Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Another ignorant question from me about the footer: am I right in supposing that it is possible both to qualify from the group stage without having won a game, and also to be eliminated from it without having lost one?
Yes, I think it is. For the first half of that imagine the following:
Team 1 beats Team 2 and 3, and draws to Team 4 (you) - They qualify on 7 points. Team 4 draws to all other teams, ending on 3 points. Teams 2 and 3 both lost to Team 1, both draw with Team 4 and then draw against each other, ending on 2 points.
Thus Team 4 qualifies without a win.
The second scenario can happen a couple of ways, but the easiest is for there to be a group whipping boy who you fail to beat.
Team 1 beats Team 2 and 3, and draws to Team 4 (you) - qualifying on 7 points. Team 4 draws to all other teams, ending on 3 points. Team 2 beats Team 3 and draws with Team 4 - Team 2 qualifies with 4 points (Team 3 crashes out with 1).
It is also possible to not qualify with 2 wins. I can see this being a live outside possibility in the Spain/Netherlands/Chile/Australia group.
Spain beat Chile, Chile beat Netherlands.
Spain's thrashing could yet sink them even if they win tonight. A point will be huge for Chile.
Of course in 1982, England were knocked out in the second group stage despite being unbeaten in 5 games, winning 3 and drawing 2. Worst World Cup set up since 1950
Edit - the England v West Germany game was famous for my fathers drunken outburst when Beckenbauer hit the crossbar of 'we should be fighting a war with them, not playing football with them'
Moving on from intemperate and foul mouthed Nats....The Polling Observatory predicts a dead heat in 2015 with Lab &con both on 35.8...... Leaving Lab 4 short of a majority on Electoral Calculus (Con, 286, Lab 322, LibD, 15, and UKIP even with a 14% vote share zero.....
Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Another ignorant question from me about the footer: am I right in supposing that it is possible both to qualify from the group stage without having won a game, and also to be eliminated from it without having lost one?
Yes, I think it is. For the first half of that imagine the following:
Team 1 beats Team 2 and 3, and draws to Team 4 (you) - They qualify on 7 points. Team 4 draws to all other teams, ending on 3 points. Teams 2 and 3 both lost to Team 1, both draw with Team 4 and then draw against each other, ending on 2 points.
Thus Team 4 qualifies without a win.
The second scenario can happen a couple of ways, but the easiest is for there to be a group whipping boy who you fail to beat.
Team 1 beats Team 2 and 3, and draws to Team 4 (you) - qualifying on 7 points. Team 4 draws to all other teams, ending on 3 points. Team 2 beats Team 3 and draws with Team 4 - Team 2 qualifies with 4 points (Team 3 crashes out with 1).
It is also possible to not qualify with 2 wins. I can see this being a live outside possibility in the Spain/Netherlands/Chile/Australia group.
Spain beat Chile, Chile beat Netherlands.
Spain's thrashing could yet sink them even if they win tonight. A point will be huge for Chile.
Thanks. The scenario where you are eliminated without having lost does seem particularly unfortunate, somehow. Nobody managed to beat you, yet based on the outcomes among other teams who at some point did get beaten, they go forward and you don't.
Thinking about this it seemed to me at first to arise from the 3 points you get for a win versus only 1 for a draw. But no obvious alternative works any better. If in the above scenario you got 2 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a defeat, Team 1 would get 5 points rather than 7; Team 2 would get 3 rather than 4; Team 3 would still get 1; and Team 4 would still get 3.
It would then be a question of whether Team 2 or 4 should qualify with 3 points. Team 2 won, lost, and drew; Team 4 drew, drew and drew. So Team 2 could be argued to deserve it because they managed to win a game, whereas Team 4 could also be argued to deserve it because they are unbeaten.
I suppose you'd then have to decide it based on goals scored, although that might still produce a tie. Or maybe have Team 2 play Team 4 as a decider?
It is often forgotten Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh
English father, Irish mother. I'm denying he was Scottish.
And the Nats keep on telling me their nationalism is civic and not ethnic.
Blair is yours and you're keeping him.
We never see race riots in Scotland either, Blair despite accident of where born is anything but Scottish.
Probably because Scotland is 96% White, compared with England which is 85.4% White.
I would imagine what's relevant is that in England there are areas of ethnic concentrations while I can't think of anywhere in Scotland that has an equivalent level of ghetto-isation that say Bradford, Oldham, Manchester would have.
Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Presumably these England players look good at other times only because they have foreign players in their usual teams to help them look good?
33:1? Those seem like generous odds. Defeat by Italy and Uruguay seem highly likely, so in effect those odds are 33:1 against Costa Rica beating England. I can't find a list of teams Costa Rica have beaten in competitive games but I'd have thought it was a more impressive record than England's. Maybe evens would be about right.
As a matter of interest, has England ever beaten a side acknowledged to be really good in a match that the other side needed to win?
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
Interesting. The UK healthcare system ranks very highly on this - except I note "healthy lives" which is essentially an aggregate proxy for a few mortality measures.
Something doesn't quite fit there ^^;
That seems an extraordinary study, their description of the healthy lives indicator is:
"The goal of a well-functioning health care system is to ensure that people lead long, healthy, and productive lives. To measure this dimension, Exhibit 8 includes three outcome indicators, including mortality amenable to health care—that is, deaths that could have been prevented with timely and effective care; infant mortality; and healthy life expectancy.
On the three healthy lives indicators, France ranks highest overall—scoring among the top three countries on each indicator—and Sweden ranks second. The U.S. ranks last on mortality amenable to health care, last on infant mortality, and second-to-last on healthy life expectancy at age 60.
Notably, countries’ performance on these three outcomes indicators did not necessarily align with their ranks on the other dimensions of health system performance. France ranks near the bottom overall, whereas the U.K., which ranks first or second on every other dimension, ranks near the bottom of healthy lives."
Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Presumably these England players look good at other times only because they have foreign players in their usual teams to help them look good?
33:1? Those seem like generous odds. Defeat by Italy and Uruguay seem highly likely, so in effect those odds are 33:1 against Costa Rica beating England. I can't find a list of teams Costa Rica have beaten in competitive games but I'd have thought it was a more impressive record than England's. Maybe evens would be about right.
As a matter of interest, has England ever beaten a side acknowledged to be really good in a match that the other side needed to win?
If you think evens is about right I'll lay you 2/1 on it? You're even a third of the way to winning before we place the bet.
EDIT: As for the second para of your post. Er...we beat Argentina in an almost must-win match for them during the group stages of the 2002 WC. That's probably the closest we've gotten for decades.
More power to Business for Scotland for exploiting the utter uselessness of so many non-specialist journalists when it comes to business and finance. With a credible sounding title you'll get a lot of coverage. And well done to the blogger for pointing that out.
In another sphere Peter Herbert, of "The Society of Black Lawyers", has managed to do something similar:
Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Presumably these England players look good at other times only because they have foreign players in their usual teams to help them look good?
33:1? Those seem like generous odds. Defeat by Italy and Uruguay seem highly likely, so in effect those odds are 33:1 against Costa Rica beating England. I can't find a list of teams Costa Rica have beaten in competitive games but I'd have thought it was a more impressive record than England's. Maybe evens would be about right.
As a matter of interest, has England ever beaten a side acknowledged to be really good in a match that the other side needed to win?
I agree the odds seem generous, but I'd say Uruguay and England are fairly evenly matched. Particularly if Suarez is out, or not match fit, there's no reason to believe it's "highly likely" they'd beat us.
Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Presumably these England players look good at other times only because they have foreign players in their usual teams to help them look good?
33:1? Those seem like generous odds. Defeat by Italy and Uruguay seem highly likely, so in effect those odds are 33:1 against Costa Rica beating England. I can't find a list of teams Costa Rica have beaten in competitive games but I'd have thought it was a more impressive record than England's. Maybe evens would be about right.
As a matter of interest, has England ever beaten a side acknowledged to be really good in a match that the other side needed to win?
I agree the odds seem generous, but I'd say Uruguay and England are fairly evenly matched. Particularly if Suarez is out, or not match fit, there's no reason to believe it's "highly likely" they'd beat us.
Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Another ignorant question from me about the footer: am I right in supposing that it is possible both to qualify from the group stage without having won a game, and also to be eliminated from it without having lost one?
Yes, I think it is. For the first half of that imagine the following:
Team 1 beats Team 2 and 3, and draws to Team 4 (you) - They qualify on 7 points. Team 4 draws to all other teams, ending on 3 points. Teams 2 and 3 both lost to Team 1, both draw with Team 4 and then draw against each other, ending on 2 points.
Thus Team 4 qualifies without a win.
The second scenario can happen a couple of ways, but the easiest is for there to be a group whipping boy who you fail to beat.
Team 1 beats Team 2 and 3, and draws to Team 4 (you) - qualifying on 7 points. Team 4 draws to all other teams, ending on 3 points. Team 2 beats Team 3 and draws with Team 4 - Team 2 qualifies with 4 points (Team 3 crashes out with 1).
It is also possible to not qualify with 2 wins. I can see this being a live outside possibility in the Spain/Netherlands/Chile/Australia group.
Spain beat Chile, Chile beat Netherlands.
Spain's thrashing could yet sink them even if they win tonight. A point will be huge for Chile.
Interestingly a defeat to Uruguay would not necessarily be the end of the England's World Cup. They'd just need Italy to win both their games and to beat Costa Rica themselves.
Making a neat link between the world cup and politics, is it the best idea for Michael Ashcroft to be releasing his poll tomorrow given the attention that will be on England vs Uruguay? His last marginals poll didn't get the sort of focus at the time it probably should have done (I forget why). Do we know the dates the polling was carried out on?
More power to Business for Scotland for exploiting the utter uselessness of so many non-specialist journalists when it comes to business and finance. With a credible sounding title you'll get a lot of coverage. And well done to the blogger for pointing that out.
In another sphere Peter Herbert, of "The Society of Black Lawyers", has managed to do something similar:
See the coverage Herbet gets himself on football-related issues because credulous journalists the title of the organisation and do not look past that.
Various very small Moslem organisations do something similar.
As I've got older and learned how so many journalists work behind the scenes, I increasingly lost my faith in the press. The vast majority of journalists don't know what they're talking about, and often have only a very superficial understanding of their work even in their field of expertise. They will know the arguments in the debate, but have no good knowledge on the merit of the arguments, or the data that says how strong/weak they are.
They seem to have developed a ranking system that measures everything except that which is really important to the patient.
As so often, Yes Minister got there first:
[discussing a hospital that has 500 administrators, but no doctors, nurses, or patients] James Hacker: "You think it is functioning now?" Mrs. Rogers: "Minister, it is one of the best run hospitals in the country. It is up for the Florence Nightingale Award." James Hacker: "And what is that, pray?" Mrs. Rogers: "It is won by the most hygienic hospital in the area."
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
LOL, did someone write that for you, how thick can you be. 1 MP and only MSP's due to getting freebies from the list, deluded half wit.
I've always assumed malcolmg is something of a spoof persona, similar to Ave It.
I have always said malcomg is an alter ego of OGH . This is why personal abuse counter to the site rules never results in suspension of posting privileges .
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
It is not so unreasonable as it seems. The conditions in section 8 are mostly to do with social and economic issues. Infant mortality is mostly to do with poverty (and to an extent abortion rates) rather than health care. Life expectancy at 60 is mostly to do with lifestyle such as poor diet and smoking. What myself and Dr Filgrave do is limited by the tendency of the great British public to booze smoke and sit on the sofa eating takeaway pizza. Yet when the BMA lectures us on these issues we tell them to bugger off.
Interesting. The UK healthcare system ranks very highly on this - except I note "healthy lives" which is essentially an aggregate proxy for a few mortality measures.
Something doesn't quite fit there ^^;
That seems an extraordinary study, their description of the healthy lives indicator is:
"The goal of a well-functioning health care system is to ensure that people lead long, healthy, and productive lives. To measure this dimension, Exhibit 8 includes three outcome indicators, including mortality amenable to health care—that is, deaths that could have been prevented with timely and effective care; infant mortality; and healthy life expectancy.
On the three healthy lives indicators, France ranks highest overall—scoring among the top three countries on each indicator—and Sweden ranks second. The U.S. ranks last on mortality amenable to health care, last on infant mortality, and second-to-last on healthy life expectancy at age 60.
Notably, countries’ performance on these three outcomes indicators did not necessarily align with their ranks on the other dimensions of health system performance. France ranks near the bottom overall, whereas the U.K., which ranks first or second on every other dimension, ranks near the bottom of healthy lives."
Ed Miliband suffered a major blow today as an exclusive poll found nearly half the public think Labour should ditch him as party leader before the election.
Some 49 per cent think he should be replaced - including 43 per cent of Labour supporters, Ipsos MORI researchers found.
That compares with 44 per cent who think Nick Clegg should be dumped as Liberal Democrat leader and just 27 per cent who think the Tories should get rid of David Cameron.
Alarmingly for Labour, the percentage of voters who think Mr Miliband is “ready to be Prime Minister” has gone down slightly rather than up in the past year - from 24 to 22 per cent.
By contrast, 35 per cent think the Labour Party is ready to form a government - a rise from 29 per cent - which suggests Mr Miliband inspires less confidence than his party as a whole.
Labour is holding onto a three-point lead over the Conservatives, reveals the monthly poll, at 34 per cent and 31 per cent. Ukip has risen three points to 14 since May, with the Lib Dems down a point to a low eight per cent.
But the lacklustre ratings for Mr Miliband will worry Labour MPs unnerved by the party’s failure to achieve a runaway lead in recent polls.
More power to Business for Scotland for exploiting the utter uselessness of so many non-specialist journalists when it comes to business and finance. With a credible sounding title you'll get a lot of coverage. And well done to the blogger for pointing that out.
In another sphere Peter Herbert, of "The Society of Black Lawyers", has managed to do something similar:
See the coverage Herbet gets himself on football-related issues because credulous journalists the title of the organisation and do not look past that.
Various very small Moslem organisations do something similar.
As I've got older and learned how so many journalists work behind the scenes, I increasingly lost my faith in the press. The vast majority of journalists don't know what they're talking about, and often have only a very superficial understanding of their work even in their field of expertise. They will know the arguments in the debate, but have no good knowledge on the merit of the arguments, or the data that says how strong/weak they are.
Journalism is much less well paid than it once was and there are fewer journalists on most general news titles having to do more things. Throw in the 24 hour news cycle and the resultant pressure on deadlines, and the ability of any journalist to look closely at a story and to drill into sources is severely limited. Just think how long it took that blogger to research Business for Scotland.
I may be biased, but for high-quality, in-depth reporting of issues you are much better off going to the specialist and B2B press. But that costs. An annual subscription to our six times a year stuff costs between £725 and £795. It's not an option open to most punters - only those whose jobs are very focused on the types of reporting and analysis we provide.
Jeepers creepers I've been able to lay off my stake on England winning the world cup and still have a small profit if they do so...
Indeed, the punters have been amazingly resilient to our fortunes thus far.
I backed England at 33-1. Should have laid stake off pre Italy, the fact I can do so even after we've lost and still have a small profit (Albeit locking up ~ £650) is extraordinary.
More power to Business for Scotland for exploiting the utter uselessness of so many non-specialist journalists when it comes to business and finance. With a credible sounding title you'll get a lot of coverage. And well done to the blogger for pointing that out.
In another sphere Peter Herbert, of "The Society of Black Lawyers", has managed to do something similar:
See the coverage Herbet gets himself on football-related issues because credulous journalists the title of the organisation and do not look past that.
Various very small Moslem organisations do something similar.
As I've got older and learned how so many journalists work behind the scenes, I increasingly lost my faith in the press. The vast majority of journalists don't know what they're talking about, and often have only a very superficial understanding of their work even in their field of expertise. They will know the arguments in the debate, but have no good knowledge on the merit of the arguments, or the data that says how strong/weak they are.
Journalism is much less well paid than it once was and there are fewer journalists on most general news titles having to do more things. Throw in the 24 hour news cycle and the resultant pressure on deadlines, and the ability of any journalist to look closely at a story and to drill into sources is severely limited. Just think how long it took that blogger to research Business for Scotland.
I may be biased, but for high-quality, in-depth reporting of issues you are much better off going to the specialist and B2B press. But that costs. An annual subscription to our six times a year stuff costs between £725 and £795. It's not an option open to most punters - only those whose jobs are very focused on the types of reporting and analysis we provide.
Why would you be biased?
I agree B2B/specialist press is better, but, as you say, expensive. Bloggers who really know their stuff are also great. A handful of posts by David Herdson and Sean Fear on election results are worth far more than six months of columns by most political journalists. What's really crazy is when the range of "sensible" political positions is defined by the mainstream press, despite them being so useless. On things like drug liberalisation or euroscepticism, the level of discussion and debate by people that know a lot about these things is so far beyond that of the media and politicians, and the result is that very different conclusions are reached. Eventually the mainstream catches up, but it can take a decade or two.
It's interesting to note that JackW's latest forecast of 39% YES : 61% NO, coincides precisely with the 22% NO lead which results by averaging the latest YouGov and Ipsos-MORI findings.
This enormous lead from three such eminent sources will do for me - all over bar the shouting imho. From a betting perspective I will be majoring on Ladbrokes' 35%-40% YES band, with maybe small stake saving bets on the two adjacent bands above and below. But then again, maybe not in the case of the former as I suspect there is a "shy" NO element which will result in the actual vote in September showing an even greater victory for Indy rejection.
Just realised that both the last two European teams to win the World Cup have failed to get out of the group stage next time, doesn't bode well for the Spanish.
Presumably these England players look good at other times only because they have foreign players in their usual teams to help them look good?
33:1? Those seem like generous odds. Defeat by Italy and Uruguay seem highly likely, so in effect those odds are 33:1 against Costa Rica beating England. I can't find a list of teams Costa Rica have beaten in competitive games but I'd have thought it was a more impressive record than England's. Maybe evens would be about right.
As a matter of interest, has England ever beaten a side acknowledged to be really good in a match that the other side needed to win?
If you think evens is about right I'll lay you 2/1 on it? You're even a third of the way to winning before we place the bet.
EDIT: As for the second para of your post. Er...we beat Argentina in an almost must-win match for them during the group stages of the 2002 WC. That's probably the closest we've gotten for decades.
I don't really take enough interest in it to bet on it, to be honest. The type of bet I'd be minded to go for would be along the lines of fox's 33:1 on 0 points, hedged by something the other way on the Costa Rica match, to reflect my supposition that 33:1 is constructively a bet on England losing that one (England being reasonably sure to lose the two previous games).
So is Argentina the only world class team England has beaten in 12 years? I see they beat France 3-1 in 1982 and Colombia 2-0 in 1998. The rest of the time, their progress in the tourney seems to depend on getting lucky by not having to play anyone good until late on.
Also, on the low paid point, whatever happened to being at the top of your job regardless of how well it paid. Every job I've ever worked for long periods, even when it was menial stuff as a younger mad, I focused on getting better at the core principle of the job. If it was being a customer assistant in retail, it was serving people as efficiently as possible and with a friendly demeanour. If I was a journalist in a specialised field, it would be really knowing the arguments inside out, and which stood and fell on the evidence.
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
LOL, did someone write that for you, how thick can you be. 1 MP and only MSP's due to getting freebies from the list, deluded half wit.
I've always assumed malcolmg is something of a spoof persona, similar to Ave It.
I have always said malcomg is an alter ego of OGH . This is why personal abuse counter to the site rules never results in suspension of posting privileges .
There's a certain raw honesty about his posts, though, which I can't help admiring.
Guido reporting the telegraph has booted a shed-load of journos (inc. Brogan).
Damian Thompson the comment editor of the blogs has also got the heave ho
That was for failing to solve the problem that 99% of blog comments included the phrase LibLabCon.
Aye, the worst thing about the UKIP surge has that it has made the telegraph comments section below the line, bastarding unreadable.
It does present a sitting target if you like trolling, though. Just enter any comment thread and raise the subject of Farage's expenses, Neil "Cash for Questions" Hamilton, or UKIP's jailbird MEPs, and they all go absolutely carpet-biting spare with rage.
It truly is an echo chamber - they are convinced they speak for everyone, they think their euro vote will be their GE share, they think Farage agrees with them on everything, they think pointing out their errors is an establishment conspiracy and they seem genuinely unaware of the impression they make.
It's as if there were a version of Mumsnet for bitter old men.
Guido reporting the telegraph has booted a shed-load of journos (inc. Brogan).
Damian Thompson the comment editor of the blogs has also got the heave ho
That was for failing to solve the problem that 99% of blog comments included the phrase LibLabCon.
Aye, the worst thing about the UKIP surge has that it has made the telegraph comments section below the line, bastarding unreadable.
It does present a sitting target if you like trolling, though. Just enter any comment thread and raise the subject of Farage's expenses, Neil "Cash for Questions" Hamilton, or UKIP's jailbird MEPs, and they all go absolutely carpet-biting spare with rage.
It truly is an echo chamber - they are convinced they speak for everyone, they think their euro vote will be their GE share, they think Farage agrees with them on everything, they think pointing out their errors is an establishment conspiracy and they seem genuinely unaware of the impression they make.
It's as if there were a version of Mumsnet for bitter old men.
I know, I do like trolling them, they fail to realise they are being trolled, and they often respond at tedious length.
From what I read, he received a lot of backlash for that Dave will resign if Scotland votes yes piece.
Someone said it was "bollocks on stilts"
On thing about Dan Hodges, at least he has backed up his opinions with cash. If half of the political commentariat were punters they'd be in the poorhouse very quickly. Dan may be with his wagers but in fairness to them the odds have moved in his favour.
PMQ's - Ed to go on the Iraq crisis and hospitals ?
Passports and "getting a grip" would seem a good candidate. Given how much Syria is reputedly behind the Iraq mess, and the previous Labour government in the first place..... he might be wise to tread carefully.....but I see what you mean......
From what I read, he received a lot of backlash for that Dave will resign if Scotland votes yes piece.
Someone said it was "bollocks on stilts"
Backlash from who exactly? I doubt Brogan would say that unless he had good reason to. Are they going back to being the Torygraph? Parroting what Dave and George want us to believe. My guess is Brogan's piece was disliked because of its accuracy not its errors, but who can say?
From what I read, he received a lot of backlash for that Dave will resign if Scotland votes yes piece.
Someone said it was "bollocks on stilts"
Backlash from who exactly? I doubt Brogan would say that unless he had good reason to. Are they going back to being the Torygraph? Parroting what Dave and George want us to believe. My guess is Brogan's piece was disliked because of its accuracy not its errors, but who can say?
Other journos and senior Tories.
Apparently there is no prospect of Dave resigning.
Plus, it would give voters an incentive to vote Yes.
Having just read that article by Sean, parts of it were excellent. Especially this point:
"The problem is that the western elite, our political leaders, simply cannot. Most are atheist or agnostic, the few religious types are mildly Christian: nice, amiable, post enlightenment chaps. Therefore, they simply do not “get” religion, not of the fundamental variety – like old-fashioned Mormonism, like evangelical Protestantism – the religions that demand Holiness to the Lord. Most of all, the western elite do not, cannot, and will not ever understand the appeal of the most blissfully devouring of all religions, the religion whose very name means “submission”: Islam.
We think they think like us. We think that religion is, for them, a secondary issue; a fashion which comes and goes. We also believe that they will sacrifice the solace of their faith for progress, that they will temper their devotion in return for prosperity, for democracy, and for plasma screen TVs and purposeless consumption."
His conclusion is wrong, however. Supporting people like Assad just incubates the crazy further. How is it going to "burn out" when you're just fuelling the fire with more and more legitimate injustice?
Also, on the low paid point, whatever happened to being at the top of your job regardless of how well it paid. Every job I've ever worked for long periods, even when it was menial stuff as a younger mad, I focused on getting better at the core principle of the job. If it was being a customer assistant in retail, it was serving people as efficiently as possible and with a friendly demeanour. If I was a journalist in a specialised field, it would be really knowing the arguments inside out, and which stood and fell on the evidence.
It depends what you mean by being at the top of your job. In all journalism it is the Editor (and sometimes the owner) who decide the criteria. Nowadays in an environment where so much information is free to access what is often most valued is being able to turn several stories a day around to length and to deadline; and/or being able to provide polemical content that will generate online reads and responses. That does not encourage the accumulation of specialist skill or the checking of multiple sources when you are putting together a story.
From what I read, he received a lot of backlash for that Dave will resign if Scotland votes yes piece.
Someone said it was "bollocks on stilts"
Backlash from who exactly? I doubt Brogan would say that unless he had good reason to. Are they going back to being the Torygraph? Parroting what Dave and George want us to believe. My guess is Brogan's piece was disliked because of its accuracy not its errors, but who can say?
Other journos and senior Tories.
Apparently there is no prospect of Dave resigning.
Plus, it would give voters an incentive to vote Yes.
And would those be Tory brown-nose journalists? As for senior Tories, what would you expect them to say? Perhaps Brogan let his personal feelings on the Union get in the way? I just wonder whether Brogan's crime was to break confidence. And we're assuming Cameron would have a choice in the matter. Miliband and Farage would surely call for his immediate resignation for putting us in a constitutional crisis. What would Clegg do? I guess he'd follow the polls. Once people realise the political mess we'd be in, things could move very quickly against Cameron. His one saving grace might be the fact we have a general election on the horizon.
PMQ's - Ed to go on the Iraq crisis and hospitals ?
Passports and "getting a grip" would seem a good candidate. Given how much Syria is reputedly behind the Iraq mess, and the previous Labour government in the first place..... he might be wise to tread carefully.....but I see what you mean......
Is there any part of Theresa May's mandate that there hasn't been a scandal in? Waiting lines at airports, the spy agencies using loopholes, the government's chief drug czar sacked for scientifically accurate information, immigration testing centres giving away the answers, backlogs of document processing...
The comments underneath even managed to make me wonder if we're about to have a major race/Anti-Muslim pogrom soon.
Does anyone actually believe comments on news articles are representative of anyone?
Some of the particularly deranged pro-UKIP, anti-lizard/Bilderberg/Common Purpose/BTL landlord/LibLabCon/Goldman Sachs posts get hundreds of recommends. OK, 6 or 700 people is not so many compared to the electorate in a Westminster seat, say, but it's a lot by online commentariat standards.
The Telegraph is now in a very odd place indeed. Many of its writers think it's the Independent, its commentariat only grudgingly read it because the Volkischer Beobachter doesn't have a web presence, and its managers appear to want it to be a clickbait portal with the content - and even the coherence - of the content not even a consideration.
Presumably it is only read online at all because there's a paper edition, which paper readers assume will be similar, but when you read the comments and see what nutters also read it, it gives you pause for serious thought. It must also give the advertisers pause for thought so the UKIP wreckers below the line may be doing significant harm.
Mr. F, I quite agree, particularly after we had 13 years of Scottish chancellors and the PM's predecessor was Scottish.
Bollocks MD, Little good it did Scotland having those useless twats running the usual London centric trough, Tories in disguise or half wits.
Morning MrG - Scotland got a Scottish Parliament off the back of Blair and a tram for Edinburgh ; )
Forced to do the parliament and thought they had stitched up the voting system, plus devolved next to NO powers. On trams that was a spoiler to waste money and stop SNP dualling the A9. Big deal we got some crumbs back after supplying London with a Loaf.
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
Of course, if you'd read the article you'd have read:
I want to be very clear about this: I am not questioning the right of any of these individuals to have a view on the Independence Referendum or to speak out . I am merely seeking to answer the questions that the Business for Scotland MD seems so reluctant to address; Roughly how many Scottish Employees are represented by their members? Do they represent any businesses involved in Trade with rUK?
But we know what it is with Nats and opposing opinions - try to shout it down with personal abuse.....
Moving on from intemperate and foul mouthed Nats....The Polling Observatory predicts a dead heat in 2015 with Lab &con both on 35.8...... Leaving Lab 4 short of a majority on Electoral Calculus (Con, 286, Lab 322, LibD, 15, and UKIP even with a 14% vote share zero.....
It is often forgotten Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh
English father, Irish mother. I'm denying he was Scottish.
And the Nats keep on telling me their nationalism is civic and not ethnic.
Blair is yours and you're keeping him.
We never see race riots in Scotland either, Blair despite accident of where born is anything but Scottish.
Probably because Scotland is 96% White, compared with England which is 85.4% White.
I would imagine what's relevant is that in England there are areas of ethnic concentrations while I can't think of anywhere in Scotland that has an equivalent level of ghetto-isation that say Bradford, Oldham, Manchester would have.
Hmm , nothing to do with the way people are treated no doubt. Just happens when these foreigners congregate together sounds a likely explanation indeed.
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
Another whinging unionist , personal attacks on people he does not know. Desperate desperate stuff even by your standards, you are now bottom feeding a la Scottp. No more barrel to scrape.
Comments
Edit - the England v West Germany game was famous for my fathers drunken outburst when Beckenbauer hit the crossbar of 'we should be fighting a war with them, not playing football with them'
http://sotonpolitics.org/2014/06/18/the-polling-observatory-forecast-2-a-dead-heat-despite-recent-turbulence/
Thinking about this it seemed to me at first to arise from the 3 points you get for a win versus only 1 for a draw. But no obvious alternative works any better. If in the above scenario you got 2 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a defeat, Team 1 would get 5 points rather than 7; Team 2 would get 3 rather than 4; Team 3 would still get 1; and Team 4 would still get 3.
It would then be a question of whether Team 2 or 4 should qualify with 3 points. Team 2 won, lost, and drew; Team 4 drew, drew and drew. So Team 2 could be argued to deserve it because they managed to win a game, whereas Team 4 could also be argued to deserve it because they are unbeaten.
I suppose you'd then have to decide it based on goals scored, although that might still produce a tie. Or maybe have Team 2 play Team 4 as a decider?
I would imagine what's relevant is that in England there are areas of ethnic concentrations while I can't think of anywhere in Scotland that has an equivalent level of ghetto-isation that say Bradford, Oldham, Manchester would have.
As a matter of interest, has England ever beaten a side acknowledged to be really good in a match that the other side needed to win?
One wonders what you might have posted about JK Rowling recently.
That seems an extraordinary study, their description of the healthy lives indicator is:
"The goal of a well-functioning health care system is to ensure that people lead long, healthy, and productive lives. To measure this dimension, Exhibit 8 includes three outcome indicators, including mortality amenable to health care—that is, deaths that could have been prevented with timely and effective care; infant mortality; and healthy life expectancy.
On the three healthy lives indicators, France ranks highest overall—scoring among the top three countries on each indicator—and Sweden ranks second. The U.S. ranks last on mortality amenable to health care, last on infant mortality, and second-to-last on healthy life expectancy at age 60.
Notably, countries’ performance on these three outcomes indicators did not necessarily align with their ranks on the other dimensions of health system performance. France ranks near the bottom overall, whereas the U.K., which ranks first or second on every other dimension, ranks near the bottom of healthy lives."
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/files/publications/fund-report/2014/jun/1755_davis_mirror_mirror_2014.pdf
They seem to have developed a ranking system that measures everything except that which is really important to the patient.
EDIT: As for the second para of your post. Er...we beat Argentina in an almost must-win match for them during the group stages of the 2002 WC. That's probably the closest we've gotten for decades.
In another sphere Peter Herbert, of "The Society of Black Lawyers", has managed to do something similar:
http://www.peterherbert.net/index.html
See the coverage Herbet gets himself on football-related issues because credulous journalists the title of the organisation and do not look past that.
Various very small Moslem organisations do something similar.
That seems very short to me.
Have laid it to a liability of £20.
Compare the odds with a Uruguay based book maker perhaps?
Making a neat link between the world cup and politics, is it the best idea for Michael Ashcroft to be releasing his poll tomorrow given the attention that will be on England vs Uruguay? His last marginals poll didn't get the sort of focus at the time it probably should have done (I forget why). Do we know the dates the polling was carried out on?
[discussing a hospital that has 500 administrators, but no doctors, nurses, or patients]
James Hacker: "You think it is functioning now?"
Mrs. Rogers: "Minister, it is one of the best run hospitals in the country. It is up for the Florence Nightingale Award."
James Hacker: "And what is that, pray?"
Mrs. Rogers: "It is won by the most hygienic hospital in the area."
http://www.oddschecker.com/football/world-cup/uruguay-v-england/winner indicates 59% of bets are on England.
@malcolmg is to meths as @Ave_it is to a fine wine
The Authors are from the USA...
It could be interesting to see which countries do have an online presence, there might be a useful regional variation.
Ed Miliband suffered a major blow today as an exclusive poll found nearly half the public think Labour should ditch him as party leader before the election.
Some 49 per cent think he should be replaced - including 43 per cent of Labour supporters, Ipsos MORI researchers found.
That compares with 44 per cent who think Nick Clegg should be dumped as Liberal Democrat leader and just 27 per cent who think the Tories should get rid of David Cameron.
Alarmingly for Labour, the percentage of voters who think Mr Miliband is “ready to be Prime Minister” has gone down slightly rather than up in the past year - from 24 to 22 per cent.
By contrast, 35 per cent think the Labour Party is ready to form a government - a rise from 29 per cent - which suggests Mr Miliband inspires less confidence than his party as a whole.
Labour is holding onto a three-point lead over the Conservatives, reveals the monthly poll, at 34 per cent and 31 per cent. Ukip has risen three points to 14 since May, with the Lib Dems down a point to a low eight per cent.
But the lacklustre ratings for Mr Miliband will worry Labour MPs unnerved by the party’s failure to achieve a runaway lead in recent polls.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband-should-be-replaced-as-labour-leader-before-election-say-half-the-public-in-poll-9545573.html
Lab 34 (nc)
Con 31 (nc)
LD 8 (-1)
UKIP 14 (+3)
I may be biased, but for high-quality, in-depth reporting of issues you are much better off going to the specialist and B2B press. But that costs. An annual subscription to our six times a year stuff costs between £725 and £795. It's not an option open to most punters - only those whose jobs are very focused on the types of reporting and analysis we provide.
I agree B2B/specialist press is better, but, as you say, expensive. Bloggers who really know their stuff are also great. A handful of posts by David Herdson and Sean Fear on election results are worth far more than six months of columns by most political journalists. What's really crazy is when the range of "sensible" political positions is defined by the mainstream press, despite them being so useless. On things like drug liberalisation or euroscepticism, the level of discussion and debate by people that know a lot about these things is so far beyond that of the media and politicians, and the result is that very different conclusions are reached. Eventually the mainstream catches up, but it can take a decade or two.
This enormous lead from three such eminent sources will do for me - all over bar the shouting imho. From a betting perspective I will be majoring on Ladbrokes' 35%-40% YES band, with maybe small stake saving bets on the two adjacent bands above and below. But then again, maybe not in the case of the former as I suspect there is a "shy" NO element which will result in the actual vote in September showing an even greater victory for Indy rejection.
So is Argentina the only world class team England has beaten in 12 years? I see they beat France 3-1 in 1982 and Colombia 2-0 in 1998. The rest of the time, their progress in the tourney seems to depend on getting lucky by not having to play anyone good until late on.
Also, on the low paid point, whatever happened to being at the top of your job regardless of how well it paid. Every job I've ever worked for long periods, even when it was menial stuff as a younger mad, I focused on getting better at the core principle of the job. If it was being a customer assistant in retail, it was serving people as efficiently as possible and with a friendly demeanour. If I was a journalist in a specialised field, it would be really knowing the arguments inside out, and which stood and fell on the evidence.
http://order-order.com/tag/media-guido/
http://www.cps.org.uk/liberty/
Someone said it was "bollocks on stilts"
It truly is an echo chamber - they are convinced they speak for everyone, they think their euro vote will be their GE share, they think Farage agrees with them on everything, they think pointing out their errors is an establishment conspiracy and they seem genuinely unaware of the impression they make.
It's as if there were a version of Mumsnet for bitter old men.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100276612/we-cant-defeat-islamists-instead-we-must-quarantine-them-until-the-fires-of-jihadism-burn-out/
The comments underneath even managed to make me wonder if we're about to have a major race/Anti-Muslim pogrom soon.
I can see this being a journalistic hostage piece to fortune.
Apparently there is no prospect of Dave resigning.
Plus, it would give voters an incentive to vote Yes.
"The problem is that the western elite, our political leaders, simply cannot. Most are atheist or agnostic, the few religious types are mildly Christian: nice, amiable, post enlightenment chaps. Therefore, they simply do not “get” religion, not of the fundamental variety – like old-fashioned Mormonism, like evangelical Protestantism – the religions that demand Holiness to the Lord. Most of all, the western elite do not, cannot, and will not ever understand the appeal of the most blissfully devouring of all religions, the religion whose very name means “submission”: Islam.
We think they think like us. We think that religion is, for them, a secondary issue; a fashion which comes and goes. We also believe that they will sacrifice the solace of their faith for progress, that they will temper their devotion in return for prosperity, for democracy, and for plasma screen TVs and purposeless consumption."
His conclusion is wrong, however. Supporting people like Assad just incubates the crazy further. How is it going to "burn out" when you're just fuelling the fire with more and more legitimate injustice?
Is Ed Miliband more crap this month than last ?
The Telegraph is now in a very odd place indeed. Many of its writers think it's the Independent, its commentariat only grudgingly read it because the Volkischer Beobachter doesn't have a web presence, and its managers appear to want it to be a clickbait portal with the content - and even the coherence - of the content not even a consideration.
Presumably it is only read online at all because there's a paper edition, which paper readers assume will be similar, but when you read the comments and see what nutters also read it, it gives you pause for serious thought. It must also give the advertisers pause for thought so the UKIP wreckers below the line may be doing significant harm.