I see a Hungarian newspaper has published a pix of the Swiss train attacker.
He's very swarthy and sported a large beard.
He was a 27 year old Swiss citizen, interestingly. Given how hard it is to get Swiss citizenship, I suspect he's probably a second generation immigrant or convert.
I see Owen Smith has discovered yet another secret Tory plan to privatise the NHS...
I think they should just get on and privatise it. Labour have cried wolf over NHS privatisation so many times now that no-one believes them any more. Anyone who's ever spent time abroad knows there's a good reason why no other country has the same system as the UK.
I'd still start it with something not too obvious though, like the reversal of benefit in kind tax arrangements for employer-provided insurance in the Budget, rather than the NHS (Privatisation) Act 2017.
May would not even consider it but I think a move to an Australian style system where the wealthiest are required to take out private health insurance would be sensible
Lots of countries have a similar tax-funded system to the UK. Canada and the Scandinavian countries for instance.
But they do spend somewhat more than 9-10% of GDP on it. There's zero evidence that you can run a modern health service on 7-8% as the UK has tried to do since 2009.
The US system you clearly admire spends 17% and some people are still uninsured. Their treatment is paid for by the government if they're destitute. Remarkably, the US spends more public money on healthcare than the UK does. This is thanks to their private system being so inefficient.
So if you want to waste resources, by all means privatise the NHS.
What's staggering about the US is that the government spends more on healthcare - as a percentage of GDP - than we do in the UK. And yet only a fraction of people are covered through the government.
It is he perfect example of how something being run privately is not intrinsically more efficient than being run publically. The vast array of insurers and medical networks servicing a captive market create a beaurucracy nightmare.
Medical costs are the number 1 cause of medical bankruptcy in the US.
Not just a bureaucratic nightmare, it also weakens buying policies for expensive drugs. Charles will have better insight, but drugs in the US form a much higher proportion of their healthcare expenditure (public and private) than they do for the NHS.
That is correct. It is illegal for Medicare/Medicaid to negotiate drug discounts, despite them being the largest drug purchasers in the world..
Would it be fair to say that the rest of the world should be grateful to the US for helping to subsidise our own drug consumption and research?
Edited extra bit: on a serious note, I'm unpersuaded by the seeming new approach of under-reporting terrorism to try and deter copycats. If it doesn't work, then it's a cover-up for nothing. If it does, then it's purchasing a tactical advantage [reducing small scale terror attacks] at a strategic cost, because trust in the political class, media, and police will be continually undermined. Not to mention a failure to acknowledge reality, and, therefore, the absence of a solution to serious questions because the political class refuse to recognise the questions exist.
@foxinsoxuk My other healthcare observation for the morning is that my other half has now twice developed symptoms at the weekend that I'm fairly sure would have been reacted to more promptly during the week. Would it have made a difference? I'm not medically qualified to comment. But you can put me in the column of those who think that a seven day NHS is a worthwhile aim. Yes, I'm aware that I'm reasoning from personal anecdote.
Your desire there is for a 7 day service that is as good as it appears to be at the moment during the working week...
Given that the lead time for a consultant is 10 years and we have universities (Durham) who have given up teaching Medicine due to the costs and issues involved how do you propose to do that? As the reality is that any change to improve weekend services will only lead to worse services during the working week..
As a separate anecdote sat in my local A&E at 11:30pm on a Saturday night a few months back I was surprised at how quickly a genuine (but non life threatening) issue was prioritised as a family friend had her second fit of the night...
I see Owen Smith has discovered yet another secret Tory plan to privatise the NHS...
I think they should just get on and privatise it. Labour have cried wolf over NHS privatisation so many times now that no-one believes them any more. Anyone who's ever spent time abroad knows there's a good reason why no other country has the same system as the UK.
I'd still start it with something not too obvious though, like the reversal of benefit in kind tax arrangements for employer-provided insurance in the Budget, rather than the NHS (Privatisation) Act 2017.
May would not even consider it but I think a move to an Australian style system where the wealthiest are required to take out private health insurance would be sensible
Lots of countries have a similar tax-funded system to the UK. Canada and the Scandinavian countries for instance.
But they do spend somewhat more than 9-10% of GDP on it. There's zero evidence that you can run a modern health service on 7-8% as the UK has tried to do since 2009.
The US system you clearly admire spends 17% and some people are still uninsured. Their treatment is paid for by the government if they're destitute. Remarkably, the US spends more public money on healthcare than the UK does. This is thanks to their private system being so inefficient.
So if you want to waste resources, by all means privatise the NHS.
What's staggering about the US is that the government spends more on healthcare - as a percentage of GDP - than we do in the UK. And yet only a fraction of people are covered through the government.
Isn't health cost comparison more meaningful as a % of GDP per capita?
It's the same number.
healthcare cost per capita as a % of GDP per capita is the same number as healthcare cost as a % of GDP.
ONS has some interesting data on health expenditure, but only up until 2014. We spent £179bn total - including out-of-pocket and private health schemes.
About £32bn went on long term care. Drugs cost £26.6bn. Preventative care £7.4bn. Curative and rehabilitative care was the biggest line item by far @ £101bn.
@foxinsoxuk My other healthcare observation for the morning is that my other half has now twice developed symptoms at the weekend that I'm fairly sure would have been reacted to more promptly during the week. Would it have made a difference? I'm not medically qualified to comment. But you can put me in the column of those who think that a seven day NHS is a worthwhile aim. Yes, I'm aware that I'm reasoning from personal anecdote.
The point though about 7 day services is that it cannot be done on 5 days worth of staff and budget; which is what Mr Hunt proposes. It also plays havoc with training, and teamwork. The weekend effect exists and indeed the weekend neglect of an elderly relative of mine on the Isle of Wight was appalling, but is not unique to the UK. Indeed it can be worse in other countries.
Hope all these are just hiccups on the way to a good recovery though.
Bearing in mind that NHS spending is disproportionally on the elderly, and the elderly are predominantly Tory, that would ba "a courageous decision". Indeed it would be comparable to Labour turning its back on the interests of its core vote.
Far more likely to continue the slow erosion of provision that Smith has highlighted today.
I'm with HYUFD. The middle classes should be self insuring, or pay an NHS premium (2-3%) to be using state services.
Would ensure proper funding and better standards of care, given those who pay for a service generally expect better results.
The problem with PAYG insurance is that those that can afford healthcare the most are those that need it least. They are the young, the wealthy and the healthy. While those that need it are ill, old and poor.
To be cost-effective, insurance has to be whole life so you pay when you need it least and can afford it most; compulsory so people can't opt out when they are paying in and opt in to get the provision; it needs to be rationed so the aggregated provision matches the aggregated payment. Only government can manage this. It breaks the payer/provider link.
The US healthcare "system" is the manifestation of this contradiction
Edited extra bit: on a serious note, I'm unpersuaded by the seeming new approach of under-reporting terrorism to try and deter copycats. If it doesn't work, then it's a cover-up for nothing. If it does, then it's purchasing a tactical advantage [reducing small scale terror attacks] at a strategic cost, because trust in the political class, media, and police will be continually undermined. Not to mention a failure to acknowledge reality, and, therefore, the absence of a solution to serious questions because the political class refuse to recognise the questions exist.
I'm torn on this issue. Let's take it as read that the DOJ report is correct, and that the best way to reduce the number of attacks is to not publicise the names of attackers.
Now: as a thought experiment imagine there was a total news blackout on all these attacks. Literally, we would hear nothing about them. How much harder would it be for ISIS, etc., to persuade people to join the cause? Go stab some people, everyone's doing it? Really? How come I've heard nothing about it?
If this is a war, there would be a total news blackout. And that would almost certainly lead to fewer attacks.
But, as you say, we live in a free society. Is the price worth paying?
I see a Hungarian newspaper has published a pix of the Swiss train attacker.
He's very swarthy and sported a large beard.
Is there a link?
Old Holborn tweet IIRC
I read in one of the weekend papers that the attacker had a particular victim in mind, and that everyone else was collateral damage. I don't know what that means, if anything.
Mr. 1000, also, imagine if your town were affected. Or a relative/friend of yours, and the media decides not to report it, for the greater good. But everyone knows anyway, because people talk and (beyond the local area) the internet exists.
Can't imagine that would go down well.
A blackout on propaganda (they used to play ISIS/Daesh videos, partially, on the news) is one thing. A blackout on reporting terrorism at all is quite another.
Mr. 1000, also, imagine if your town were affected. Or a relative/friend of yours, and the media decides not to report it, for the greater good. But everyone knows anyway, because people talk and (beyond the local area) the internet exists.
Can't imagine that would go down well.
A blackout on propaganda (they used to play ISIS/Daesh videos, partially, on the news) is one thing. A blackout on reporting terrorism at all is quite another.
You can't go into an election with 172 MPs with stated no confidence in their leader. It's politics 101.
The campaign will be a bloodbath. And even if Labour did win, the leader couldn't be guaranteed to pass legislation.
Realistically, either (1) most Labour MPs will say that they'd wanted a leadership change but the membership has decided, so they are now willing to support it or (2) vocal opponents will tend not be selected for the new seats. I think it'll be (1) for the reasons I set out in a thread header last week (and consequntly that sitting MPs will tend to get selected regardless of what they said in the past).
There comes a point where just ineffectively grumbling merely irritates everyone; conversely, there isn't in general a mood to deselect for past dissent. Local Tories saying in 2020 that the Labour candidate signed a critical motion back in 2016 will have limited electoral impact: there will be plenty of hurdles to winning whatever happens, but that's the least of them.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
In which case the narrowness of provision and limited coverage (less than 10% of the population) on 25% of the budget would suggest that UK private health care is both expensive and inefficient!
You can't go into an election with 172 MPs with stated no confidence in their leader. It's politics 101.
The campaign will be a bloodbath. And even if Labour did win, the leader couldn't be guaranteed to pass legislation.
Realistically, either (1) most Labour MPs will say that they'd wanted a leadership change but the membership has decided, so they are now willing to support it or (2) vocal opponents will tend not be selected for the new seats. I think it'll be (1) for the reasons I set out in a thread header last week (and consequntly that sitting MPs will tend to get selected regardless of what they said in the past).
There comes a point where just ineffectively grumbling merely irritates everyone; conversely, there isn't in general a mood to deselect for past dissent. Local Tories saying in 2020 that the Labour candidate signed a critical motion back in 2016 will have limited electoral impact: there will be plenty of hurdles to winning whatever happens, but that's the least of them.
But Nick, while many of the PLP don't like what Corbyn stands for, the main reason that they want him out is because he's useless at the job - and that's not going to change. There may well be a new accommodation after the result and a will to 'work together' again, by some of the 172 at least but once he's underperforming at PMQs, failing to capitalise on Tory errors, or musing on Marr about the merits of Molotov, the same criticisms will arise again, for the same reasons. I'd give a truce between the critics and the leadership between 6-8 weeks, after which it'll be a re-run of 2015-6. That there are signs that more than just the original critics get this (such as Don's apparent change of mind), will be reason for them to continue to fight: they'll believe the fight's still winnable.
It is curious how little focus there has been on whether Owen Smith would be be any good as Labour leader. I appreciate I'm not the target market, but I find it hard to believe he would. Of course, the hope of the AnyoneBut Corbyn faction is that choosing Anyone But Corbyn would reverse or at least halt the entryist takeover of the party, but even that seems a bit optimistic, given the NEC makeup.
Mr. 1000, interesting, and thanks for the answer, but that raises two problems.
First off, that's just not possible in a world with an internet. Secondly, if they were using rockets attack [a one-off rocket attack was planned for Singapore, actually, but was thwarted] it might work. Whilst minimising reporting may reduce copycat attacks of the small scale, they'll also perpetually reduce confidence in the authorities, as well as not doing anything to deter more complicated, larger scale attacks.
I see a Hungarian newspaper has published a pix of the Swiss train attacker.
He's very swarthy and sported a large beard.
Is there a link?
Old Holborn tweet IIRC
I read in one of the weekend papers that the attacker had a particular victim in mind, and that everyone else was collateral damage. I don't know what that means, if anything.
Under Swiss privacy rules you are not supposed to reveal the identities of victims or suspects. His forename is Simon and his surname is a Swiss one apparently. He was living alone in Liechtenstein without any known connections with Islam.
Typical Swiss thing - the thing that really exercises the journalists is the 100 000 Fr damage to the train
In which case the narrowness of provision and limited coverage (less than 10% of the population) on 25% of the budget would suggest that UK private health care is both expensive and inefficient!
The biggest surprise of the morning was learning that out of pocket payments amounted to £26.5bn. That's 14.8% of the total. Of course, the ONS lead me up the garden path and don't tell me what that money was spent on. It can't all be boob jobs.
There comes a point where just ineffectively grumbling merely irritates everyone.
I agree entirely, but that appears to be Corbyn's and by extension Labour's strategy. When was the last time he made a serious effort to say how he would win the next election in a way that bore a passing resemblance to the situation on the Planet Earth? The answer should be 'never' if you have studied his actual rhetoric closely.
Merely screaming about food banks every week at PMQs given he has never been unemployed or gone hungry in his life isn't going to win over voters. A concrete and workable proposal to sort out the ghastly mess colloquially referred to as our welfare system, that has seen them set up (and let it not be forgotten, they were being set up before the crisis because of delays and confusion over tax credits) just might do.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
once he's underperforming at PMQs, failing to capitalise on Tory errors, or musing on Marr about the merits of Molotov, the same criticisms will arise again, for the same reasons.
In fairness, Molotov was not without merits. His ability to drink an entire bottle of vodka without getting drunk was very useful in diplomatic negotiations. His ability to live to the age of 96 despite that AND being a senior figure under Stalin - both of which on their own would normally cut average life expectancy to around 50 - was nothing short of astonishing.
once he's underperforming at PMQs, failing to capitalise on Tory errors, or musing on Marr about the merits of Molotov, the same criticisms will arise again, for the same reasons.
In fairness, Molotov was not without merits. His ability to drink an entire bottle of vodka without getting drunk was very useful in diplomatic negotiations. His ability to live to the age of 96 despite that AND being a senior figure under Stalin - both of which on their own would normally cut average life expectancy to around 50 - was nothing short of astonishing.
Gives a whole new light to the term 'Molotov cocktail' .
once he's underperforming at PMQs, failing to capitalise on Tory errors, or musing on Marr about the merits of Molotov, the same criticisms will arise again, for the same reasons.
In fairness, Molotov was not without merits. His ability to drink an entire bottle of vodka without getting drunk was very useful in diplomatic negotiations. His ability to live to the age of 96 despite that AND being a senior figure under Stalin - both of which on their own would normally cut average life expectancy to around 50 - was nothing short of astonishing.
I wouldn't dispute that. His chief merit in my reply however, was his ability to alliterate with 'musing, 'Marr' and 'merits'. That and getting sidetracked into precisely that kind of pointless and PR-disaster-laden topic is exactly the sort of thing that Corbyn would do. The two also bear a certain similarity in their ability to say 'no'.
once he's underperforming at PMQs, failing to capitalise on Tory errors, or musing on Marr about the merits of Molotov, the same criticisms will arise again, for the same reasons.
In fairness, Molotov was not without merits. His ability to drink an entire bottle of vodka without getting drunk was very useful in diplomatic negotiations. His ability to live to the age of 96 despite that AND being a senior figure under Stalin - both of which on their own would normally cut average life expectancy to around 50 - was nothing short of astonishing.
Gives a whole new light to the term 'Molotov cocktail' .
Molotov would never have burned a good cocktail. Wicked waste of good alcohol.
He would use it to ensure the other side were well lit though and try to make the negotiations go with a bang.
I'll get my coat, or at least, get back to my schemes of work.
In which case the narrowness of provision and limited coverage (less than 10% of the population) on 25% of the budget would suggest that UK private health care is both expensive and inefficient!
The biggest surprise of the morning was learning that out of pocket payments amounted to £26.5bn. That's 14.8% of the total. Of course, the ONS lead me up the garden path and don't tell me what that money was spent on. It can't all be boob jobs.
In which case the narrowness of provision and limited coverage (less than 10% of the population) on 25% of the budget would suggest that UK private health care is both expensive and inefficient!
The biggest surprise of the morning was learning that out of pocket payments amounted to £26.5bn. That's 14.8% of the total. Of course, the ONS lead me up the garden path and don't tell me what that money was spent on. It can't all be boob jobs.
Dental work is extremely expensive.
And dentists are very adept at "upselling" private treatments beyond what the NHS will cover.
once he's underperforming at PMQs, failing to capitalise on Tory errors, or musing on Marr about the merits of Molotov, the same criticisms will arise again, for the same reasons.
In fairness, Molotov was not without merits. His ability to drink an entire bottle of vodka without getting drunk was very useful in diplomatic negotiations. His ability to live to the age of 96 despite that AND being a senior figure under Stalin - both of which on their own would normally cut average life expectancy to around 50 - was nothing short of astonishing.
Molotov was also a bibliophile with an very extensive library and extremely well read.
once he's underperforming at PMQs, failing to capitalise on Tory errors, or musing on Marr about the merits of Molotov, the same criticisms will arise again, for the same reasons.
In fairness, Molotov was not without merits. His ability to drink an entire bottle of vodka without getting drunk was very useful in diplomatic negotiations. His ability to live to the age of 96 despite that AND being a senior figure under Stalin - both of which on their own would normally cut average life expectancy to around 50 - was nothing short of astonishing.
Gives a whole new light to the term 'Molotov cocktail' .
Molotov would never have burned a good cocktail. Wicked waste of good alcohol.
He would use it to ensure the other side were well lit though and try to make the negotiations go with a bang.
I'll get my coat, or at least, get back to my schemes of work.
I really should get out more, but have been renderered of limited mobility by a dodgy Achilles tendon. So I looked up Molotov cocktail in Wikipedia. Apparently, in the Russo-Finnish War of 1940 the Russians used cluster bombs against the Finns, claiming they were “food for the starving Finns.” The Finns replied with improvised incendiary devices, claiming they were “cocktails for Molotov”.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
V1 was a point and shoot cruise missile. It simply flew a certain distance and the dived. V2 had inertial navigation and radio correction during its boost phase but once the rocket cut out it was purely down to ballistic flight. They were misdirected by press reporting and through the captured German agents providing false reports, not by interfering with navigation.
Bombing raids were misdirected by interfering with radio navigation, to varying degrees of success as some targets were hard to miss anyway. There was a whole battle of the beams through out the war.
The Coventry raid is controversial to this day, but at that stage of the war intelligence and countermeasures were not as developed as they would later be, there were many other similar failures, and of course successes. Coventry stands out because of the amount of damage inflicted and the large loss of life, but it could easily have been one of many other targets that ended up the worst.
@foxinsoxuk My other healthcare observation for the morning is that my other half has now twice developed symptoms at the weekend that I'm fairly sure would have been reacted to more promptly during the week. Would it have made a difference? I'm not medically qualified to comment. But you can put me in the column of those who think that a seven day NHS is a worthwhile aim. Yes, I'm aware that I'm reasoning from personal anecdote.
Many years ago I was in hospital with TB. I was very very ill and lying down in bed. I developed a serious DVT in my left leg over the weekend and despite complaining about the pain the nurses at the time just gave me an aspirin. It was only when the consultant came to do his Monday morning round and I showed him the leg that he realized what had happened and all hell broke loose. It led - for reasons too tiresome to relate here - to another 3 weeks in hospital.
I think we are all in favour of a 7-day NHS. It's how we get there that's the issue. But get there we must.
In which case the narrowness of provision and limited coverage (less than 10% of the population) on 25% of the budget would suggest that UK private health care is both expensive and inefficient!
The biggest surprise of the morning was learning that out of pocket payments amounted to £26.5bn. That's 14.8% of the total. Of course, the ONS lead me up the garden path and don't tell me what that money was spent on. It can't all be boob jobs.
You can't go into an election with 172 MPs with stated no confidence in their leader. It's politics 101.
The campaign will be a bloodbath. And even if Labour did win, the leader couldn't be guaranteed to pass legislation.
Realistically, either (1) most Labour MPs will say that they'd wanted a leadership change but the membership has decided, so they are now willing to support it or (2) vocal opponents will tend not be selected for the new seats. I think it'll be (1) for the reasons I set out in a thread header last week (and consequntly that sitting MPs will tend to get selected regardless of what they said in the past).
There comes a point where just ineffectively grumbling merely irritates everyone; conversely, there isn't in general a mood to deselect for past dissent. Local Tories saying in 2020 that the Labour candidate signed a critical motion back in 2016 will have limited electoral impact: there will be plenty of hurdles to winning whatever happens, but that's the least of them.
The fundamental issue is that you cannot have a leader who has openly and repeatedly rebelled against and been completely unsupportive of previous Labour leaders asking current MPs to show him the loyalty he so conspicuously failed to show others.
If you want loyalty and unity you have to show some yourself. Corbyn has spent a lifetime not doing that. "Show not tell" is at the heart of good leadership. Corbyn does not understand that. And lecturing MPs about how he's been elected by the members doesn't get past that fundamental failing.
The more I think about it the more factors contributed to Brexit. Restoration of national pride since 1996 at Atlanta is definitely more of a factor than I originally thought. Without the UK Sport setup created in 1996 in the aftermath of the disaster in Atlanta we would be plodding along with 3-7 gold medals per year behind the major European nations all getting 10-15 golds. That we have moved into the position of the number on European nation at the Olympics in 2012 and are looking to repeat that has given the people a sense of national pride that didn't exist even as recently as 2005. I remember when London won the Olympics the number one reaction among my family and friends was that it would be a disaster and we'd be a laughing stock around the world, we'd end up outside of the top ten in terms of the medals and we'd manage to somehow be worse than Athens which was a pretty poor affair. In the end that all proved to be rubbish and London was amazing, the city (and nation) showed we were able to rise to a challenge.
I think there was a marked change in the national outlook after London 2012 which has fed into Brexit. Dave was right to hold the vote before the Olympics, I can imagine if he held it after Rio it would have resulted in an even wider victory for Leave. Seeing Team GB in second place on the table far ahead of the other major European nations, hearing the French whine about our dominant track cyclists and Germans bitch about our rowers beating them in the eights has been glorious. I may be coming over all SeanT here, but I think many have underestimated just how important sports has been to the restoration our national pride and international standing. Previously it was a source of national embarrassment, today it is a source of strength our outlook has changed because of that.
I'm pleased to see Team GB doing well, but sporting success certainly didn't feature in my vote for Brexit.
But, that doesn't mean it didn't have an impact. It would be interesting to study this.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
V1 was a point and shoot cruise missile. It simply flew a certain distance and the dived. V2 had inertial navigation and radio correction during its boost phase but once the rocket cut out it was purely down to ballistic flight. They were misdirected by press reporting and through the captured German agents providing false reports, not by interfering with navigation.
Bombing raids were misdirected by interfering with radio navigation, to varying degrees of success as some targets were hard to miss anyway. There was a whole battle of the beams through out the war.
The Coventry raid is controversial to this day, but at that stage of the war intelligence and countermeasures were not as developed as they would later be, there were many other similar failures, and of course successes. Coventry stands out because of the amount of damage inflicted and the large loss of life, but it could easily have been one of many other targets that ended up the worst.
Thanks for that. Always someone well-informed here,
I remember the V-1’s or “doodlebugs”. You knew they they were going to come down when the light on them went out, as it did close to the school I was at in July 1944. I’ve a clear recollection of being rushed into the shelters.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
Incidentally, had a half day at Bletchley Park this summer. Not nearly enough time. A fantastic museum well worth going out of the way for.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
Incidentally, had a half day at Bletchley Park this summer. Not nearly enough time. A fantastic museum well worth going out of the way for.
I’ve heard that one too. And agree about Bletchley. Well worth a visit.
Mr. 1000, also, imagine if your town were affected. Or a relative/friend of yours, and the media decides not to report it, for the greater good. But everyone knows anyway, because people talk and (beyond the local area) the internet exists.
Can't imagine that would go down well.
A blackout on propaganda (they used to play ISIS/Daesh videos, partially, on the news) is one thing. A blackout on reporting terrorism at all is quite another.
During war there are serious reporting restrictions. If we're going to have the same now then perhaps we could have some of the other measures that are taken during wartime against those who are or may be a threat.
There may be a case for not spreading the details of attacks far and wide in minute detail to deter copycat terrorists. And if that is effective then I can see its value. But I worry that the reason for clamping down on information about attacks is less to do with operational effectiveness and more about turning a blind eye to what is happening, who is doing them and why. That is not good. There is already a loss of trust in our politicians and a feeling that too many of them are doing everything they can to avoid identifying the source of the problems. Anything which continues that is I think dangerous.
Before you can even think of finding a solution (or a range of them) you need to have a clear sighted analysis of what the problem is. We do not have that from too many in the political/media establishment. That is a bar to clear thought. And into that vacuum all sorts of nasties will be prone to rush.
Mr. Eagles, surely Mayans is the only acceptable answer?
Miss Cyclefree, a very good point. If this is a war (or comparable situation) then have those who wish to fight against British forces charged with treason, and those who wish to join ISIS/Daesh locked up.
You can't go into an election with 172 MPs with stated no confidence in their leader. It's politics 101.
The campaign will be a bloodbath. And even if Labour did win, the leader couldn't be guaranteed to pass legislation.
Realistically, either (1) most Labour MPs will say that they'd wanted a leadership change but the membership has decided, so they are now willing to support it or (2) vocal opponents will tend not be selected for the new seats. I think it'll be (1) for the reasons I set out in a thread header last week (and consequntly that sitting MPs will tend to get selected regardless of what they said in the past).
There comes a point where just ineffectively grumbling merely irritates everyone; conversely, there isn't in general a mood to deselect for past dissent. Local Tories saying in 2020 that the Labour candidate signed a critical motion back in 2016 will have limited electoral impact: there will be plenty of hurdles to winning whatever happens, but that's the least of them.
The fundamental issue is that you cannot have a leader who has openly and repeatedly rebelled against and been completely unsupportive of previous Labour leaders asking current MPs to show him the loyalty he so conspicuously failed to show others.
If you want loyalty and unity you have to show some yourself. Corbyn has spent a lifetime not doing that. "Show not tell" is at the heart of good leadership. Corbyn does not understand that. And lecturing MPs about how he's been elected by the members doesn't get past that fundamental failing.
With Corbyn reelected this autumn I suspect we will see a lot of MPs slumping into sullen silence, rebelling on occasional matters when they feel they can't support Corbyn. There will be little if any effective opposition and we will just stumble along like this until at least next summer.
I see little point in another leadership challenge, but I'm sure that won't stop some having a go next year.
Would it be fair to say that the rest of the world should be grateful to the US for helping to subsidise our own drug consumption and research?
Yes. And not just drugs -- most medical breakthroughs come from America. Look at recent improvements in artificial limbs for instance.
Not just medicine either. Look at this here internet we are typing on. Most hardware and software developments come from the US.
Maybe there is a political message for both sides. For the left, American enterprise raises huge amounts of money. For the right, American state spending is vast in both dollar and per capita terms.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
I believe that to be a myth, there are lot of things that were said to have been allowed to happen to protect Ultra, and in most cases it is a retrospective explanation for failure not a direct cause that has been revealed.
At that stage of the war we were still figuring out German navigation systems and how to counter them, we also had a very incomplete picture of German deployments in occupied Europe at that time. SOE only became active in July 1940, and many early attempts to infiltrate agents were failures, useful intelligence networks didn't develop until much later and many of them were compromised or destroyed. Aerial photographic reconnaissance was also very patchy in 1940. Even where we had signals intelligence (a decrypted message) it doesn't mean we always knew what it meant as you would still need to know what things like code words referred to and the order of battle. We got it wrong many more times than people recall.
We remember our painful failures and look for easy explanations, but forget the successes and the price we paid to achieve them. How can you even measure the value of something you prevent?
Note that those comparative stats are based on health and care spend. This includes in the UK both NHS plus local authority spend on the care system. This is the major increase in % spend rather than private health.
Mr. 1000, also, imagine if your town were affected. Or a relative/friend of yours, and the media decides not to report it, for the greater good. But everyone knows anyway, because people talk and (beyond the local area) the internet exists.
Can't imagine that would go down well.
A blackout on propaganda (they used to play ISIS/Daesh videos, partially, on the news) is one thing. A blackout on reporting terrorism at all is quite another.
During war there are serious reporting restrictions. If we're going to have the same now then perhaps we could have some of the other measures that are taken during wartime against those who are or may be a threat.
There may be a case for not spreading the details of attacks far and wide in minute detail to deter copycat terrorists. And if that is effective then I can see its value. But I worry that the reason for clamping down on information about attacks is less to do with operational effectiveness and more about turning a blind eye to what is happening, who is doing them and why. That is not good. There is already a loss of trust in our politicians and a feeling that too many of them are doing everything they can to avoid identifying the source of the problems. Anything which continues that is I think dangerous.
Before you can even think of finding a solution (or a range of them) you need to have a clear sighted analysis of what the problem is. We do not have that from too many in the political/media establishment. That is a bar to clear thought. And into that vacuum all sorts of nasties will be prone to rush.
Eh? We've been (as in the media and politicians) have been saying for years what the problem is, delete as appropriate: Isis/Alqaeda/Islamist terror/Islamism/Jihadists.
I think we're pretty clear what the problem is, we just don't know what to do about it ! I do but they don't.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
I believe that to be a myth, there are lot of things that were said to have been allowed to happen to protect Ultra, and in most cases it is a retrospective explanation for failure not a direct cause that has been revealed.
At that stage of the war we were still figuring out German navigation systems and how to counter them, we also had a very incomplete picture of German deployments in occupied Europe at that time. SOE only became active in July 1940, and many early attempts to infiltrate agents were failures, useful intelligence networks didn't develop until much later and many of them were compromised or destroyed. Aerial photographic reconnaissance was also very patchy in 1940. Even where we had signals intelligence (a decrypted message) it doesn't mean we always knew what it meant as you would still need to know what things like code words referred to and the order of battle. We got it wrong many more times than people recall.
We remember our painful failures and look for easy explanations, but forget the successes and the price we paid to achieve them. How can you even measure the value of something you prevent?
You will see that they seem to come down on Churchill having at best partial information. My concern would be that these opinions were mainly expressed before the full scale of Bletchley Park's success was generally appreciated.
In the Imitation Game there is reference to an algorithm being used to determine what could be acted upon and what could not. No idea how that worked in practice.
The more I think about it the more factors contributed to Brexit. Restoration of national pride since 1996 at Atlanta is definitely more of a factor than I originally thought. Without the UK Sport setup created in 1996 in the aftermath of the disaster in Atlanta we would be plodding along with 3-7 gold medals per year behind the major European nations all getting 10-15 golds. That we have moved into the position of the number on European nation at the Olympics in 2012 and are looking to repeat that has given the people a sense of national pride that didn't exist even as recently as 2005. I remember when London won the Olympics the number one reaction among my family and friends was that it would be a disaster and we'd be a laughing stock around the world, we'd end up outside of the top ten in terms of the medals and we'd manage to somehow be worse than Athens which was a pretty poor affair. In the end that all proved to be rubbish and London was amazing, the city (and nation) showed we were able to rise to a challenge.
I think there was a marked change in the national outlook after London 2012 which has fed into Brexit. Dave was right to hold the vote before the Olympics, I can imagine if he held it after Rio it would have resulted in an even wider victory for Leave. Seeing Team GB in second place on the table far ahead of the other major European nations, hearing the French whine about our dominant track cyclists and Germans bitch about our rowers beating them in the eights has been glorious. I may be coming over all SeanT here, but I think many have underestimated just how important sports has been to the restoration our national pride and international standing. Previously it was a source of national embarrassment, today it is a source of strength our outlook has changed because of that.
I'm pleased to see Team GB doing well, but sporting success certainly didn't feature in my vote for Brexit.
But, that doesn't mean it didn't have an impact. It would be interesting to study this.
Harold Wilson believed the 1970 election was lost when England was knocked out of the World Cup.
The more I think about it the more factors contributed to Brexit. Restoration of national pride since 1996 at Atlanta is definitely more of a factor than I originally thought. Without the UK Sport setup created in 1996 in the aftermath of the disaster in Atlanta we would be plodding along with 3-7 gold medals per year behind the major European nations all getting 10-15 golds. That we have moved into the position of the number on European nation at the Olympics in 2012 and are looking to repeat that has given the people a sense of national pride that didn't exist even as recently as 2005. I remember when London won the Olympics the number one reaction among my family and friends was that it would be a disaster and we'd be a laughing stock around the world, we'd end up outside of the top ten in terms of the medals and we'd manage to somehow be worse than Athens which was a pretty poor affair. In the end that all proved to be rubbish and London was amazing, the city (and nation) showed we were able to rise to a challenge.
I think there was a marked change in the national outlook after London 2012 which has fed into Brexit. Dave was right to hold the vote before the Olympics, I can imagine if he held it after Rio it would have resulted in an even wider victory for Leave. Seeing Team GB in second place on the table far ahead of the other major European nations, hearing the French whine about our dominant track cyclists and Germans bitch about our rowers beating them in the eights has been glorious. I may be coming over all SeanT here, but I think many have underestimated just how important sports has been to the restoration our national pride and international standing. Previously it was a source of national embarrassment, today it is a source of strength our outlook has changed because of that.
I'm pleased to see Team GB doing well, but sporting success certainly didn't feature in my vote for Brexit.
But, that doesn't mean it didn't have an impact. It would be interesting to study this.
By this logic Leave should have lost given England's woeful performance in Euro 2016.
I suspect sporting success makes little difference either way.
Don is just wrong on this, but right on CLP nominations. There were 129 votes cast at our nomination meeting out of a total membership in excess of 1,100. Corbyn won.
What Don ignores is the biggest indicator of all: the CLP NEC vote in which the Corbyn slate won every seat. What's more, the least supported Corbyn candidate won around 30,000 more votes than the best supported non-Corbyn candidate. If Smith can keep the margin to 60-40 he will have done well.
That said, I think the leadership campaign has not been great for JC: 1. Despite the CLP votes he does not have guaranteed NEC control. That will make changing party rules challenging. 2. Moderate union leaders have been very pointed in their observations about the need for unity and they are looking at JC. 3. Lies about polling performance and EU referendum engagement have been exposed. 4. Corbyn's lack of leadership, unwillingness to compromise and remoteness have been made clear. 5. His lack of policies has become apparent, as has his disdain for Parliament. 6. Corbyn's comfort zone preaching to the converted campaigning style and inability to debate have become issues. 7. Entryism is now a big issue, alongside anti-semitism
Despite my harsh words about them, I do believe that most Corbynistas are genuine Labour supporters who want Labour to win. This campaign has, I think, given them plenty of food for thought. I think a lot of them will be voting to give JC one more chance more than anything else. They're annoyed at the PLP (unfairly in my view, but they are) and less than convinced by Smith, but JC is not the messiah. How he reacts to his victory will be key to his survival. I am sure that a majority of Labour members now believe he has to substantially up his game.
“Now we are being told,” he continued, “that if Labour returns to socialism it won’t win an election. So what? We should stand for a principle, win or lose. What’s the point of winning elections if we can’t implement what we believe in? In that case what is Labour for, apart from advancing a few careers? I want to be able to vote for what I believe, whether it wins elections or not. If Labour won’t promote its principles, I have no voice. All the parties represent the same programme. I have no one to vote for. I am disfranchised.”
That was the point where his complaint became identical to that of a UKIP supporter. That is not a flippant point: disfranchisement is the crucial issue that has provoked the present crisis in British politics and which could yet trigger a dramatic revolution in the political system, even beyond what it has already effected...
Mr. Eagles, surely Mayans is the only acceptable answer?
Miss Cyclefree, a very good point. If this is a war (or comparable situation) then have those who wish to fight against British forces charged with treason, and those who wish to join ISIS/Daesh locked up.
As with Op Banner, the UK Govt is very keen to portray IS-related behaviour as criminality rather than a war. To say it is a war would be to say we have a coherent enemy with coherent aims and would also, thereby, legitimise those aims.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
Incidentally, had a half day at Bletchley Park this summer. Not nearly enough time. A fantastic museum well worth going out of the way for.
My father-in-law hated Churchill for leaving Coventry out to dry. It was a common sentiment in the city, I believe.
“Now we are being told,” he continued, “that if Labour returns to socialism it won’t win an election. So what? We should stand for a principle, win or lose. What’s the point of winning elections if we can’t implement what we believe in? In that case what is Labour for, apart from advancing a few careers? I want to be able to vote for what I believe, whether it wins elections or not. If Labour won’t promote its principles, I have no voice. All the parties represent the same programme. I have no one to vote for. I am disfranchised.”
That was the point where his complaint became identical to that of a UKIP supporter. That is not a flippant point: disfranchisement is the crucial issue that has provoked the present crisis in British politics and which could yet trigger a dramatic revolution in the political system, even beyond what it has already effected...
Talking of V1 rockets / doodlebugs - have any PBers ever been near a pulsejet engine? They are seriously and deafeningly noisy. I saw a model aircraft with a tiny version powering it once. FFS! Astonished something that small could make that much noise. Pulsejets are basically a tube with flaps that open and close at one end (many many times per second). You squirt fuel in and the explosions cause a resonating vibration. It's basically just a series of explosions coming directly out of the back. No wonder they're so damn noisy. But also for the techies around here, they're beautifully simple, effective and efficient. Cool gear.
“Now we are being told,” he continued, “that if Labour returns to socialism it won’t win an election. So what? We should stand for a principle, win or lose. What’s the point of winning elections if we can’t implement what we believe in? In that case what is Labour for, apart from advancing a few careers? I want to be able to vote for what I believe, whether it wins elections or not. If Labour won’t promote its principles, I have no voice. All the parties represent the same programme. I have no one to vote for. I am disfranchised.”
That was the point where his complaint became identical to that of a UKIP supporter. That is not a flippant point: disfranchisement is the crucial issue that has provoked the present crisis in British politics and which could yet trigger a dramatic revolution in the political system, even beyond what it has already effected...
Mr. Topping, not sure it would legitimise them [Hitler's policies were hardly legitimate, in the moral sense].
However, I do agree we need to either treat this as a modern sort of war, or widespread criminality. Having a war-like approach to not reporting stuff fully without taking a corresponding approach elsewhere (treating Islamists as traitors or enemy combatants) is a mishmash.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
I believe that to be a myth, there are lot of things that were said to have been allowed to happen to protect Ultra, and in most cases it is a retrospective explanation for failure not a direct cause that has been revealed.
At that stage of the war we were still figuring out German navigation systems and how to counter them, we also had a very incomplete picture of German deployments in occupied Europe at that time. SOE only became active in July 1940, and many early attempts to infiltrate agents were failures, useful intelligence networks didn't develop until much later and many of them were compromised or destroyed. Aerial photographic reconnaissance was also very patchy in 1940. Even where we had signals intelligence (a decrypted message) it doesn't mean we always knew what it meant as you would still need to know what things like code words referred to and the order of battle. We got it wrong many more times than people recall.
We remember our painful failures and look for easy explanations, but forget the successes and the price we paid to achieve them. How can you even measure the value of something you prevent?
You will see that they seem to come down on Churchill having at best partial information. My concern would be that these opinions were mainly expressed before the full scale of Bletchley Park's success was generally appreciated.
In the Imitation Game there is reference to an algorithm being used to determine what could be acted upon and what could not. No idea how that worked in practice.
The Imitation Game was a terrible film but well-made. Its writer seemed not to have understood his source material. Turing et al did not decide what would be done with the decrypts (and the next steps would be to translate them into English and then into intelligence).
German bombers followed radio beams for navigation.
However, the main thing that Ultra hid was that for much of the war, the Germans were reading and deciphering British transmissions. At this distance, it is puzzling we did not think of this at the time. Later, we developed Type X machines, which were basically Enigma with the flaws removed.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
Incidentally, had a half day at Bletchley Park this summer. Not nearly enough time. A fantastic museum well worth going out of the way for.
My father-in-law hated Churchill for leaving Coventry out to dry. It was a common sentiment in the city, I believe.
Churchill was also believed, in South Wales, toi have ordered troops to fire on striking miners. That was not really debunked until Roy Jenkins (from a mining family) did so in his biography many years later.
“Now we are being told,” he continued, “that if Labour returns to socialism it won’t win an election. So what? We should stand for a principle, win or lose. What’s the point of winning elections if we can’t implement what we believe in? In that case what is Labour for, apart from advancing a few careers? I want to be able to vote for what I believe, whether it wins elections or not. If Labour won’t promote its principles, I have no voice. All the parties represent the same programme. I have no one to vote for. I am disfranchised.”
That was the point where his complaint became identical to that of a UKIP supporter. That is not a flippant point: disfranchisement is the crucial issue that has provoked the present crisis in British politics and which could yet trigger a dramatic revolution in the political system, even beyond what it has already effected...
In the Imitation Game there is reference to an algorithm being used to determine what could be acted upon and what could not. No idea how that worked in practice.
I haven't actually seen that film, but it is quite widely regarded as being a load of tosh from a historical perspective. Turing's role is important, but there were thousands of people working on Ultra, which covered a lot more than Enigma, and many other contributions were at least as valuable as Turing's. Turing's suicide and homosexuality make his story "sexy", you are not going to see a blockbuster film about say Tommy Flowers's work on Colossus to break the probably more important Lorenz cipher machines used by the German High Command to communicate with the Army command. That would be a geeks only film.
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
Incidentally, had a half day at Bletchley Park this summer. Not nearly enough time. A fantastic museum well worth going out of the way for.
My father-in-law hated Churchill for leaving Coventry out to dry. It was a common sentiment in the city, I believe.
Such a shame your father-in-law wasted so much emotion for something that had no basis in fact.
Some years ago I looked at the myth that HMG knew the Luftwaffe was going for Coventry but did nothing and could not find a shred of evidence to support it.
Don is just wrong on this, but right on CLP nominations. There were 129 votes cast at our nomination meeting out of a total membership in excess of 1,100. Corbyn won.
What Don ignores is the biggest indicator of all: the CLP NEC vote in which the Corbyn slate won every seat. What's more, the least supported Corbyn candidate won around 30,000 more votes than the best supported non-Corbyn candidate. If Smith can keep the margin to 60-40 he will have done well.
That said, I think the leadership campaign has not been great for JC: 1. Despite the CLP votes he does not have guaranteed NEC control. That will make changing party rules challenging. 2. Moderate union leaders have been very pointed in their observations about the need for unity and they are looking at JC. 3. Lies about polling performance and EU referendum engagement have been exposed. 4. Corbyn's lack of leadership, unwillingness to compromise and remoteness have been made clear. 5. His lack of policies has become apparent, as has his disdain for Parliament. 6. Corbyn's comfort zone preaching to the converted campaigning style and inability to debate have become issues. 7. Entryism is now a big issue, alongside anti-semitism
Despite my harsh words about them, I do believe that most Corbynistas are genuine Labour supporters who want Labour to win. This campaign has, I think, given them plenty of food for thought. I think a lot of them will be voting to give JC one more chance more than anything else. They're annoyed at the PLP (unfairly in my view, but they are) and less than convinced by Smith, but JC is not the messiah. How he reacts to his victory will be key to his survival. I am sure that a majority of Labour members now believe he has to substantially up his game.
up his game? After so many years on the barricades?
Apart from anything else, upping his game = rowing back on any number of long-held beliefs and tacking to the centre.
In the Imitation Game there is reference to an algorithm being used to determine what could be acted upon and what could not. No idea how that worked in practice.
I haven't actually seen that film, but it is quite widely regarded as being a load of tosh from a historical perspective. Turing's role is important, but there were thousands of people working on Ultra, which covered a lot more than Enigma, and many other contributions were at least as valuable as Turing's. Turing's suicide and homosexuality make his story "sexy", you are not going to see a blockbuster film about say Tommy Flowers's work on Colossus to break the probably more important Lorenz cipher machines used by the German High Command to communicate with the Army command. That would be a geeks only film.
Pirates of Silicon Valley is my all time favourite computer geek movie
I see a Hungarian newspaper has published a pix of the Swiss train attacker.
He's very swarthy and sported a large beard.
Is there a link?
Old Holborn tweet IIRC
I read in one of the weekend papers that the attacker had a particular victim in mind, and that everyone else was collateral damage. I don't know what that means, if anything.
Under Swiss privacy rules you are not supposed to reveal the identities of victims or suspects. His forename is Simon and his surname is a Swiss one apparently. He was living alone in Liechtenstein without any known connections with Islam.
Typical Swiss thing - the thing that really exercises the journalists is the 100 000 Fr damage to the train
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
There are a number of stories like this; I heard one about the damage in S/SE London being due to the British being able to affect the miissles navigation system so that they were able to be diverted from Central London. There was another one that the raid on Coventry in 1940 was a result of redirection.
Is Coventry not the raid that they knew was coming but did nothing about because that would have disclosed that they had broken Enigma?
Incidentally, had a half day at Bletchley Park this summer. Not nearly enough time. A fantastic museum well worth going out of the way for.
Big thumbs up to Bletchley Park! I was last there about five years ago and they've done a few more renovations since then. Well worth a day out to visit everything, including the national museum of computing on the same site.
Mr. Sandpit, a relative of mine worked there. Oddly, there was someone else with my surname, but I don't think we're actually related [the lady in question married into the family, so had a different name when she worked there].
Apart from the Mayoral elections, the PLP elections, the CLP nominations. The latest Comres poll showing by 2-1 Labour voters think Corbyn would be better PM than Smith, and a 3-1 lead in favourables among 2015 Labour voters for Corbyn over Smith (Smith having a net negative number on that metric too)
Comments
Would it be fair to say that the rest of the world should be grateful to the US for helping to subsidise our own drug consumption and research?
Edited extra bit: on a serious note, I'm unpersuaded by the seeming new approach of under-reporting terrorism to try and deter copycats. If it doesn't work, then it's a cover-up for nothing. If it does, then it's purchasing a tactical advantage [reducing small scale terror attacks] at a strategic cost, because trust in the political class, media, and police will be continually undermined. Not to mention a failure to acknowledge reality, and, therefore, the absence of a solution to serious questions because the political class refuse to recognise the questions exist.
Given that the lead time for a consultant is 10 years and we have universities (Durham) who have given up teaching Medicine due to the costs and issues involved how do you propose to do that? As the reality is that any change to improve weekend services will only lead to worse services during the working week..
As a separate anecdote sat in my local A&E at 11:30pm on a Saturday night a few months back I was surprised at how quickly a genuine (but non life threatening) issue was prioritised as a family friend had her second fit of the night...
healthcare cost per capita as a % of GDP per capita is the same number as healthcare cost as a % of GDP.
About £32bn went on long term care. Drugs cost £26.6bn. Preventative care £7.4bn. Curative and rehabilitative care was the biggest line item by far @ £101bn.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/bulletins/ukhealthaccounts/2014
Hope all these are just hiccups on the way to a good recovery though.
To be cost-effective, insurance has to be whole life so you pay when you need it least and can afford it most; compulsory so people can't opt out when they are paying in and opt in to get the provision; it needs to be rationed so the aggregated provision matches the aggregated payment. Only government can manage this. It breaks the payer/provider link.
The US healthcare "system" is the manifestation of this contradiction
[On a serious note, is it down to you as the customer or YouGov when it comes to determining secondary question topics (not precise wording)?].
Now: as a thought experiment imagine there was a total news blackout on all these attacks. Literally, we would hear nothing about them. How much harder would it be for ISIS, etc., to persuade people to join the cause? Go stab some people, everyone's doing it? Really? How come I've heard nothing about it?
If this is a war, there would be a total news blackout. And that would almost certainly lead to fewer attacks.
But, as you say, we live in a free society. Is the price worth paying?
https://twitter.com/mcdonnelljp/status/765115686159089664
Can't imagine that would go down well.
A blackout on propaganda (they used to play ISIS/Daesh videos, partially, on the news) is one thing. A blackout on reporting terrorism at all is quite another.
Did they not report bombings during WWII?
There comes a point where just ineffectively grumbling merely irritates everyone; conversely, there isn't in general a mood to deselect for past dissent. Local Tories saying in 2020 that the Labour candidate signed a critical motion back in 2016 will have limited electoral impact: there will be plenty of hurdles to winning whatever happens, but that's the least of them.
"He said the review had heard evidence that in a London borough at the general election someone arrived at the polling station with 500 postal votes."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37059188
Here's a comparison. During the V1 and V2 bombings of London, the UK press - at the instruction of the government - ran hundreds of stories of rockets landing west of London. The aim being to persuade the Germans that they were overshooting London.
This led to the Germans reducing the fuel loads of their bombs, and resulted in appalling damage to South East London. However, the feeling was that as this was a price a worth paying.
First off, that's just not possible in a world with an internet. Secondly, if they were using rockets attack [a one-off rocket attack was planned for Singapore, actually, but was thwarted] it might work. Whilst minimising reporting may reduce copycat attacks of the small scale, they'll also perpetually reduce confidence in the authorities, as well as not doing anything to deter more complicated, larger scale attacks.
It's a bloody loud book.
But full of great stories, like when he punched Harold Pinter down a flight of stairs...
Typical Swiss thing - the thing that really exercises the journalists is the 100 000 Fr damage to the train
link
Merely screaming about food banks every week at PMQs given he has never been unemployed or gone hungry in his life isn't going to win over voters. A concrete and workable proposal to sort out the ghastly mess colloquially referred to as our welfare system, that has seen them set up (and let it not be forgotten, they were being set up before the crisis because of delays and confusion over tax credits) just might do.
He would use it to ensure the other side were well lit though and try to make the negotiations go with a bang.
I'll get my coat, or at least, get back to my schemes of work.
Like a Teutonic Trump, I have the best words.
Bombing raids were misdirected by interfering with radio navigation, to varying degrees of success as some targets were hard to miss anyway. There was a whole battle of the beams through out the war.
The Coventry raid is controversial to this day, but at that stage of the war intelligence and countermeasures were not as developed as they would later be, there were many other similar failures, and of course successes. Coventry stands out because of the amount of damage inflicted and the large loss of life, but it could easily have been one of many other targets that ended up the worst.
I think we are all in favour of a 7-day NHS. It's how we get there that's the issue. But get there we must.
If you want loyalty and unity you have to show some yourself. Corbyn has spent a lifetime not doing that. "Show not tell" is at the heart of good leadership. Corbyn does not understand that. And lecturing MPs about how he's been elected by the members doesn't get past that fundamental failing.
But, that doesn't mean it didn't have an impact. It would be interesting to study this.
I remember the V-1’s or “doodlebugs”. You knew they they were going to come down when the light on them went out, as it did close to the school I was at in July 1944. I’ve a clear recollection of being rushed into the shelters.
Incidentally, had a half day at Bletchley Park this summer. Not nearly enough time. A fantastic museum well worth going out of the way for.
There may be a case for not spreading the details of attacks far and wide in minute detail to deter copycat terrorists. And if that is effective then I can see its value. But I worry that the reason for clamping down on information about attacks is less to do with operational effectiveness and more about turning a blind eye to what is happening, who is doing them and why. That is not good. There is already a loss of trust in our politicians and a feeling that too many of them are doing everything they can to avoid identifying the source of the problems. Anything which continues that is I think dangerous.
Before you can even think of finding a solution (or a range of them) you need to have a clear sighted analysis of what the problem is. We do not have that from too many in the political/media establishment. That is a bar to clear thought. And into that vacuum all sorts of nasties will be prone to rush.
Miss Cyclefree, a very good point. If this is a war (or comparable situation) then have those who wish to fight against British forces charged with treason, and those who wish to join ISIS/Daesh locked up.
One is not convinced. Still, I'm sure it was good news for CGI artists.
I see little point in another leadership challenge, but I'm sure that won't stop some having a go next year.
Not just medicine either. Look at this here internet we are typing on. Most hardware and software developments come from the US.
Maybe there is a political message for both sides. For the left, American enterprise raises huge amounts of money. For the right, American state spending is vast in both dollar and per capita terms.
http://michaelmoore.com/DearIvanka/
At that stage of the war we were still figuring out German navigation systems and how to counter them, we also had a very incomplete picture of German deployments in occupied Europe at that time. SOE only became active in July 1940, and many early attempts to infiltrate agents were failures, useful intelligence networks didn't develop until much later and many of them were compromised or destroyed. Aerial photographic reconnaissance was also very patchy in 1940. Even where we had signals intelligence (a decrypted message) it doesn't mean we always knew what it meant as you would still need to know what things like code words referred to and the order of battle. We got it wrong many more times than people recall.
We remember our painful failures and look for easy explanations, but forget the successes and the price we paid to achieve them. How can you even measure the value of something you prevent?
Note that those comparative stats are based on health and care spend. This includes in the UK both NHS plus local authority spend on the care system. This is the major increase in % spend rather than private health.
The minister in charge this week as PM is on holiday is @BorisJohnson says PM's spokesman
Isis/Alqaeda/Islamist terror/Islamism/Jihadists.
I think we're pretty clear what the problem is, we just don't know what to do about it ! I do but they don't.
You will see that they seem to come down on Churchill having at best partial information. My concern would be that these opinions were mainly expressed before the full scale of Bletchley Park's success was generally appreciated.
In the Imitation Game there is reference to an algorithm being used to determine what could be acted upon and what could not. No idea how that worked in practice.
I suspect sporting success makes little difference either way.
What Don ignores is the biggest indicator of all: the CLP NEC vote in which the Corbyn slate won every seat. What's more, the least supported Corbyn candidate won around 30,000 more votes than the best supported non-Corbyn candidate. If Smith can keep the margin to 60-40 he will have done well.
That said, I think the leadership campaign has not been great for JC:
1. Despite the CLP votes he does not have guaranteed NEC control. That will make changing party rules challenging.
2. Moderate union leaders have been very pointed in their observations about the need for unity and they are looking at JC.
3. Lies about polling performance and EU referendum engagement have been exposed.
4. Corbyn's lack of leadership, unwillingness to compromise and remoteness have been made clear.
5. His lack of policies has become apparent, as has his disdain for Parliament.
6. Corbyn's comfort zone preaching to the converted campaigning style and inability to debate have become issues.
7. Entryism is now a big issue, alongside anti-semitism
Despite my harsh words about them, I do believe that most Corbynistas are genuine Labour supporters who want Labour to win. This campaign has, I think, given them plenty of food for thought. I think a lot of them will be voting to give JC one more chance more than anything else. They're annoyed at the PLP (unfairly in my view, but they are) and less than convinced by Smith, but JC is not the messiah. How he reacts to his victory will be key to his survival. I am sure that a majority of Labour members now believe he has to substantially up his game.
“Now we are being told,” he continued, “that if Labour returns to socialism it won’t win an election. So what? We should stand for a principle, win or lose. What’s the point of winning elections if we can’t implement what we believe in? In that case what is Labour for, apart from advancing a few careers? I want to be able to vote for what I believe, whether it wins elections or not. If Labour won’t promote its principles, I have no voice. All the parties represent the same programme. I have no one to vote for. I am disfranchised.”
That was the point where his complaint became identical to that of a UKIP supporter. That is not a flippant point: disfranchisement is the crucial issue that has provoked the present crisis in British politics and which could yet trigger a dramatic revolution in the political system, even beyond what it has already effected...
http://reaction.life/politics-consensus-disenfranchised-majority-british-voters/#
However, I do agree we need to either treat this as a modern sort of war, or widespread criminality. Having a war-like approach to not reporting stuff fully without taking a corresponding approach elsewhere (treating Islamists as traitors or enemy combatants) is a mishmash.
German bombers followed radio beams for navigation.
However, the main thing that Ultra hid was that for much of the war, the Germans were reading and deciphering British transmissions. At this distance, it is puzzling we did not think of this at the time. Later, we developed Type X machines, which were basically Enigma with the flaws removed.
The LD's have been saying that for years
Some years ago I looked at the myth that HMG knew the Luftwaffe was going for Coventry but did nothing and could not find a shred of evidence to support it.
Apart from anything else, upping his game = rowing back on any number of long-held beliefs and tacking to the centre.
Can you really see him doing that?
http://www.onionstudios.com/videos/autistic-reporter-train-thankfully-unharmed-in-crash-that-killed-one-man-1462
"No solid evidence"
Apart from the Mayoral elections, the PLP elections, the CLP nominations.
The latest Comres poll showing by 2-1 Labour voters think Corbyn would be better PM than Smith, and a 3-1 lead in favourables among 2015 Labour voters for Corbyn over Smith (Smith having a net negative number on that metric too)
Don Brind=Rob Brydon
What a laugh.