(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h The reality is Tommy Robinson and Reform feel cheered by Labour MPs like Nadia Whittome. What scares them are Labour MPs like Shabana Mahmood.
The Green Party has raked in more than £4million from membership fees in just ten weeks since Zack Polanski was elected leader
Membership numbers have soared to more than 150,000, and there were 78,000 sign ups in October alone, earning the party an additional £4 million since Polanski’s election at the start of September
In the past the Greens have had income of about £5 million a year, half from membership fees and the other from conferences and local fundraising, meaning the membership drive has almost doubled its funding
The surge in revenue has been so much that they are struggling to work out what to do with the money
They are having to rip up and redo budgets every two weeks as they adjust their spending plans for next year’s local and May elections
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
I'm not sure there are that many parts which are 75% or more Muslim. Using the Muslim Council of Great Britain's own numbers, I live in the constituency with the third highest proportion of Muslims of voting age (East Ham and 34.3% I believe). There are Wards within Newham with a higher proportion of Muslims but, odd streets excepting, none has 75% Muslim population.
The Danish legislation in question is something like this -
Criteria for a "Ghetto"
An area is designated a "ghetto" if over 50% of residents are from "non-Western" backgrounds and it meets at least two of four criteria:
- Unemployment: Over 40% of residents aged 18-64 are neither employed nor in education.
- Crime: Crime rates are at least three times the national average.
- Education: Over 60% of residents aged 30-59 have only basic education.
- Income: Average gross income is less than 55% of the regional average.
An area can be quite small, I believe. A few streets.
Kitty Donaldson @kitty_donaldson · 5h For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.
Sorry Kitty, but Denmark has a completely different DNA than UK and whole world has different view of us and them, which is two salient points right at heart of this issue making your “worked in Denmark” really rather embarrassing.
Here’s the opposition to it, Cambridge educated lawyer with Filipino mum, so by the, can’t remember which one, law of PB, it means bana the basher is doomed to fail.
Kitty Donaldson @kitty_donaldson · 5h For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.
Sorry Kitty, but Denmark has a completely different DNA than UK and whole world has different view of us and them, which is two salient points right at heart of this issue making your “worked in Denmark” really rather embarrassing.
Here’s the opposition to it, Cambridge educated lawyer with Filipino mum, so by the, can’t remember which one, law of PB, it means bana the basher is doomed to fail.
It's funny it opens with wages - we've actually had decent real terms wage growth over the last couple of years. Nothing spectacular, but back to what we had in the years preceding 2008.
Whereas Italy and Spain have had no real wages growth in all that time. Mind you, in Poland wages have more than doubled.
Eye problems are one of the most common after-effects of covid infections, and one of the most common issues of Long Covid - but they're not talked about much.
Eye problems are one of the most common after-effects of covid infections, and one of the most common issues of Long Covid - but they're not talked about much.
Good to see some data. What is interesting is it may also explain behavioural and other phenomena, eg provide a better explanation of children's problems than the school closures.
Eye problems are one of the most common after-effects of covid infections, and one of the most common issues of Long Covid - but they're not talked about much.
This is a (very) long thread, and the charts are interesting, since in some the post Covid increase in numbers is very clear; in quote a few others, there's a steady but smaller increase pre-Covid as well. (That's also the case with the Alzheimer's numbers.)
So there's perhaps at least one other factor behind the numbers.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h The reality is Tommy Robinson and Reform feel cheered by Labour MPs like Nadia Whittome. What scares them are Labour MPs like Shabana Mahmood.
As sick as this is, it is very far from the sickest thing in Russia these days. The country has totally lost all moral compass. Consuming Russian news media is a harrowing experience, insane people demanding insane things with now thought for the consequences whatsoever.
The latest attack on Polish Railways is part of a pattern that continues to escalate. The Russian nervous breakdown could get extremely dangerous before it finally falls.
Kitty Donaldson @kitty_donaldson · 5h For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.
Sorry Kitty, but Denmark has a completely different DNA than UK and whole world has different view of us and them, which is two salient points right at heart of this issue making your “worked in Denmark” really rather embarrassing.
Here’s the opposition to it, Cambridge educated lawyer with Filipino mum, so by the, can’t remember which one, law of PB, it means bana the basher is doomed to fail.
Cambridge educated lawyers are invincible awesomeness, or something.
Mahmood's policy being successful is the only hope for social democracy in this country. Let's hope it is.
I must admit I look at some of her policies (eg on redefining the “family” to mean parents/spuse/kids) and my reaction is why the F didn’t the Tories do this? It’s blindingly obvious that was the intention behind the right.
I haven’t really had the time to dig through all the science of Covid, but I suspect that its impact on the inflammatory cascade is at the heart of things. People are only just beginning to realise that inflammation is a trigger not just a symptom of all sorts of conditions
One of many who are going to fall, it’s not difficult to imagine that Epstein had dozens of close associates even after his conviction. 🍿🍿🍿
Epstein got his tentacles into power in the UK's class system through (The Andrew Formerly Known As Prince Andrew) Andrew and Lord Mandy. The US power system though is celebrity, money and sex based. The apotheosis of that he identified as Donald Trump.
The AI companies in the US are taking a serious look at building their own nuclear power network, as the regular utilities can’t scale fast enough for all the new data centres.
Again an opportunity for R-R, if they can get their SMRs into production before the Americans.
So it's not only new homes that are shrinking in size. Roads are too. Shows just the problem with the UK finances when we can't afford to pay for full size roads.
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
I'm not sure there are that many parts which are 75% or more Muslim. Using the Muslim Council of Great Britain's own numbers, I live in the constituency with the third highest proportion of Muslims of voting age (East Ham and 34.3% I believe). There are Wards within Newham with a higher proportion of Muslims but, odd streets excepting, none has 75% Muslim population.
The Danish legislation in question is something like this -
Criteria for a "Ghetto"
An area is designated a "ghetto" if over 50% of residents are from "non-Western" backgrounds and it meets at least two of four criteria:
- Unemployment: Over 40% of residents aged 18-64 are neither employed nor in education.
- Crime: Crime rates are at least three times the national average.
- Education: Over 60% of residents aged 30-59 have only basic education.
- Income: Average gross income is less than 55% of the regional average.
An area can be quite small, I believe. A few streets.
If you drop the non-Western bit, it's an index of multiple deprivation. I reckon I could support such a policy if applied without a racial bias - indeed we have a long history of slum clearance in the UK. Knock them down, break those toxic "communities" up, build medium-density European-style estates with heat pumps, insulation and cycle infrastructure, jobs a good 'un.
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn “He can sod off,” Shabana Mahmood tells Sky News in a sit down TV interview, on top of her very powerful Commons performance today - revealing there IS a Labour Cabinet minister who speaks fluent normal person after all, AND can command the nation’s attention. Buy, buy, buy.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
On topic, the Scottish government owes £250,000 to For Women Scotland and still hasn’t paid up, supposedly in an attempt to stop FWS funding further legal action.
Well one Jo Rowling now appears to be preparing to step forward with funding to force the ScotGov to implement the ruling of the Supreme Court.
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn “He can sod off,” Shabana Mahmood tells Sky News in a sit down TV interview, on top of her very powerful Commons performance today - revealing there IS a Labour Cabinet minister who speaks fluent normal person after all, AND can command the nation’s attention. Buy, buy, buy.
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
The official reason is because you’re having to compete with thousands of touts using sophisticated software, who are ripping everyone off.
Except that Glastonbury Festival can manage ticket sales properly, which tells me that it’s technically possible but there’s simply no will to do it.
My theory, which is almost certainly true in the US if not yet the UK, that the events industry agreed to set up a ‘bad company’ in Ticketmaster, who take the heat for the rest of the crap that goes on. A lot of the ‘resale’ is actually primary sale, but the artists don’t want the fans to know that.
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
The official reason is because you’re having to compete with thousands of touts using sophisticated software, who are ripping everyone off.
Except that Glastonbury Festival can manage ticket sales properly, which tells me that it’s technically possible but there’s simply no will to do it.
My theory, which is almost certainly true in the US if not yet the UK, that the events industry agreed to set up a ‘bad company’ in Ticketmaster, who take the heat for the rest of the crap that goes on. A lot of the ‘resale’ is actually primary sale, but the artists don’t want the fans to know that.
I suspect certain football clubs are doing this too.
A school has banned the singing of songs from hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters over concerns they are not in keeping with its "Christian ethos".
Lilliput Church of England Infant School in Poole, Dorset, sent a message to parents on Friday saying some members of the community are "deeply uncomfortable" with references to demons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq03r3z2eqo
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
The official reason is because you’re having to compete with thousands of touts using sophisticated software, who are ripping everyone off.
Except that Glastonbury Festival can manage ticket sales properly, which tells me that it’s technically possible but there’s simply no will to do it.
My theory, which is almost certainly true in the US if not yet the UK, that the events industry agreed to set up a ‘bad company’ in Ticketmaster, who take the heat for the rest of the crap that goes on. A lot of the ‘resale’ is actually primary sale, but the artists don’t want the fans to know that.
I suspect certain football clubs are doing this too.
Selling football tickets through unofficial channels is already illegal in UK, but it appears the football touts have set up overseas.
It shouldn’t be difficult to stop if there’s a will to do so, that more legislation is now being proposed suggests that sports and entertainment venues are at best ambivalent towards what goes on.
At the British Grand Prix a couple of years ago, they introduced transparent “variable pricing” on the official website, and it went down like the proverbial bucket of cold sick with the fans, with tickets in the same grandstand being £300 one day, £800 the next day, and £400 the day after that.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
A school has banned the singing of songs from hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters over concerns they are not in keeping with its "Christian ethos".
Lilliput Church of England Infant School in Poole, Dorset, sent a message to parents on Friday saying some members of the community are "deeply uncomfortable" with references to demons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq03r3z2eqo
Not just America.
Bunch of wallys.
I could understand if it were on the grounds of taste.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
It's to get the support of her backbenchers. Which is far from universal.
Stark, but episodes are not the best measure. Maybe that's what's most available, but admissions or, far better, people would be preferable.
Still, stark and - in the absence of some change in care/recording practices that has boosted episodes - likely real.
I'd hope that the NHS are doing similar analyses, in a more rigorous manner. It's not limited to a couple of conditions, and there are some apparently very strong signals, whatever the underlying cause might be.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
I don't have access to Twitter since I deleted my account so cannot read the links.
There, plenty of data out there though, such as this one showing a higher rate of vascular dementia (but not alzheimers) in 24 month follow up of covid patients:
Covid started as a respiratory disease with vascular sequelae, but the virulence of the respiratory side has long attenuatted. It mutated into a contagious vascular disease. Pretty much all vascular disease is more common in the six months after covid, as shown here, vaccination reducing the impact:
What we don't know is whether this effect is true of modern circulating covid varients, or just the original varients. I suspect that the effect is still present, but smaller.
Kitty Donaldson @kitty_donaldson · 5h For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.
Sorry Kitty, but Denmark has a completely different DNA than UK and whole world has different view of us and them, which is two salient points right at heart of this issue making your “worked in Denmark” really rather embarrassing.
Here’s the opposition to it, Cambridge educated lawyer with Filipino mum, so by the, can’t remember which one, law of PB, it means bana the basher is doomed to fail.
Cambridge educated lawyers are invincible awesomeness, or something.
Mahmood's policy being successful is the only hope for social democracy in this country. Let's hope it is.
I must admit I look at some of her policies (eg on redefining the “family” to mean parents/spuse/kids) and my reaction is why the F didn’t the Tories do this? It’s blindingly obvious that was the intention behind the right.
Chain migration is also an issue
There’s lots in the policy announcement that the Tories could’ve done, but didn’t. But then the Conservatives’ policy was always odd: they seemed to want the backlog of applicants to build up so that they could go on about how terrible it all is, an approach that ultimately perhaps saw them lose most of their vote to Reform.
A school has banned the singing of songs from hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters over concerns they are not in keeping with its "Christian ethos".
Lilliput Church of England Infant School in Poole, Dorset, sent a message to parents on Friday saying some members of the community are "deeply uncomfortable" with references to demons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq03r3z2eqo
Not just America.
Well it is a Christian school, hardly surprising it won't promote music referencing demons. It is a highly rated school much in demand
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
She likely will need Tory and Reform votes to get it through
Trump struggling with the difficult numbers 1, 2 and 3 at last night's McDonalds Summit. Has he finally flipped?
Many observers were left scratching their heads at Trump’s puzzling reference to what he seemed to think was a famous gaffe made by Biden.
“We’re going to make the American Dream, a word that, two words that you didn’t have,” the president began. “You didn’t have those two words. Remember when Biden said: ‘It’s all about three words: the American dream.’” Trump then paused, as if expecting laughter that did not come, before adding, with a chuckle: “You don’t want to ever get in that situation.”
“Remember that?” he continued. “That was not good.”
He then tried again to land what he seemed to regard as a punch line: “‘It’s all about three words: American dream.’”
I don't have access to Twitter since I deleted my account so cannot read the links.
There, plenty of data out there though, such as this one showing a higher rate of vascular dementia (but not alzheimers) in 24 month follow up of covid patients:
Covid started as a respiratory disease with vascular sequelae, but the virulence of the respiratory side has long attenuatted. It mutated into a contagious vascular disease. Pretty much all vascular disease is more common in the six months after covid, as shown here, vaccination reducing the impact:
What we don't know is whether this effect is true of modern circulating covid varients, or just the original varients. I suspect that the effect is still present, but smaller.
People who had been vaccinated against Covid generally had arteries that were less stiff than people who were unvaccinated. Over the longer term, the vascular ageing associated with Covid infection seemed to stabilise or improve slightly.
Nature has a lot of wonderful ways of developing ways to kill or debilitate you. What a bas**rd.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
I mean, sure, if that is what you wish for, that is what you wish for, but this is how the Commons has always worked!
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
It's to get the support of her backbenchers. Which is far from universal.
So far it’s only the usual suspects who have been critical. The awkward squad as such.
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
The official reason is because you’re having to compete with thousands of touts using sophisticated software, who are ripping everyone off.
Except that Glastonbury Festival can manage ticket sales properly, which tells me that it’s technically possible but there’s simply no will to do it.
My theory, which is almost certainly true in the US if not yet the UK, that the events industry agreed to set up a ‘bad company’ in Ticketmaster, who take the heat for the rest of the crap that goes on. A lot of the ‘resale’ is actually primary sale, but the artists don’t want the fans to know that.
I suspect certain football clubs are doing this too.
Selling football tickets through unofficial channels is already illegal in UK, but it appears the football touts have set up overseas.
It shouldn’t be difficult to stop if there’s a will to do so, that more legislation is now being proposed suggests that sports and entertainment venues are at best ambivalent towards what goes on.
At the British Grand Prix a couple of years ago, they introduced transparent “variable pricing” on the official website, and it went down like the proverbial bucket of cold sick with the fans, with tickets in the same grandstand being £300 one day, £800 the next day, and £400 the day after that.
Sandpit - re TM and "secondary sales", you are correct. I know someone who worked there in the 2000s. TMs bids to the venues would include what % of tickets would be held back for the "secondary market".
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
She likely will need Tory and Reform votes to get it through
Both parties will be torn. Support a measure they feel is right and boost Labour, or find some made-up excuse to vote against and add to Labour's woes?
I suspect the latter will win out given the shitty state of our politics.
A school has banned the singing of songs from hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters over concerns they are not in keeping with its "Christian ethos".
Lilliput Church of England Infant School in Poole, Dorset, sent a message to parents on Friday saying some members of the community are "deeply uncomfortable" with references to demons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq03r3z2eqo
Not just America.
Well it is a Christian school, hardly surprising it won't promote music referencing demons. It is a highly rated school much in demand
The Bible references demons. Should they ban that too?
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
Oh they'll try...
A few weeks ago I was toying with the idea of paying about 7x face value for a football match. In the 'wrong' end. Eventually decided against it because with the additional travel and accommodation costs I just couldn't justify the expense simply to tick off a new ground.
But I feel like denying people this option is fundamentally wrong. There will still be ways the very rich/connected can attend any event they want; it's only going to be ordinary people who miss out.
And I suspect it will ultimately result iin inflation of base ticket prices. Supply and demand, and all that.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
She likely will need Tory and Reform votes to get it through
Possibly but would they pull it rather than get it through with the help of the Tories and Reform.
Generally it’s a positive move. The one thing I personally don’t like is if someone has been here for years, is embedded in the community. Works. Contributes and is a part of,society I don’t see the benefit in repatriating them. If they’re long term unemployed, on benefits, living in a subsidised council property then that’s a different matter.
Kitty Donaldson @kitty_donaldson · 5h For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.
Sorry Kitty, but Denmark has a completely different DNA than UK and whole world has different view of us and them, which is two salient points right at heart of this issue making your “worked in Denmark” really rather embarrassing.
Here’s the opposition to it, Cambridge educated lawyer with Filipino mum, so by the, can’t remember which one, law of PB, it means bana the basher is doomed to fail.
Cambridge educated lawyers are invincible awesomeness, or something.
Mahmood's policy being successful is the only hope for social democracy in this country. Let's hope it is.
I must admit I look at some of her policies (eg on redefining the “family” to mean parents/spuse/kids) and my reaction is why the F didn’t the Tories do this? It’s blindingly obvious that was the intention behind the right.
Chain migration is also an issue
There’s lots in the policy announcement that the Tories could’ve done, but didn’t. But then the Conservatives’ policy was always odd: they seemed to want the backlog of applicants to build up so that they could go on about how terrible it all is, an approach that ultimately perhaps saw them lose most of their vote to Reform.
The Tory approach was performative; they knew that after Brexit we needed the influx of workers (indeed, prior to Brexit they as good as promised it) but needed to be seen to be doing something about people’s concerns, without actually caring that much about them.
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
The official reason is because you’re having to compete with thousands of touts using sophisticated software, who are ripping everyone off.
Except that Glastonbury Festival can manage ticket sales properly, which tells me that it’s technically possible but there’s simply no will to do it.
My theory, which is almost certainly true in the US if not yet the UK, that the events industry agreed to set up a ‘bad company’ in Ticketmaster, who take the heat for the rest of the crap that goes on. A lot of the ‘resale’ is actually primary sale, but the artists don’t want the fans to know that.
I've got tickets to events I otherwise wouldn't have been able to go to before through Ticketmaster.
I don't have the patient for ballots or the time to sit in telephone queues.
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
Oh they'll try...
A few weeks ago I was toying with the idea of paying about 7x face value for a football match. In the 'wrong' end. Eventually decided against it because with the additional travel and accommodation costs I just couldn't justify the expense simply to tick off a new ground.
But I feel like denying people this option is fundamentally wrong. There will still be ways the very rich/connected can attend any event they want; it's only going to be ordinary people who miss out.
And I suspect it will ultimately result iin inflation of base ticket prices. Supply and demand, and all that.
A school has banned the singing of songs from hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters over concerns they are not in keeping with its "Christian ethos".
Lilliput Church of England Infant School in Poole, Dorset, sent a message to parents on Friday saying some members of the community are "deeply uncomfortable" with references to demons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq03r3z2eqo
Not just America.
Well it is a Christian school, hardly surprising it won't promote music referencing demons. It is a highly rated school much in demand
The Bible references demons. Should they ban that too?
The Netflix film is based on Korean legends which have precisely nothing to do with Christian eschatology.
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
Because the artists have made them non transferable which means that they are essentially fraudulent conveyance
So what? They have a value in the market.
Well no, they don't if they only have value to one named person. Otherwise it is bullshit. I guess I am unusual but I have never felt the need or desire to attend any event with this sort of ticketing EVER. For those who do it is clearly a big thing but I really don't think I am alone in NEVER attending this sort of thing. Has there been any research done ? No one I come into contact with has ever attended such an event either as far as I know.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
She likely will need Tory and Reform votes to get it through
Possibly but would they pull it rather than get it through with the help of the Tories and Reform.
Generally it’s a positive move. The one thing I personally don’t like is if someone has been here for years, is embedded in the community. Works. Contributes and is a part of,society I don’t see the benefit in repatriating them. If they’re long term unemployed, on benefits, living in a subsidised council property then that’s a different matter.
I think the policy covers that. The headline is that refugees don’t get settled status for 20 years, but if they’re on an employment path, i.e. they are working, then they get it sooner. AIUI.
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
She likely will need Tory and Reform votes to get it through
Possibly but would they pull it rather than get it through with the help of the Tories and Reform.
Generally it’s a positive move. The one thing I personally don’t like is if someone has been here for years, is embedded in the community. Works. Contributes and is a part of,society I don’t see the benefit in repatriating them. If they’re long term unemployed, on benefits, living in a subsidised council property then that’s a different matter.
I think the policy covers that. The headline is that refugees don’t get settled status for 20 years, but if they’re on an employment path, i.e. they are working, then they get it sooner. AIUI.
Indeed, refugees should be able to apply for citizenship in the normal way. A doctor fleeing for his life who gets a job in the NHS, is able to support his family without recourse to the state, should be able to get citizenship
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
Oh they'll try...
A few weeks ago I was toying with the idea of paying about 7x face value for a football match. In the 'wrong' end. Eventually decided against it because with the additional travel and accommodation costs I just couldn't justify the expense simply to tick off a new ground.
But I feel like denying people this option is fundamentally wrong. There will still be ways the very rich/connected can attend any event they want; it's only going to be ordinary people who miss out.
And I suspect it will ultimately result iin inflation of base ticket prices. Supply and demand, and all that.
It's definitely a supply and demand issue, but the market is distorted, the agent for the seller restricts the available supply in order to sell above the equilibrium price and increase their revenue. Hence in the 2000s going to "sold out" gigs that weren't full because tickets hadn't been put on sale. The theoretical result of ending resale at above face value is that the base prices will fall. Demand curve shifts left as touts stop buying to resell, supply curve shifts right as sellers release all the tickets, resulting intersection is at a lower price.
A school has banned the singing of songs from hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters over concerns they are not in keeping with its "Christian ethos".
Lilliput Church of England Infant School in Poole, Dorset, sent a message to parents on Friday saying some members of the community are "deeply uncomfortable" with references to demons. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq03r3z2eqo
Not just America.
My son's CofE school is teaching them about vikings and teaching them viking songs* - I find it slightly amusing that they are celebrating the heathen hoards!
*Possibly not entirely authentic ones as they appear to be in English!
Stark, but episodes are not the best measure. Maybe that's what's most available, but admissions or, far better, people would be preferable.
Still, stark and - in the absence of some change in care/recording practices that has boosted episodes - likely real. (If payment practices have changed then more episodes where dementia is present but maybe not them main focus could be coded that way; if treatment practices have changed so patients sit under different specialities then you could get more episodes too)
I was listening to Yesterday in Parliament and thinking how impressive Mahmoud was. She made sense, was forthright, determined etc and then she had to ruin it with a pathetic political Barb along the lines of “make it the Great Britain that this side of the house believe in and not the Little England the other side believe in”.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
She did really well and took no shit from a dull middle aged white male Lib Dem putting him in his place as to what racism is, or some clueless Green student politician and Farage too.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
She likely will need Tory and Reform votes to get it through
Possibly but would they pull it rather than get it through with the help of the Tories and Reform.
Generally it’s a positive move. The one thing I personally don’t like is if someone has been here for years, is embedded in the community. Works. Contributes and is a part of,society I don’t see the benefit in repatriating them. If they’re long term unemployed, on benefits, living in a subsidised council property then that’s a different matter.
I think the policy covers that. The headline is that refugees don’t get settled status for 20 years, but if they’re on an employment path, i.e. they are working, then they get it sooner. AIUI.
Indeed, refugees should be able to apply for citizenship in the normal way. A doctor fleeing for his life who gets a job in the NHS, is able to support his family without recourse to the state, should be able to get citizenship
A pedant notes that an NHS doctor is supporting his family with complete dependence on the state Not if he then switches to private!
Comments
YourParty is dead in the water.
They have no chance of coming back from this.
Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
Exclusive from @daisyeastlake on the Green gold rush
The Green Party has raked in more than £4million from membership fees in just ten weeks since Zack Polanski was elected leader
Membership numbers have soared to more than 150,000, and there were 78,000 sign ups in October alone, earning the party an additional £4 million since Polanski’s election at the start of September
In the past the Greens have had income of about £5 million a year, half from membership fees and the other from conferences and local fundraising, meaning the membership drive has almost doubled its funding
The surge in revenue has been so much that they are struggling to work out what to do with the money
They are having to rip up and redo budgets every two weeks as they adjust their spending plans for next year’s local and May elections
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1990349180217221183
"UK to ban resale of tickets above face value for live events" (£)
https://www.ft.com/content/e76df64b-b5ff-4e6d-9064-53233073908c
Here’s the opposition to it, Cambridge educated lawyer with Filipino mum, so by the, can’t remember which one, law of PB, it means bana the basher is doomed to fail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Vaughan_(politician)
Cambridge educated lawyers are invincible awesomeness, or something.
There's a guy on X posting NHS data on the incidence of various conditions, post Covid.
The data is ... disturbing.
What do you make of this stuff, @Foxy ?
Sometimes I see one of these charts that just stops me in my tracks.
Alzheimer's.
Late onset.
Don't lie to yourself about this one.
https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1990495590325587976
This is part two of my thread working through eye conditions that have become *much more common* since Covid struck.
https://x.com/1goodtern/status/1990454115260903786
(That's also the case with the Alzheimer's numbers.)
So there's perhaps at least one other factor behind the numbers.
PB statisticians ?
Former treasury secretary steps away to ‘rebuild trust’ after severe backlash but will continue teaching Harvard classes
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/17/larry-summers-jeffrey-epstein
The latest attack on Polish Railways is part of a pattern that continues to escalate. The Russian nervous breakdown could get extremely dangerous before it finally falls.
Chain migration is also an issue
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/1990641822981386406
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1990621738594414682
Only a test core, but they seem competent.
Announcing Project Nova, a series of zero power critical tests on Valar Atomics' Nova Core in collaboration with Los Alamos NCERC and NNSS.
Nova went critical for the first time this morning at 11:45am.
https://x.com/isaiah_p_taylor/status/1990535382438719825
Again an opportunity for R-R, if they can get their SMRs into production before the Americans.
I've often relied on the secondary resale market to get tickets at all.
You can't buck the market.
Well one Jo Rowling now appears to be preparing to step forward with funding to force the ScotGov to implement the ruling of the Supreme Court.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1975864041542242576
Except that Glastonbury Festival can manage ticket sales properly, which tells me that it’s technically possible but there’s simply no will to do it.
My theory, which is almost certainly true in the US if not yet the UK, that the events industry agreed to set up a ‘bad company’ in Ticketmaster, who take the heat for the rest of the crap that goes on. A lot of the ‘resale’ is actually primary sale, but the artists don’t want the fans to know that.
Lilliput Church of England Infant School in Poole, Dorset, sent a message to parents on Friday saying some members of the community are "deeply uncomfortable" with references to demons.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceq03r3z2eqo
Not just America.
BBC investigation, from a couple of months ago.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/cwy9dlqxx2ro
It shouldn’t be difficult to stop if there’s a will to do so, that more legislation is now being proposed suggests that sports and entertainment venues are at best ambivalent towards what goes on.
At the British Grand Prix a couple of years ago, they introduced transparent “variable pricing” on the official website, and it went down like the proverbial bucket of cold sick with the fans, with tickets in the same grandstand being £300 one day, £800 the next day, and £400 the day after that.
I would love our senior politicians to stop this sort of childish bullshit and focus on running the country and good policies. There was no need for her to do it as she was winning anyway and largely has the support of the Tories and Reform on this and might need them to get it past her own colleagues.
I could understand if it were on the grounds of taste.
Still, stark and - in the absence of some change in care/recording practices that has boosted episodes - likely real.
Which is far from universal.
Truly a man who has only ever failed upwards.
The day he retires we should upgrade US growth forecasts by half a percent.
It's not limited to a couple of conditions, and there are some apparently very strong signals, whatever the underlying cause might be.
Very combative.
Her own party has a significant core of open door migration fanatics who will push back but the public seems on board from Luke Tryls post on X
There, plenty of data out there though, such as this one showing a higher rate of vascular dementia (but not alzheimers) in 24 month follow up of covid patients:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44400-025-00034-y/figures/1
Covid started as a respiratory disease with vascular sequelae, but the virulence of the respiratory side has long attenuatted. It mutated into a contagious vascular disease. Pretty much all vascular disease is more common in the six months after covid, as shown here, vaccination reducing the impact:
https://www.escardio.org/The-ESC/Press-Office/Press-releases/Covid-infection-ages-blood-vessels-especially-in-women
What we don't know is whether this effect is true of modern circulating covid varients, or just the original varients. I suspect that the effect is still present, but smaller.
Reform votes to get it through
Many observers were left scratching their heads at Trump’s puzzling reference to what he seemed to think was a famous gaffe made by Biden.
“We’re going to make the American Dream, a word that, two words that you didn’t have,” the president began. “You didn’t have those two words. Remember when Biden said: ‘It’s all about three words: the American dream.’” Trump then paused, as if expecting laughter that did not come, before adding, with a chuckle: “You don’t want to ever get in that situation.”
“Remember that?” he continued. “That was not good.”
He then tried again to land what he seemed to regard as a punch line: “‘It’s all about three words: American dream.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/nov/17/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-files-republicans-democrats-world-cup-us-politics-live-news-updates?filterKeyEvents=false#liveblog-navigation
Nature has a lot of wonderful ways of developing ways to kill or debilitate you. What a bas**rd.
I suspect the latter will win out given the shitty state of our politics.
A few weeks ago I was toying with the idea of paying about 7x face value for a football match. In the 'wrong' end. Eventually decided against it because with the additional travel and accommodation costs I just couldn't justify the expense simply to tick off a new ground.
But I feel like denying people this option is fundamentally wrong. There will still be ways the very rich/connected can attend any event they want; it's only going to be ordinary people who miss out.
And I suspect it will ultimately result iin inflation of base ticket prices. Supply and demand, and all that.
Generally it’s a positive move. The one thing I personally don’t like is if someone has been here for years, is embedded in the community. Works. Contributes and is a part of,society I don’t see the benefit in repatriating them. If they’re long term unemployed, on benefits, living in a subsidised council property then that’s a different matter.
NEW THREAD
I don't have the patient for ballots or the time to sit in telephone queues.
So, essentially we'll now have rationing.
The theoretical result of ending resale at above face value is that the base prices will fall. Demand curve shifts left as touts stop buying to resell, supply curve shifts right as sellers release all the tickets, resulting intersection is at a lower price.
*Possibly not entirely authentic ones as they appear to be in English!
Still, stark and - in the absence of some change in care/recording practices that has boosted episodes - likely real. (If payment practices have changed then more episodes where dementia is present but maybe not them main focus could be coded that way; if treatment practices have changed so patients sit under different specialities then you could get more episodes too)