy him. Hopefully the mere act of being made to grovel would mollify him enough.
Anna Turley, Labour chair, has just told me - in an interview for tonight’s Peston show - that the PM has informed her he has ordered an investigation into who in his team leaked that Wes Streeting was plotting a coup and would “take action” against the culprit. Watch in full at 10.45 ITV
Anna Turley, Labour chair, has just told me - in an interview for tonight’s Peston show - that the PM has informed her he has ordered an investigation into who in his team leaked that Wes Streeting was plotting a coup and would “take action” against the culprit. Watch in full at 10.45 ITV
The BBC's "anti-bias" dossier that called out Panorama for splicing together disconnected quotes itself spliced together disconnected quotes.
According to Michael Prescott Trump actually said the following, which indicated there was no incitement to riot:
We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
What Trump actually, actually said it appears was the following, with the bit that Prescott cut out in italics and a clear incitement to riot;
We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Did Mr Prescott not use ellipses - [...] most explicitly?
Mind it doesn't always work. Slab once put out a press release bitterly attacking the SNP for misquoting someone or other by leaving stuff out full stop. Slab hadn't realised what the funny characters meant.
He did not. No indication that these were disconnected quotes. He based his assertion that there was no incitement and that Panorama was misleading the viewer on his misquotation when the full quotation would have made clear there was incitement.
Arguably worse than what Panorama did.
Thanks. How utterly extraordinary.
Not really, it was a politically motivated hatchet job. The Newsagent podcast on this is the most revealing about what has been going on inside BBC news. Clearly they're not impartial, but their accounts have not been rebutted (just ignored).
The News Agents podcast is an excellent rebuttal of @Cyclefree's BBC critique from yesterday.
The irony is we are criticising the BBC for a poor edit, the biased dossier which raised this does itself have a similarly poor edit; and the subject of complaint is the most egregious liar in democratic political history.
The tail is not so much wagging the dog, it is throttling it.
They must not have got the "Cyclefree is never wrong on anything" memo
In this instance Cyclefree was not wrong. Trust in the BBC has collapsed from 81% to 38% in 20 years. There is a reason for that and its not because of all those nasty right wingers.
That looks like a massive earthquake/landslide that took out the whole of the mao-ntainside...
I’m aware that I’m guilty of taking the view which is most comforting to hold, but I’m deeply sceptical of the genius of China. They’ve built a metric shit-tonne of stuff over the past 20 years; it will be interesting to see how much of it is still standing in another 20. I would be unsurprised to find a large proportion of their flats live no longer than 40 years and have to be knocked down before they collapse. Which will at least solve their problems of massive oversupply of housing (how many empty units are there in China? Conservative estimates are that there is more empty housing in China than there is housing in the UK; more radical estimates are that there is enough empty housing in China to house the entire world). And similarly their transport projects are impressive, but impressive exercises in expensively shuttling empty air around. China’s economy doesn’t work like ours. They decide in advance what growth will be, then do as much *stuff* - whether needed or not – so that their GDP matches up to that. That way a reckoning lies.
But of course other view are available and I'd invite @Leon to present a counterpoint.
I am using an Oppo Find N phone.
It is the same size as an iPhone Max. But it folds. It has incredible battery life. It is by far the best folding phone out there. It could well be the best smartphone on the market. (For those who aren't wedded to the Apple ecosystem.)
When Japan started doing electronics, companies in the West (like RCA and Philips and Grundig) laughed and said they were just doing cheap low end stuff. Then Sony and Pioneer became the dominant names.
Korea then came along, and suddenly Samsung was eating the Japanese companies lunches.
And now it is the Chinese eating the Koreans lunches.
In time, someone else - someone younger, hungrier and poorer - will end up surpassing the Chinese. But right now, they are the ones in the ascendent.
I don't deny they make some clever stuff (though I'd be very wary about anything which eased my data into tge hands of the Chinese) - I just doubt their economics. I don't know about this particular example, but inmany cases the reason they're able to sell their stuff so competitively is because they sell at a loss. This can't go on indefinitely.
The BBC's "anti-bias" dossier that called out Panorama for splicing together disconnected quotes itself spliced together disconnected quotes.
According to Michael Prescott Trump actually said the following, which indicated there was no incitement to riot:
We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
What Trump actually, actually said it appears was the following, with the bit that Prescott cut out in italics and a clear incitement to riot;
We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Did Mr Prescott not use ellipses - [...] most explicitly?
Mind it doesn't always work. Slab once put out a press release bitterly attacking the SNP for misquoting someone or other by leaving stuff out full stop. Slab hadn't realised what the funny characters meant.
He did not. No indication that these were disconnected quotes. He based his assertion that there was no incitement and that Panorama was misleading the viewer on his misquotation when the full quotation would have made clear there was incitement.
Arguably worse than what Panorama did.
Thanks. How utterly extraordinary.
Not really, it was a politically motivated hatchet job. The Newsagent podcast on this is the most revealing about what has been going on inside BBC news. Clearly they're not impartial, but their accounts have not been rebutted (just ignored).
The News Agents podcast is an excellent rebuttal of @Cyclefree's BBC critique from yesterday.
The irony is we are criticising the BBC for a poor edit, the biased dossier which raised this does itself have a similarly poor edit; and the subject of complaint is the most egregious liar in democratic political history.
The tail is not so much wagging the dog, it is throttling it.
They must not have got the "Cyclefree is never wrong on anything" memo
In this instance Cyclefree was not wrong. Trust in the BBC has collapsed from 81% to 38% in 20 years. There is a reason for that and its not because of all those nasty right wingers.
Anna Turley, Labour chair, has just told me - in an interview for tonight’s Peston show - that the PM has informed her he has ordered an investigation into who in his team leaked that Wes Streeting was plotting a coup and would “take action” against the culprit. Watch in full at 10.45 ITV
There’s so many investigations going on I’m losing track.
Question for @Foxy if you have time and inclination to answer..
Please could you tell me, how high is a C-Reactive Protein level of 279 mg/dL?
High enough that you should be seeing someone not posting on here
Without wishing to worry anyone - if I was seeing that number, it would go straight to hospital. Right now.
Where are you getting it from?
That was what my reading was when I was in hospital just over three weeks ago. They gave me loads of antibiotics and I feel better, but I don't know if I'm well
When I went to hospital, it was because I had excruciating pain in my chest; I didn't think I felt otherwise unwell. The follow up from the hospital was to tell me to get a chest x-ray in eight weeks, but nothing about a follow-up blood test, which my Dad thought was insane
After many long phone calls, I finally managed today to get my doctors surgery to get my GP to look at the details and get me booked in for a blood test. They offered me their earliest appointment for a blood test - in nine days time; I'm hoping to go back to work a week today
After some slightly terse discussion about the practicalities of their earliest appointment, they've booked me in for 7:30am tomorrow
If you have any doubt about your condition, go to A&E.
The cost, to the NHS, of 5 minutes with a doctor saying you are actually OK is small. The cost, to the NHS, of catching a problem early is vastly less than if you get to the 999/Ambulance stage.
My faith in A&E has somewhat diminished since they took very good care of me when I'd been hit by the car
Even with the CRP of 279 it took them over twenty hours to give me a bed and antibiotics
I did have a really lovely thing happen in A&E, that I haven't yet reported on
About an hour after my arrival, an older lady sat down in the waiting room about five yards away from me, in quite a huge and busy waiting room. I thought I recognised her and tilted my head and frowned.. She looked up and we both said each others' names at the same time. She's a really sweet lady who I deliver mail to, and have chatted to loads of times
Then her daughter sat down next to her, having brought her to the hospital. I also deliver mail to her, she has one of my favourite dogs on my route (a lovely lady Lab called Muddy). I chatted to them, and then just the Mum after the daughter had to go, for about three hours
She got a room much sooner than me, but I somehow bumped into her three more times while we were both in the hospital. We're now friends, and I've met up with her three times in the three weeks since we've been out of hospital
My new friend lives in a really smart retirement complex , which has twenty two duplex apartments, or little houses, in a block and two terraces. It's beautifully maintained, and I think quite pricey
The General and his wife live there. I met him before I delivered mail to him; he goes for walks every day and I had warm greetings from him every time he saw me on my old mail route. I've got to know him and his wife quite well. They always come to the door if they see me for a chat
Their daughter also lives on my mail route and we get on really well. She owns my other two favourite dogs on the route. A black Lab called Smartie, and her daughter Skittles. On my old route my favourite dog was a black Lab called Biggles. I get on really well with Biggles's owners; I seemingly persuaded them to book a leg of their holiday in San Sebastian before I'd even gone there
It turns out that Biggles is from the same litter as Skittles
Back to the retirement village - the parents of the boy who broke my collar bone in PE when I was thirteen live there. The father of the marketing director of the travel company I worked for in London fifteen years ago lives there
The BBC's "anti-bias" dossier that called out Panorama for splicing together disconnected quotes itself spliced together disconnected quotes.
According to Michael Prescott Trump actually said the following, which indicated there was no incitement to riot:
We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
What Trump actually, actually said it appears was the following, with the bit that Prescott cut out in italics and a clear incitement to riot;
We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Did Mr Prescott not use ellipses - [...] most explicitly?
Mind it doesn't always work. Slab once put out a press release bitterly attacking the SNP for misquoting someone or other by leaving stuff out full stop. Slab hadn't realised what the funny characters meant.
He did not. No indication that these were disconnected quotes. He based his assertion that there was no incitement and that Panorama was misleading the viewer on his misquotation when the full quotation would have made clear there was incitement.
Arguably worse than what Panorama did.
Thanks. How utterly extraordinary.
Not really, it was a politically motivated hatchet job. The Newsagent podcast on this is the most revealing about what has been going on inside BBC news. Clearly they're not impartial, but their accounts have not been rebutted (just ignored).
The News Agents podcast is an excellent rebuttal of @Cyclefree's BBC critique from yesterday.
The irony is we are criticising the BBC for a poor edit, the biased dossier which raised this does itself have a similarly poor edit; and the subject of complaint is the most egregious liar in democratic political history.
The tail is not so much wagging the dog, it is throttling it.
They must not have got the "Cyclefree is never wrong on anything" memo
In this instance Cyclefree was not wrong. Trust in the BBC has collapsed from 81% to 38% in 20 years. There is a reason for that and its not because of all those nasty right wingers.
The BBC are far from perfect, but I would imagine the rise of the bollocks of social media has a large role to play in that.
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a cloned Hitler is a good guy with a cloned Hitler.
A bizarre replay of the Cold War where instead of Nazi scientists on both sides, they each have their own Hitler.
In the book The Brentford Chainstore Massacre, by Robert Rankin, a mad scientist tries to clone Jesus from the Turin Shroud, and to be fair he tries to make 6, so each major religion can have one.
What’s the point of having a pious boring Berk in No10 if he’s also incompetent and keeps breaking the rules?
BREAKING: Keir Starmer admits he DID sign off the appointment of David Kogan as chairman of the football regulator - despite taking donations from him.
PM has written to the No10 ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus saying: "This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret."
Magnus replies that this was "regrettable" and welcomes his promise to launch an internal review on appointments.
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
What’s the point of having a pious boring Berk in No10 if he’s also incompetent and keeps breaking the rules?
BREAKING: Keir Starmer admits he DID sign off the appointment of David Kogan as chairman of the football regulator - despite taking donations from him.
PM has written to the No10 ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus saying: "This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret."
Magnus replies that this was "regrettable" and welcomes his promise to launch an internal review on appointments.
Question for @Foxy if you have time and inclination to answer..
Please could you tell me, how high is a C-Reactive Protein level of 279 mg/dL?
Blanche, I've asked my father and he's said get yourself to A&E right now.
Happily he did, three weeks ago. Might have helped if he’d included that info in his original post…
Though I do see now how my original post might have been misinterpreted, and I do apologise for causing any alarm, I didn't originally say that I had that level of CRP
I wanted to ask if someone with that recorded level would normally be be given another test, and after how long
Sorry again if I did worry anyone, and many thanks to those who offered advice
This is a problem in one respect for Sir Keir, but a bonus in another; it explains why he contradicts himself all the time - he has to appeal to two wildly different set of voters - but the bonus is, as has flip flopped on everything since he became an MP anyway, it comes naturally
Half of voters who backed Labour at the last general election have deserted the party, according to internal polling being shared with Labour MPs, reports @harriet_symonds
What’s the point of having a pious boring Berk in No10 if he’s also incompetent and keeps breaking the rules?
BREAKING: Keir Starmer admits he DID sign off the appointment of David Kogan as chairman of the football regulator - despite taking donations from him.
PM has written to the No10 ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus saying: "This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret."
Magnus replies that this was "regrettable" and welcomes his promise to launch an internal review on appointments.
May I refer you to my previous posts suggesting that before you get rid of Starmer you give some serious thought as to who the replacement will be and why, and if, they will be better.
On topic (vaguely), I struggle with the notion Labour will have zero MPs. Labour consistently poll lower with Find Out Now than other pollsters while Reform consistently poll lower with YouGov than other pollsters.
It's tough, indeed, almost as tough as it was in early 2024, to be a Government supporter of any kind. The volume and vitriol of anti-Government sentiment is as extreme as I've ever known it and it's hard to see that level of "discontent" (to use a fairly neutral term) being sustained until 2029.
There seems to be a notion, a hope perhaps that the next "scandal", the next "crisis", will bring the whole house of cards down and cause the Government to "collapse". Governments with majorities of 170 don't just collapse, they limp on wounded rather like the creature on the veldt wounded but being pursued to its death by jackals and hyenas (not that I would describe Reform and the Conservatives in those terms).
That's not to say the Budget a fortnight today won't be of political significance. Rather like trying to stop "the boats", there are any number of ideas and solutions ut there - the problem is, so far, none has proven practical, cost effective or legal.
One organisation which has had a superb 24 hours is the BBC, thanks to Trump's absurd posturings and legal threats. The POTUS has unified those opposed to him in the country in defence of the belegauered BBC and even those less enamoured of the Corporation have no wish to see millions of taxpayer's money handed to Washington.
Meanwhile, in "so this is how the world ends" news,
Exclusive: Adolf Hitler’s DNA has been sequenced by scientists
It has: - shown he had a disorder which impacted his sexual development - debunked rumours about his ancestry - shown a high likelihood that he had a neurodivergent condition and/or bipolar disorder
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a cloned Hitler is a good guy with a cloned Hitler.
A bizarre replay of the Cold War where instead of Nazi scientists on both sides, they each have their own Hitler.
In the book The Brentford Chainstore Massacre, by Robert Rankin, a mad scientist tries to clone Jesus from the Turin Shroud, and to be fair he tries to make 6, so each major religion can have one.
I wonder just how badly Robert Rankin has held up?
The BBC's "anti-bias" dossier that called out Panorama for splicing together disconnected quotes itself spliced together disconnected quotes.
According to Michael Prescott Trump actually said the following, which indicated there was no incitement to riot:
We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
What Trump actually, actually said it appears was the following, with the bit that Prescott cut out in italics and a clear incitement to riot;
We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Did Mr Prescott not use ellipses - [...] most explicitly?
Mind it doesn't always work. Slab once put out a press release bitterly attacking the SNP for misquoting someone or other by leaving stuff out full stop. Slab hadn't realised what the funny characters meant.
He did not. No indication that these were disconnected quotes. He based his assertion that there was no incitement and that Panorama was misleading the viewer on his misquotation when the full quotation would have made clear there was incitement.
Arguably worse than what Panorama did.
Thanks. How utterly extraordinary.
Not really, it was a politically motivated hatchet job. The Newsagent podcast on this is the most revealing about what has been going on inside BBC news. Clearly they're not impartial, but their accounts have not been rebutted (just ignored).
The News Agents podcast is an excellent rebuttal of @Cyclefree's BBC critique from yesterday.
The irony is we are criticising the BBC for a poor edit, the biased dossier which raised this does itself have a similarly poor edit; and the subject of complaint is the most egregious liar in democratic political history.
The tail is not so much wagging the dog, it is throttling it.
The dossier is not simply about the Trump documentary. This is a point that you and others repeatedly ignore. It certainly suits the BBC and those defending it to pretend that it is. But it is a mistake.
I said yesterday in the header this -
"It is not possible to say whether all or any of the criticisms made are justified or not." about the report.
And this BTL -
"As for having an agenda: all whistleblowers and complainants have an agenda. But an investigator who allows that agenda to stop them investigating properly is a very bad one indeed. An organisation who does that is an organisation in denial. That is their agenda and it is a harmful one.
I cannot assess the validity of the Prescott criticisms. Some seem a little overblown; others much more serious. The Trump Panorama one seems to my mind less serious than some of the others."
And again this -
"As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider."
So all they are doing is pointing out that Prescott has an agenda and may well have got his facts and allegations wrong, both of which I pointed out yesterday. That is the case in pretty much the majority of whistleblowing investigations and I have done far more of them than Lewis Goodall or Emily Maitlis or Jon Sopel or all 3 of them combined. Allegations are simply that - allegations. Some are untrue, some are made up, some are misunderstandings, some have answers, some are true and a problem and some are true but not a problem because ..... It is the investigation that gives you that information not evidence that the allegations come from someone with an agenda.
What those journalists have not done is investigated the entirety of the claims made and proved that they are - each and every one of them - wholly untrue. Instead they are doing a version of no 3 in yesterday's list. Prescott may well be a dubious or partisan source but that is neither a complete nor a sufficient answer to all the claims made in what he writes.
Oh and @kinabalu is someone who does not understand what a whistleblowing is. Like most people.
What’s the point of having a pious boring Berk in No10 if he’s also incompetent and keeps breaking the rules?
BREAKING: Keir Starmer admits he DID sign off the appointment of David Kogan as chairman of the football regulator - despite taking donations from him.
PM has written to the No10 ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus saying: "This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret."
Magnus replies that this was "regrettable" and welcomes his promise to launch an internal review on appointments.
May I refer you to my previous posts suggesting that before you get rid of Starmer you give some serious thought as to who the replacement will be and why, and if, they will be better.
nobody could be any worse so I would vote to dump him pronto, get someone who has a backbone and at least will stick to his plan good or bad
10y gilt dipped below 4.4% for first time in 2025…
The 2 & 5 year gilt - both now been below 4% for a month, actually below level when Labour came to power… this is filtering through to 2y & 5y fixed mortgage rates…
driven by higher expectation of rate cuts given weaker jobs number, but also world away from summer headlines re IMF/ bankruptcy.
Julian Jessop @julianHjessop Just for clarify, 2- or 5-year gilt yields do not drive 2- or 5-year mortgage rates. Instead, both are being influenced by a third factor - market expectations for the Bank rate, as reflected in 2- or 5-year swaps.
In other words, market expectations of bigger cuts from the Bank of England are 'filtering through' both to lower gilt yields and lower mortgage rates.
What’s the point of having a pious boring Berk in No10 if he’s also incompetent and keeps breaking the rules?
BREAKING: Keir Starmer admits he DID sign off the appointment of David Kogan as chairman of the football regulator - despite taking donations from him.
PM has written to the No10 ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus saying: "This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret."
Magnus replies that this was "regrettable" and welcomes his promise to launch an internal review on appointments.
May I refer you to my previous posts suggesting that before you get rid of Starmer you give some serious thought as to who the replacement will be and why, and if, they will be better.
This will horrify you but a Miliband-type figure would almost certainly improve Labour's polling position given who they are losing votes to. In this kind of political climate, 25-30% would do nicely.
Starmer's dreadful polling numbers aren't because he's hated by the Right - it's because he's lost the faith of the left.
The BBC's "anti-bias" dossier that called out Panorama for splicing together disconnected quotes itself spliced together disconnected quotes.
According to Michael Prescott Trump actually said the following, which indicated there was no incitement to riot:
We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
What Trump actually, actually said it appears was the following, with the bit that Prescott cut out in italics and a clear incitement to riot;
We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Did Mr Prescott not use ellipses - [...] most explicitly?
Mind it doesn't always work. Slab once put out a press release bitterly attacking the SNP for misquoting someone or other by leaving stuff out full stop. Slab hadn't realised what the funny characters meant.
He did not. No indication that these were disconnected quotes. He based his assertion that there was no incitement and that Panorama was misleading the viewer on his misquotation when the full quotation would have made clear there was incitement.
Arguably worse than what Panorama did.
Thanks. How utterly extraordinary.
Not really, it was a politically motivated hatchet job. The Newsagent podcast on this is the most revealing about what has been going on inside BBC news. Clearly they're not impartial, but their accounts have not been rebutted (just ignored).
The News Agents podcast is an excellent rebuttal of @Cyclefree's BBC critique from yesterday.
The irony is we are criticising the BBC for a poor edit, the biased dossier which raised this does itself have a similarly poor edit; and the subject of complaint is the most egregious liar in democratic political history.
The tail is not so much wagging the dog, it is throttling it.
The dossier is not simply about the Trump documentary. This is a point that you and others repeatedly ignore. It certainly suits the BBC and those defending it to pretend that it is. But it is a mistake.
I said yesterday in the header this -
"It is not possible to say whether all or any of the criticisms made are justified or not." about the report.
And this BTL -
"As for having an agenda: all whistleblowers and complainants have an agenda. But an investigator who allows that agenda to stop them investigating properly is a very bad one indeed. An organisation who does that is an organisation in denial. That is their agenda and it is a harmful one.
I cannot assess the validity of the Prescott criticisms. Some seem a little overblown; others much more serious. The Trump Panorama one seems to my mind less serious than some of the others."
And again this -
"As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider."
So all they are doing is pointing out that Prescott has an agenda and may well have got his facts and allegations wrong, both of which I pointed out yesterday. That is the case in pretty much the majority of whistleblowing investigations and I have done far more of them than Lewis Goodall or Emily Maitlis or Jon Sopel or all 3 of them combined. Allegations are simply that - allegations. Some are untrue, some are made up, some are misunderstandings, some have answers, some are true and a problem and some are true but not a problem because ..... It is the investigation that gives you that information not evidence that the allegations come from someone with an agenda.
What those journalists have not done is investigated the entirety of the claims made and proved that they are - each and every one of them - wholly untrue. Instead they are doing a version of no 3 in yesterday's list. Prescott may well be a dubious or partisan source but that is neither a complete nor a sufficient answer to all the claims made in what he writes.
Oh and @kinabalu is someone who does not understand what a whistleblowing is. Like most people.
NEW: Starmer faces Labour fury over top aide, briefings and budget...
...With just two weeks to go, Rachel Reeves has been unable to make final decisions on what policies to announce in part because of ongoing arguments about what to do, according to people familiar with the matter.
NEW: Starmer faces Labour fury over top aide, briefings and budget...
...With just two weeks to go, Rachel Reeves has been unable to make final decisions on what policies to announce in part because of ongoing arguments about what to do, according to people familiar with the matter.
NEW: Starmer faces Labour fury over top aide, briefings and budget...
...With just two weeks to go, Rachel Reeves has been unable to make final decisions on what policies to announce in part because of ongoing arguments about what to do, according to people familiar with the matter.
What’s the point of having a pious boring Berk in No10 if he’s also incompetent and keeps breaking the rules?
BREAKING: Keir Starmer admits he DID sign off the appointment of David Kogan as chairman of the football regulator - despite taking donations from him.
PM has written to the No10 ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus saying: "This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret."
Magnus replies that this was "regrettable" and welcomes his promise to launch an internal review on appointments.
May I refer you to my previous posts suggesting that before you get rid of Starmer you give some serious thought as to who the replacement will be and why, and if, they will be better.
This will horrify you but a Miliband-type figure would almost certainly improve Labour's polling position given who they are losing votes to. In this kind of political climate, 25-30% would do nicely.
Starmer's dreadful polling numbers aren't because he's hated by the Right - it's because he's lost the faith of the left.
They don't get to have a "Miliband-type figure". They potentially get Ed bloody Miliband. Which would be a disaster. Again. A man who makes Starmer look both sane and competent (only relatively of course). If Labour had even one credible candidate I think Starmer would be gone already.
Comments
Nevercrossed my desk....The cost, to the NHS, of 5 minutes with a doctor saying you are actually OK is small.
The cost, to the NHS, of catching a problem early is vastly less than if you get to the 999/Ambulance stage.
Well that escalated quickly....
(Heh!)
How long can this go on
However, not a penny of tax or licence fee money should be paid to Trump
Oh, we are part the way there already with Nazis and Gammons outside asylum seeker centres. Farage could be a latter day Attenborough figure but a lot less friendly and nice.
Oops.
The media previously got bored of actually looking into who checked what when in terms of Mandy's appointment.
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar.com
I will be surprised if one or more of the House Republicans who have signed on to the Epstein discharge petition aren't strong-armed by Trump into changing their votes after Grijalva is sworn in, thus leaving the signers short of 218
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m5h754e5yc2q
Even with the CRP of 279 it took them over twenty hours to give me a bed and antibiotics
I did have a really lovely thing happen in A&E, that I haven't yet reported on
About an hour after my arrival, an older lady sat down in the waiting room about five yards away from me, in quite a huge and busy waiting room. I thought I recognised her and tilted my head and frowned.. She looked up and we both said each others' names at the same time. She's a really sweet lady who I deliver mail to, and have chatted to loads of times
Then her daughter sat down next to her, having brought her to the hospital. I also deliver mail to her, she has one of my favourite dogs on my route (a lovely lady Lab called Muddy). I chatted to them, and then just the Mum after the daughter had to go, for about three hours
She got a room much sooner than me, but I somehow bumped into her three more times while we were both in the hospital. We're now friends, and I've met up with her three times in the three weeks since we've been out of hospital
Then have a look at their global reputation, followed by a glance at how England is a preferred forum internationally.
BTW I have lots of criticisms, especially about access and cost.
It is the same size as an iPhone Max. But it folds. It has incredible battery life. It is by far the best folding phone out there. It could well be the best smartphone on the market. (For those who aren't wedded to the Apple ecosystem.)
When Japan started doing electronics, companies in the West (like RCA and Philips and Grundig) laughed and said they were just doing cheap low end stuff. Then Sony and Pioneer became the dominant names.
Korea then came along, and suddenly Samsung was eating the Japanese companies lunches.
And now it is the Chinese eating the Koreans lunches.
In time, someone else - someone younger, hungrier and poorer - will end up surpassing the Chinese. But right now, they are the ones in the ascendent.
Or perhaps, the whore d'oeuvres...
Presumably there is far more to come out and far more damning.
I think he's finished in public life though.
Probably explains what Turi King was wibbling about in her department email earlier in the week… (All very cloak and dagger, no mention of Bath in the doc etc)
£220 ‘for a cut-up sock' - Apple's new iPhone Pocket ridiculed online
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn97ndgpnq7o
President Volodymyr Zelensky called for Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk and Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko's removal on Wednesday.
On Monday anti-corruption bodies accused several people of orchestrating a embezzlement scheme in the energy sector worth about $100m (£76m), including at the national nuclear operator Enerhoatom.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8vw62j3g9o
Anna Turley, Labour chair, has just told me - in an interview for tonight’s Peston show - that the PM has informed her he has ordered an investigation into who in his team leaked that Wes Streeting was plotting a coup and would “take action” against the culprit. Watch in full at 10.45 ITV
https://bsky.app/profile/jakelahut.writes.news/post/3m5hdtmjvks2a
The General and his wife live there. I met him before I delivered mail to him; he goes for walks every day and I had warm greetings from him every time he saw me on my old mail route. I've got to know him and his wife quite well. They always come to the door if they see me for a chat
Their daughter also lives on my mail route and we get on really well. She owns my other two favourite dogs on the route. A black Lab called Smartie, and her daughter Skittles. On my old route my favourite dog was a black Lab called Biggles. I get on really well with Biggles's owners; I seemingly persuaded them to book a leg of their holiday in San Sebastian before I'd even gone there
It turns out that Biggles is from the same litter as Skittles
Back to the retirement village - the parents of the boy who broke my collar bone in PE when I was thirteen live there. The father of the marketing director of the travel company I worked for in London fifteen years ago lives there
It's all nice, but starting to seem weird
Trump Still Polling Well With Working-Class American Pedophiles
https://bsky.app/profile/theonion.com/post/3m5hdk6lr4e2j
Jeffrey Epstein: "would you like photos of donald [Trump] and girls in bikinis in my kitchen."
https://x.com/OfTheBraveUSA/status/1988683984906441212?s=20
BREAKING: Keir Starmer admits he DID sign off the appointment of David Kogan as chairman of the football regulator - despite taking donations from him.
PM has written to the No10 ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus saying: "This was an unfortunate error for which I express my sincere regret."
Magnus replies that this was "regrettable" and welcomes his promise to launch an internal review on appointments.
https://x.com/jackelsom/status/1988666510479364369?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Leaving aside the issue at hand, PMs are accountable to the public and should speak to them first and foremost.
I wanted to ask if someone with that recorded level would normally be be given another test, and after how long
Sorry again if I did worry anyone, and many thanks to those who offered advice
Half of voters who backed Labour at the last general election have deserted the party, according to internal polling being shared with Labour MPs, reports @harriet_symonds
https://x.com/politicshome/status/1988622954981142946?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
On topic (vaguely), I struggle with the notion Labour will have zero MPs. Labour consistently poll lower with Find Out Now than other pollsters while Reform consistently poll lower with YouGov than other pollsters.
It's tough, indeed, almost as tough as it was in early 2024, to be a Government supporter of any kind. The volume and vitriol of anti-Government sentiment is as extreme as I've ever known it and it's hard to see that level of "discontent" (to use a fairly neutral term) being sustained until 2029.
There seems to be a notion, a hope perhaps that the next "scandal", the next "crisis", will bring the whole house of cards down and cause the Government to "collapse". Governments with majorities of 170 don't just collapse, they limp on wounded rather like the creature on the veldt wounded but being pursued to its death by jackals and hyenas (not that I would describe Reform and the Conservatives in those terms).
That's not to say the Budget a fortnight today won't be of political significance. Rather like trying to stop "the boats", there are any number of ideas and solutions ut there - the problem is, so far, none has proven practical, cost effective or legal.
One organisation which has had a superb 24 hours is the BBC, thanks to Trump's absurd posturings and legal threats. The POTUS has unified those opposed to him in the country in defence of the belegauered BBC and even those less enamoured of the Corporation have no wish to see millions of taxpayer's money handed to Washington.
The dossier is not simply about the Trump documentary. This is a point that you and others repeatedly ignore. It certainly suits the BBC and those defending it to pretend that it is. But it is a mistake.
I said yesterday in the header this -
"It is not possible to say whether all or any of the criticisms made are justified or not." about the report.
And this BTL -
"As for having an agenda: all whistleblowers and complainants have an agenda. But an investigator who allows that agenda to stop them investigating properly is a very bad one indeed. An organisation who does that is an organisation in denial. That is their agenda and it is a harmful one.
I cannot assess the validity of the Prescott criticisms. Some seem a little overblown; others much more serious. The Trump Panorama one seems to my mind less serious than some of the others."
And again this -
"As to your second point, I am not convinced by all the accusations Prescott makes. But there are statements of fact he makes from which he draws conclusions of bias etc. So were I being asked what to do, I would investigate those statements of fact, interview the relevant people etc. review the applicable policies, guidance and so on and establish exactly what happened and why and what he (Prescott) may have left out and whether this shows no issue or a breach of guidelines / policies or laws, or, potentially, a problem with internal policies/scrutiny/governance/training etc. This is standard investigative stuff. There will also be mitigating factors, which he does not consider."
So all they are doing is pointing out that Prescott has an agenda and may well have got his facts and allegations wrong, both of which I pointed out yesterday. That is the case in pretty much the majority of whistleblowing investigations and I have done far more of them than Lewis Goodall or Emily Maitlis or Jon Sopel or all 3 of them combined. Allegations are simply that - allegations. Some are untrue, some are made up, some are misunderstandings, some have answers, some are true and a problem and some are true but not a problem because ..... It is the investigation that gives you that information not evidence that the allegations come from someone with an agenda.
What those journalists have not done is investigated the entirety of the claims made and proved that they are - each and every one of them - wholly untrue. Instead they are doing a version of no 3 in yesterday's list. Prescott may well be a dubious or partisan source but that is neither a complete nor a sufficient answer to all the claims made in what he writes.
Oh and @kinabalu is someone who does not understand what a whistleblowing is. Like most people.
Unless this is some crazy Black Mirror deepfake or something, I can't really see a way for anyone to deny what Trump very obviously is.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XvKv0cOJO9g (90secs)
Faisal Islam
@faisalislam
10y gilt dipped below 4.4% for first time in 2025…
The 2 & 5 year gilt - both now been below 4% for a month, actually below level when Labour came to power… this is filtering through to 2y & 5y fixed mortgage rates…
driven by higher expectation of rate cuts given weaker jobs number, but also world away from summer headlines re IMF/ bankruptcy.
Julian Jessop
@julianHjessop
Just for clarify, 2- or 5-year gilt yields do not drive 2- or 5-year mortgage rates. Instead, both are being influenced by a third factor - market expectations for the Bank rate, as reflected in 2- or 5-year swaps.
In other words, market expectations of bigger cuts from the Bank of England are 'filtering through' both to lower gilt yields and lower mortgage rates.
(I know, I should get out more... 🤓)
https://x.com/julianHjessop/status/1988689961122431073
Starmer's dreadful polling numbers aren't because he's hated by the Right - it's because he's lost the faith of the left.
@alexwickham
NEW: Starmer faces Labour fury over top aide, briefings and budget...
...With just two weeks to go, Rachel Reeves has been unable to make final decisions on what policies to announce in part because of ongoing arguments about what to do, according to people familiar with the matter.
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1988574308830953874
What a mess. Why did they seek office? Try to win power? For what purpose?
Anyone have a scoopy?
Oh, how convenient.