I was once shown an English textbook for Thai students, showing recommended intonations and cadences. The complete accuracy of something that none of us ever think about in a non-tonal language is uncanny.
Tonality, and the practice of scattering references to the speakers gender more or less randomly into a conversation are what makes Thai so difficult to learn. For me, anyway.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
SeanT's theory was that £50 was the top price worth paying. My own suspicion, as a non-drinker, is that the first bottle (while people are still sober) is most important and the third or fourth may as well be $2 plonk. Looking at supermarkets, £20 is the most common "top" price which I guess might equate to £50 in a restaurant.
£15-£20 (in a shop rather than a restaurant) will get you some very nice wine indeed. And yes, after people have drunk one bottle each, what's served may as well be £2 a bottle.
"Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse" John 2:10
But the verse concludes, "but thou hast kept the good wine until now." Which has always struck me as an inherent contradiction. If they could tell that the wine they were drinking at the end was better than the stuff at the beginning then they could have drunk well enough for the bad stuff to have been produced.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
At least Ed Milliban made a fuss of AstraZeneca being sold to the predator Pfizer which has a history of closing down research centres, not a peep out of Corbyn about ARM. Useless.
Permit the sale of...., I assume you mean. What competition grounds would you suggest mean that a veto should be exercised?
I can't believe people are talking about cost savings on a public project, if anything the £4bn will become £7bn with a 3 year delay.
Seems a conservative estimate, frankly.
Can't they just take over the conference centre across from parliament or something? That way everyone can keep using their offices at portcullis house and so on.
It's a world heritage site, it needs maintaining, but cheapest and quickest is best and that means moving out, alas.
I was once shown an English textbook for Thai students, showing recommended intonations and cadences. The complete accuracy of something that none of us ever think about in a non-tonal language is uncanny.
Tonality, and the practice of scattering references to the speakers gender more or less randomly into a conversation are what makes Thai so difficult to learn. For me, anyway.
I couldn't even get my tongue round Ma ma ma ma when I was backpacking round China.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
"We" are not selling ARM as "we" do not own it.
I think Mr Jessop is a part owner.
Then Mr Jessop decides* what he does with his shares. "We" do not get to decide what he does with his shares.
* Barring certain exceptions like if an owner buys enough shares to compel the sale of the remainder etc
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
At least Ed Milliban made a fuss of AstraZeneca being sold to the predator Pfizer which has a history of closing down research centres, not a peep out of Corbyn about ARM. Useless.
NuNu, I have to be careful what I say here but I am not at all sure that HP destroyed Autonomy's value. I think, perhaps, that they discovered its true value after they bought it.
In the DotCom boom of the late nineties Autonomy made it into the FTSE 100 index, that was one of the most concrete signs to me that we were in the middle of a South Sea Bubble like boom and a crash was on its way.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. As you know, we have 100 passengers on board, and 52 of your recently voted to land and get out. Those 52 will be pleased that the decision to land is irrevocable, as we have just jettisoned hundreds of gallons of fuel. It is slightly disturbing that the 52 are not agreed on where to land, and those who have spoken to me are suggesting airports with runways that are too short or are beyond this aircraft's range. Croydon, by the way, has not been in use for decades. The 52 are saying the pilot is the one to land a plane, and could I just get on with it. Rest assured, I am determined to make a success of this situation. I will get back to you when I have further thoughts.
Mr. M, didn't watch, but if she's trying and failing on jokes she should try being a good Theresa May rather than a second rate David Cameron.
I have to say I've found Theresa May woefully unimpressive so far and yesterday's third rate effort confirms how fortunate she is to have Corbyn opposite her. Blair would have eaten her alive and even Brown and Kinnock would have given her a run for her money.
Yes, she can "grow into the role" but it's not as though she's never spoken at the Dispatch Box - she was Home Secretary for five years. As you say, it may be people don't want comedy but those PMs who have been LOTOs have had to learn the art of the quick riposte and the well-aimed jab (Cameron and Blair both did it well). As she has never been LOTO (though she may be one day you never know), it's a skill she's not had to master.
FWIW, I think May is evasive and shifty for a fairly long time right up to the point where she makes up her mind, at which point she becomes very robust.
In this she is similar to Thatcher, though I doubt with quite the same level of intelligence and certainly not the same level of cut-through communication skill.
Yes May is a poor performer at PMQs but
a) nobody but political nerds watches it
b) she is up against the almost impossibly inept Corbyn, who is going nowhere, thanks to the cultist devotion of Labour's newer members
If reminds me of the old joke about the two hikers and the hungry bear. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you".
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
It's as easy as anything to spend money. To spend it wisely ...
The problem with the HoC is that its structure and fittings are massively ornate, and can often only be worked on by specialists in paintings, fabrics, plastering, stonework etc. These are only available at a premium.
As an aside, I've often been around churches, and particularly cathedrals, and seen stonework being replaced. Since we have 3D scanning now, would it be possible to automate the chiseling and creation of ornate stone blockwork? Scan in the old piece, 'fix' it in a 3D package, and allow the machine/robot to do the work.
It's almost certainly more complex than that, especially in blocks that are not freestone and have strata and flaws that have to be worked around. But it would surely save money.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
Is money all you care about?
Is our governance better because it's in an old building?
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
SeanT's theory was that £50 was the top price worth paying. My own suspicion, as a non-drinker, is that the first bottle (while people are still sober) is most important and the third or fourth may as well be $2 plonk. Looking at supermarkets, £20 is the most common "top" price which I guess might equate to £50 in a restaurant.
£15-£20 (in a shop rather than a restaurant) will get you some very nice wine indeed. And yes, after people have drunk one bottle each, what's served may as well be £2 a bottle.
"Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse" John 2:10
But the verse concludes, "but thou hast kept the good wine until now." Which has always struck me as an inherent contradiction. If they could tell that the wine they were drinking at the end was better than the stuff at the beginning then they could have drunk well enough for the bad stuff to have been produced.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
SeanT's theory was that £50 was the top price worth paying. My own suspicion, as a non-drinker, is that the first bottle (while people are still sober) is most important and the third or fourth may as well be $2 plonk. Looking at supermarkets, £20 is the most common "top" price which I guess might equate to £50 in a restaurant.
£15-£20 (in a shop rather than a restaurant) will get you some very nice wine indeed. And yes, after people have drunk one bottle each, what's served may as well be £2 a bottle.
"Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse" John 2:10
But the verse concludes, "but thou hast kept the good wine until now." Which has always struck me as an inherent contradiction. If they could tell that the wine they were drinking at the end was better than the stuff at the beginning then they could have drunk well enough for the bad stuff to have been produced.
I guess if you can work miracles the odd inherent contradiction is no big deal.
Mind you I see I was too late with the quote anyway. Bugger.
Mr. M, didn't watch, but if she's trying and failing on jokes she should try being a good Theresa May rather than a second rate David Cameron.
I have to say I've found Theresa May woefully unimpressive so far and yesterday's third rate effort confirms how fortunate she is to have Corbyn opposite her. Blair would have eaten her alive and even Brown and Kinnock would have given her a run for her money.
Yes, she can "grow into the role" but it's not as though she's never spoken at the Dispatch Box - she was Home Secretary for five years. As you say, it may be people don't want comedy but those PMs who have been LOTOs have had to learn the art of the quick riposte and the well-aimed jab (Cameron and Blair both did it well). As she has never been LOTO (though she may be one day you never know), it's a skill she's not had to master.
FWIW, I think May is evasive and shifty for a fairly long time right up to the point where she makes up her mind, at which point she becomes very robust.
In this she is similar to Thatcher, though I doubt with quite the same level of intelligence and certainly not the same level of cut-through communication skill.
Yes May is a poor performer at PMQs but
a) nobody but political nerds watches it
b) she is up against the almost impossibly inept Corbyn, who is going nowhere, thanks to the cultist devotion of Labour's newer members
If reminds me of the old joke about the two hikers and the hungry bear. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you".
It is also challenging to be a good fencer if the person you are sparring with is an invalid.
If she wasn't facing Corbyn, I have little doubt that she would not just need to but be able to up her game.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Nate Silver has the Broncos at 11% for the superbowl whereas they are about half that chance with the bookies.
Mind you I have the panthers defense and tight end in amongst my Fantasy NFL picks. Tonight could be instructive to the whole season..
Though I do watch some, I don't follow the NFL closely enough to have financial opinions on it. Though there is sometimes exceptional divisional value available around week 14 if people don't take account of schedule and tiebreakers...
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
SeanT's theory was that £50 was the top price worth paying. My own suspicion, as a non-drinker, is that the first bottle (while people are still sober) is most important and the third or fourth may as well be $2 plonk. Looking at supermarkets, £20 is the most common "top" price which I guess might equate to £50 in a restaurant.
£15-£20 (in a shop rather than a restaurant) will get you some very nice wine indeed. And yes, after people have drunk one bottle each, what's served may as well be £2 a bottle.
"Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse" John 2:10
But the verse concludes, "but thou hast kept the good wine until now." Which has always struck me as an inherent contradiction. If they could tell that the wine they were drinking at the end was better than the stuff at the beginning then they could have drunk well enough for the bad stuff to have been produced.
Because the new wine was so amazing?
You'd expect that ol' Jesus juice would be pretty amazing..
Mr. M, didn't watch, but if she's trying and failing on jokes she should try being a good Theresa May rather than a second rate David Cameron.
I have to say I've found Theresa May woefully unimpressive so far and yesterday's third rate effort confirms how fortunate she is to have Corbyn opposite her. Blair would have eaten her alive and even Brown and Kinnock would have given her a run for her money.
Yes, she can "grow into the role" but it's not as though she's never spoken at the Dispatch Box - she was Home Secretary for five years. As you say, it may be people don't want comedy but those PMs who have been LOTOs have had to learn the art of the quick riposte and the well-aimed jab (Cameron and Blair both did it well). As she has never been LOTO (though she may be one day you never know), it's a skill she's not had to master.
FWIW, I think May is evasive and shifty for a fairly long time right up to the point where she makes up her mind, at which point she becomes very robust.
In this she is similar to Thatcher, though I doubt with quite the same level of intelligence and certainly not the same level of cut-through communication skill.
Yes May is a poor performer at PMQs but
a) nobody but political nerds watches it
b) she is up against the almost impossibly inept Corbyn, who is going nowhere, thanks to the cultist devotion of Labour's newer members
If reminds me of the old joke about the two hikers and the hungry bear. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you".
It is also challenging to be a good fencer if the person you are sparring with is an invalid.
If she wasn't facing Corbyn, I have little doubt that she would not just need to but be able to up her game.
Not sure I like this analogy, better one is the old unattribituable classic "never get into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent".
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
At least Ed Milliban made a fuss of AstraZeneca being sold to the predator Pfizer which has a history of closing down research centres, not a peep out of Corbyn about ARM. Useless.
NuNu, I have to be careful what I say here but I am not at all sure that HP destroyed Autonomy's value. I think, perhaps, that they discovered its true value after they bought it.
In the DotCom boom of the late nineties Autonomy made it into the FTSE 100 index, that was one of the most concrete signs to me that we were in the middle of a South Sea Bubble like boom and a crash was on its way.
The dotcom boom was hillarious, and very profitable if you knew when to get out. Memories of lastminute.com announcing quarterly losses of something like £30m on revenues of £40k (yes, £40k quarterly revenues), and the share price going up as a result.
Mr. M, didn't watch, but if she's trying and failing on jokes she should try being a good Theresa May rather than a second rate David Cameron.
I have to say I've found Theresa May woefully unimpressive so far and yesterday's third rate effort confirms how fortunate she is to have Corbyn opposite her. Blair would have eaten her alive and even Brown and Kinnock would have given her a run for her money.
Yes, she can "grow into the role" but it's not as though she's never spoken at the Dispatch Box - she was Home Secretary for five years. As you say, it may be people don't want comedy but those PMs who have been LOTOs have had to learn the art of the quick riposte and the well-aimed jab (Cameron and Blair both did it well). As she has never been LOTO (though she may be one day you never know), it's a skill she's not had to master.
FWIW, I think May is evasive and shifty for a fairly long time right up to the point where she makes up her mind, at which point she becomes very robust.
In this she is similar to Thatcher, though I doubt with quite the same level of intelligence and certainly not the same level of cut-through communication skill.
Yes May is a poor performer at PMQs but
a) nobody but political nerds watches it
b) she is up against the almost impossibly inept Corbyn, who is going nowhere, thanks to the cultist devotion of Labour's newer members
If reminds me of the old joke about the two hikers and the hungry bear. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you".
It is also challenging to be a good fencer if the person you are sparring with is an invalid.
If she wasn't facing Corbyn, I have little doubt that she would not just need to but be able to up her game.
Not sure I like this analogy, better one is the old unattribituable classic "never get into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent".
Which is similar to an old favourite of mine - never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
The Wedding at Cana is told in the Johannine tradition but not by the Synoptics. So you have to ask more forcibly than usual " what did they mean by that ? " At least it's a joke ( the Gospels are full of them ). He doesn't just turn water into wine but very good wine. It's also a supremist allegory. Christ is the good wine superseding the poor wine of the Mosaic Law. That's before you get into the really weird stuff taking ownership of the Dionysus tradition. Or the water jars being the womb of Our Lady and the wine being blood. The transmutation of water into wine being a metaphor the incarnation. The church has from the earliest times linked the Wedding at Cana with the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January.
It would be extremely hard indeed to find any other wine of this quality at this price (and sometime Waitrose discount it, too).
Looks like something to be borne in mind. I won’t be buying for a couple of weeks, not in Waitrose, anyway. I must say I was very negtaive about Italian wine until I was introduced to the Primitivo and Negroamara grapes. I’m cautious about buying Italian whites too, but I’ve done a little better lately.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Local champion, maybe; the US leads the way in this with Enron, I think.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, cable that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
It's as easy as anything to spend money. To spend it wisely ...
The problem with the HoC is that its structure and fittings are massively ornate, and can often only be worked on by specialists in paintings, fabrics, plastering, stonework etc. These are only available at a premium.
As an aside, I've often been around churches, and particularly cathedrals, and seen stonework being replaced. Since we have 3D scanning now, would it be possible to automate the chiseling and creation of ornate stone blockwork? Scan in the old piece, 'fix' it in a 3D package, and allow the machine/robot to do the work.
It's almost certainly more complex than that, especially in blocks that are not freestone and have strata and flaws that have to be worked around. But it would surely save money.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
You can only look at the Scottish parliament building to see some potential problems with that. We could easily spend more on a new building that is even harder to maintain.
My dad was in building, and as a child he told me one golden rule about architects: never give free rein to 'their' vision. Control and subjugate them. If you do not, you will not pay for 'your' building: you will pay more to build what *they* want, their dreams.
The HOC are iconic, and particularly the exterior. A problem is that the choice of materials in Victorian times were non-ideal, and the stonework has been troublesome ever since - I think it's been reclad twice already. We need to avoid being in this position in another sixty years.
Hmm Scots building was what, £400m - I'm with @Pulpstar. What's the breakdown although I suppose, just like a credit card bill, it will all legitimately add up to the big figure.
I'm inclined to agree with Casino Royals that May is currently ' Merkeln ' over Brexit ( apologies for the europhile joke there ) and will be tough when she's made her mind up. No 10 was quick to hang Davis out to dry over his Dispatch Box free wheeling. All her statements on Brexit so far are either completely definitive or utterly meaningless. There is no middle way with her.
Michael Keating, Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen, told MPs that if Scotland were in the EU and the rest of the UK were not, then that would break up the single British market between them, creating a hard border; an economic barrier to free movement of goods, people and services between the two countries.
Asked how Scotland would be able to stay within the UK single market - which was worth four times more to the Scottish economy than the European single market, - if it became independent, Prof Keating told the Commons Scottish Affairs committee: “They don’t.
“If it is a hard Brexit and the UK comes out of the European single market, then it makes it much more difficult for Scotland to become independent because you’d have that hard border with the UK market.” He then added: “Ironically enough, the closer the UK gets to the single market, then the less grievance Scotland maybe has but the more easy it is to become independent because at that point you could have access to both markets.”
If there was a hard brexit, could an independent Scotland not join EEA norway style, and then negotiate a trade deal with the rUK, thereby giving access to the EU markets without blocking future access to rUK?
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Local champion, maybe; the US leads the way in this with Enron, I think.
"By the summer of 2014, its founders had raised over $400 million from investors, valuing the company at $9 billion.[5][6]
In October 2015, controversy surrounding the company's blood testing process arose after a report in The Wall Street Journal raised concerns about the accuracy of its Edison device. An independent U.S. government review by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported inaccurate testing results and multiple deficiencies in sample handling during a recent inspection.
In June 1, 2016, Forbes revised its estimate of the company's net worth to $800 million.[7][8]
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, cable that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
It's as easy as anything to spend money. To spend it wisely ...
The problem with the HoC is that its structure and fittings are massively ornate, and can often only be worked on by specialists in paintings, fabrics, plastering, stonework etc. These are only available at a premium.
As an aside, I've often been around churches, and particularly cathedrals, and seen stonework being replaced. Since we have 3D scanning now, would it be possible to automate the chiseling and creation of ornate stone blockwork? Scan in the old piece, 'fix' it in a 3D package, and allow the machine/robot to do the work.
It's almost certainly more complex than that, especially in blocks that are not freestone and have strata and flaws that have to be worked around. But it would surely save money.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
You can only look at the Scottish parliament building to see some potential problems with that. We could easily spend more on a new building that is even harder to maintain.
My dad was in building, and as a child he told me one golden rule about architects: never give free rein to 'their' vision. Control and subjugate them. If you do not, you will not pay for 'your' building: you will pay more to build what *they* want, their dreams.
The HOC are iconic, and particularly the exterior. A problem is that the choice of materials in Victorian times were non-ideal, and the stonework has been troublesome ever since - I think it's been reclad twice already. We need to avoid being in this position in another sixty years.
Hmm Scots building was what, £400m - I'm with @Pulpstar. What's the breakdown although I suppose, just like a credit card bill, it will all legitimately add up to the big figure.
The budget was 40m. A total disaster.
Thinking they could build it for £40m was probably the biggest disaster of all.
qz.com draws our attention to what foreign students are taught about the order in which adjectives should be used to describe nouns in the English language.
Adjectives have to be in order of: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose then the noun. For example a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife.
Only by bringing back more grammar schools will such order be maintained.
That's lifted from Mark Forsyth's book I recommended here yesterday. All his books are worth a read, though 'The Elements of Eloquence' is the best. Second is "The Etymologicon", though it's more the sort of thing you might leave in a guest bedroom or downstairs loo .
Mr. M, didn't watch, but if she's trying and failing on jokes she should try being a good Theresa May rather than a second rate David Cameron.
I have to say I've found Theresa May woefully unimpressive so far and yesterday's third rate effort confirms how fortunate she is to have Corbyn opposite her. Blair would have eaten her alive and even Brown and Kinnock would have given her a run for her money.
Yes, she can "grow into the role" but it's not as though she's never spoken at the Dispatch Box - she was Home Secretary for five years. As you say, it may be people don't want comedy but those PMs who have been LOTOs have had to learn the art of the quick riposte and the well-aimed jab (Cameron and Blair both did it well). As she has never been LOTO (though she may be one day you never know), it's a skill she's not had to master.
FWIW, I think May is evasive and shifty for a fairly long time right up to the point where she makes up her mind, at which point she becomes very robust.
How many other Home Secretaries have spoken to the Police Federation as she did?
How many other Party Chairmen have spoken to the Conservative Party as she did?
I think we know how 'robust' she is capable of being.
You characterise her as 'evasive & shifty' before she makes up mind.
Perhaps she's not as skilled a dissembler as Cameron or Blair.
That's a bad thing?
You misunderstand me. I'm not commenting on May's character (but perhaps that was unclear from my post) just how she might look to others and be perceived.
She likes to take her time before reaching a decision. And is quite thorough about it whilst giving little away in the process.
She was the same prior to declaring on the Brexit vote.
Looks like something to be borne in mind. I won’t be buying for a couple of weeks, not in Waitrose, anyway. I must say I was very negtaive about Italian wine until I was introduced to the Primitivo and Negroamara grapes. I’m cautious about buying Italian whites too, but I’ve done a little better lately.
Italian wines are very varied, with a large number of different grapes and winemaking techniques. Over the last ten or fifteen years the typical quality level has soared, to the extent that I'd say they are now second only to France in terms of producing top-quality wines. The whites in particular (which often used to be rather poor) have improved dramatically. The reds can sometimes be a bit too jammy and alcoholic for my taste, but it's hard to generalise because there is such a variety and many of them are excellent. Many of the best are expensive, though.
I was intrigued by some hints from the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg then watched some You Tube footage. The other interpretation of May's demeanour is the 1hr Bilateral she had with Obama at the G20. As the current Hierophant of the illuminati/New World Order he's told her bluntly what the Americans are prepared to do if it looks like Brexit contagion is spreading to the rest of the Transatlantic architecture. That conversation would unsettle anyone.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Indeed, realising such huge value for Autonomy was a massive win for the UK. I think the same is true for ARM, a great company, yes, but $24bn great? I'm not convinced.
Then again, as with immigration, I think my views and positions are probably not in line with the British public and nunu's are much closer to the mark.
What I'd ask all those people who want a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity is take a look at French industry and then take a look at ours. Workers and management of similar calibre, one nation has such a test for foreign takeovers and the other doesn't. Political interference in capital markets is, IMO, a bad idea and leads to lazy management, higher union activity and lower employment.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
At least Ed Milliban made a fuss of AstraZeneca being sold to the predator Pfizer which has a history of closing down research centres, not a peep out of Corbyn about ARM. Useless.
Permit the sale of...., I assume you mean. What competition grounds would you suggest mean that a veto should be exercised?
The Americans tend to find national security considerations in all sorts of unexpected places: perhaps we could do likewise. The trouble with our free-market approach to foreign takeovers is that other countries are not playing by the same rules.
Looks like something to be borne in mind. I won’t be buying for a couple of weeks, not in Waitrose, anyway. I must say I was very negtaive about Italian wine until I was introduced to the Primitivo and Negroamara grapes. I’m cautious about buying Italian whites too, but I’ve done a little better lately.
Italian wines are very varied, with a large number of different grapes and winemaking techniques. Over the last ten or fifteen years the typical quality level has soared, to the extent that I'd say they are now second only to France in terms of producing top-quality wines. The whites in particular (which often used to be rather poor) have improved dramatically. The reds can sometimes be a bit too jammy and alcoholic for my taste, but it's hard to generalise because there is such a variety and many of them are excellent. Many of the best are expensive, though.
Same as burgundy you have everything from Louis Latour to Anne Gros. Which is why many steer clear.
Michael Keating, Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen, told MPs that if Scotland were in the EU and the rest of the UK were not, then that would break up the single British market between them, creating a hard border; an economic barrier to free movement of goods, people and services between the two countries.
Asked how Scotland would be able to stay within the UK single market - which was worth four times more to the Scottish economy than the European single market, - if it became independent, Prof Keating told the Commons Scottish Affairs committee: “They don’t.
“If it is a hard Brexit and the UK comes out of the European single market, then it makes it much more difficult for Scotland to become independent because you’d have that hard border with the UK market.” He then added: “Ironically enough, the closer the UK gets to the single market, then the less grievance Scotland maybe has but the more easy it is to become independent because at that point you could have access to both markets.”
If there was a hard brexit, could an independent Scotland not join EEA norway style, and then negotiate a trade deal with the rUK, thereby giving access to the EU markets without blocking future access to rUK?
Yes they could, but it sort of undermines the current argument of EU membership being taken away from Scotland as they wouldn't be in the EU.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, cable that.
<<snipped>>
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
It's as easy as anything to spend money. To spend it wisely ...
The problem with the HoC is that its structure and fittings are massively ornate, and can often only be worked on by specialists in paintings, fabrics, plastering, stonework etc. These are only available at a premium.
As an aside, I've often been around churches, and particularly cathedrals, and seen stonework being replaced. Since we have 3D scanning now, would it be possible to automate the chiseling and creation of ornate stone blockwork? Scan in the old piece, 'fix' it in a 3D package, and allow the machine/robot to do the work.
It's almost certainly more complex than that, especially in blocks that are not freestone and have strata and flaws that have to be worked around. But it would surely save money.
<<snipped>>
The HOC are iconic, and particularly the exterior. A problem is that the choice of materials in Victorian times were non-ideal, and the stonework has been troublesome ever since - I think it's been reclad twice already. We need to avoid being in this position in another sixty years.
Hmm Scots building was what, £400m - I'm with @Pulpstar. What's the breakdown although I suppose, just like a credit card bill, it will all legitimately add up to the big figure.
"We need to avoid being in this position in another sixty years"
Won't be a huge issue for me at that point.
ASFAIK The Scottish parliament building construction cost was £250 million, up from £115 at tender stage due to massive changes in scope and extra accommodation needed, mainly caused client demands (and post 9/11 security features). The other £150 million was for the site running and management costs and overheads of all the delays and disruptions.
As an example of costs, I'm looking at a building repair job, including 1890s gothic features where the carved tracery costs c. £15,000/m3 or up to £2,000 for a single window mullion. Management and site running costs in London are likely to be horrendous as well.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Political interference in capital markets...leads to lazy management, higher union activity and lower employment.
You've just described a central plank of Jezza's manifesto in a nutshell.
Repair the Palace of Westminster, move the MPs to a new functional purpose-built chamber in somewhere like Middlesbrough.
Are there any buildings large enough to accomodate 650 MPs, Lords and staff near Middlesbrough ?
Edit: Ah a new build.
Hence the need for the Boundary Commission to revise constituencies so as to reduce MP numbers.
You see, Messrs Cameron and Osborne needed to reduce the number of MPs to save money, while simultaneously appointing new Tory peers by the bucketload.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
Is money all you care about?
Is our governance better because it's in an old building?
This misses the point.
Would we suggest shifting the President out of the White House or congress out of the Capitol if it got a bit old?
There are some buildings and institutions that summarise who we are as a nation. The history of the Palace of Westminister stretches back over 1,000 years and captures our story of an evolving parliamentary democracy for centuries. It is absolutely fundamental to our identity as a people and nation.
There are some things that are (within reason) beyond money. I simply don't understand those who prioritise modernity and a 'year zero' approach to Government; although I do understand those on the Left who want to scrap it for precisely the same reasons I want to keep it.
And I think making our key institutions dead museums alone - making them part of our history, and consigning them to irrelevance, rather than our future - would be a huge mistake. And I think it does affect Governance, which is emotional as well as transactional. We are continually reminded of our story all around us in the fabric of the building of Westminster, and the lessons it has taught us, and I want future seminal moments in our nation's history to continue to be made there.
As Burke said, society is a contract between the living, the dead and those yet to be born and we would be doing future generations a huge disservice to selfishly scrap it for want of a few quid.
Looks like something to be borne in mind. I won’t be buying for a couple of weeks, not in Waitrose, anyway. I must say I was very negtaive about Italian wine until I was introduced to the Primitivo and Negroamara grapes. I’m cautious about buying Italian whites too, but I’ve done a little better lately.
Italian wines are very varied, with a large number of different grapes and winemaking techniques. Over the last ten or fifteen years the typical quality level has soared, to the extent that I'd say they are now second only to France in terms of producing top-quality wines. The whites in particular (which often used to be rather poor) have improved dramatically. The reds can sometimes be a bit too jammy and alcoholic for my taste, but it's hard to generalise because there is such a variety and many of them are excellent. Many of the best are expensive, though.
Same as burgundy you have everything from Louis Latour to Anne Gros. Which is why many steer clear.
I take the Galloping Gourmet approach myself. No drinking in this - but very funny 90secs.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'. for the record my last 17 years of teaching was at a Kent Grammar which has a very socially mixed intake from both the local town and parts of south London easily accessible. The selection tests are not perfect but are actually difficult to coach effectively for unless the IQ is pretty high anyway. We took the few that relatively few ever got a place that was not merited judged by subsequent performance. The success of any kind of school owes much to the skill of the staff and the leadership at the top - my own school was actually under-subscribed and in danger of closure prior to the appointment of the head who was in post when I joined - that all changed within 3/4 years and 3 consecutive OFSTED's rated it as outstandingly successful - and of course, massively over-subscribed.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
Is money all you care about?
Is our governance better because it's in an old building?
This misses the point.
Would we suggest shifting the President out of the White House or congress out of the Capitol if it got a bit old?
There are some buildings and institutions that summarise who we are as a nation. The history of the Palace of Westminister stretches back over 1,000 years and captures our story of an evolving parliamentary democracy for centuries. It is absolutely fundamental to our identity as a people and nation.
There are some things that are (within reason) beyond money. I simply don't understand those who prioritise modernity and a 'year zero' approach to Government; although I do understand those on the Left who want to scrap it for precisely the same reasons I want to keep it.
And I think making our key institutions dead museums alone - making them part of our history, and consigning them to irrelevance, rather than our future - would be a huge mistake. And I think it does affect Governance, which is emotional as well as transactional. We are continually reminded of our story all around us in the fabric of the building of Westminster, and the lessons it has taught us, and I want future seminal moments in our nation's history to continue to be made there.
As Burke said, society is a contract between the living, the dead and those yet to be born and we would be doing future generations a huge disservice to selfishly scrap it for want of a few quid.
Robert takes a somewhat utilitarian approach with these matters, I think.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Indeed, realising such huge value for Autonomy was a massive win for the UK. I think the same is true for ARM, a great company, yes, but $24bn great? I'm not convinced.
Then again, as with immigration, I think my views and positions are probably not in line with the British public and nunu's are much closer to the mark.
What I'd ask all those people who want a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity is take a look at French industry and then take a look at ours. Workers and management of similar calibre, one nation has such a test for foreign takeovers and the other doesn't. Political interference in capital markets is, IMO, a bad idea and leads to lazy management, higher union activity and lower employment.
Mr. Max, this question reminds me of the alleged story about George Bernard Shaw and the woman who said she would sleep with him for a very large sum of money. When he asked if she would sleep with him for a trivial sum she was shocked and said, "What do think I am, a whore?" He replied, "We have already established that, I am just trying to work out the price".
Are there industries or companies that HMG would not allow to be sold to a foreign buyer? Rolls Royce for example or BAe? How about a Huawei takeover of BT? I think the answer is that no foreign takeover of those businesses would be allowed. Therefore we have established that there is a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity. The only question is where you draw the line.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, ce that.
Surely a bottle
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
.
W?
Is money all you care about?
Is our governance better because it's in an old building?
This misses the point.
Would we suggest shifting the President out of the White House or congress out of the Capitol if it got a bit old?
There are some buildings and institutions that summarise who we are as a nation. The history of the Palace of Westminister stretches back over 1,000 years and captures our story of an evolving parliamentary democracy for centuries. It is absolutely fundamental to our identity as a people and nation.
There are some things that are (within reason) beyond money. I simply don't understand those who prioritise modernity and a 'year zero' approach to Government; although I do understand those on the Left who want to scrap it for precisely the same reasons I want to keep it.
And I think making our key institutions dead museums alone - making them part of our history, and consigning them to irrelevance, rather than our future - would be a huge mistake. And I think it does affect Governance, which is emotional as well as transactional. We are continually reminded of our story all around us in the fabric of the building of Westminster, and the lessons it has taught us, and I want future seminal moments in our nation's history to continue to be made there.
As Burke said, society is a contract between the living, the dead and those yet to be born and we would be doing future generations a huge disservice to selfishly scrap it for want of a few quid.
I don't have strong ideas about it one way or another but the Palace of Westminster was new and shiny once, although I appreciate borrowing from the gothic vernacular. So was the Florence Baptistry.
Why shouldn't we have a brand new, cutting-edge design for our houses of Parliament which shows off all the beauty, innovation and aspiration of the UK moving confidently into the future?
Apart, of course, from us being beholden to a supranational body that forbids us from exercising our sovereignty by bulldozing it, as @Ishmael_X noted earlier.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Indeed, realising such huge value for Autonomy was a massive win for the UK. I think the same is true for ARM, a great company, yes, but $24bn great? I'm not convinced.
Then again, as with immigration, I think my views and positions are probably not in line with the British public and nunu's are much closer to the mark.
What I'd ask all those people who want a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity is take a look at French industry and then take a look at ours. Workers and management of similar calibre, one nation has such a test for foreign takeovers and the other doesn't. Political interference in capital markets is, IMO, a bad idea and leads to lazy management, higher union activity and lower employment.
Mr. Max, this question reminds me of the alleged story about George Bernard Shaw and the woman who said she would sleep with him for a very large sum of money. When he asked if she would sleep with him for a trivial sum she was shocked and said, "What do think I am, a whore?" He replied, "We have already established that, I am just trying to work out the price".
Are there industries or companies that HMG would not allow to be sold to a foreign buyer? Rolls Royce for example or BAe? How about a Huawei takeover of BT? I think the answer is that no foreign takeover of those businesses would be allowed. Therefore we have established that there is a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity. The only question is where you draw the line.
That's a national security interest. To ensure UK state secrets and functioning of vital infrastructure does not fall into potential enemy hands.
Extending that to a more generalised national interest has little justification.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
At least Ed Milliban made a fuss of AstraZeneca being sold to the predator Pfizer which has a history of closing down research centres, not a peep out of Corbyn about ARM. Useless.
Corbyn would nationalise ARM and fold it into ICL.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Indeed, realising such huge value for Autonomy was a massive win for the UK. I think the same is true for ARM, a great company, yes, but $24bn great? I'm not convinced.
Then again, as with immigration, I think my views and positions are probably not in line with the British public and nunu's are much closer to the mark.
What I'd ask all those people who want a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity is take a look at French industry and then take a look at ours. Workers and management of similar calibre, one nation has such a test for foreign takeovers and the other doesn't. Political interference in capital markets is, IMO, a bad idea and leads to lazy management, higher union activity and lower employment.
Mr. Max, this question reminds me of the alleged story about George Bernard Shaw and the woman who said she would sleep with him for a very large sum of money. When he asked if she would sleep with him for a trivial sum she was shocked and said, "What do think I am, a whore?" He replied, "We have already established that, I am just trying to work out the price".
Are there industries or companies that HMG would not allow to be sold to a foreign buyer? Rolls Royce for example or BAe? How about a Huawei takeover of BT? I think the answer is that no foreign takeover of those businesses would be allowed. Therefore we have established that there is a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity. The only question is where you draw the line.
That's a national security interest. To ensure UK state secrets and functioning of vital infrastructure does not fall into potential enemy hands.
Extending that to a more generalised national interest has little justification.
Fair go, but other countries have a different idea of what constitutes vital infrastructure (and who you consider a potential enemy). As I said it depends where you want to draw the line.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'.
May is still making a mistake here. There is no particlar call for grammar schools from the public, and there are so many more pressing issues.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Indeed, realising such huge value for Autonomy was a massive win for the UK. I think the same is true for ARM, a great company, yes, but $24bn great? I'm not convinced.
Then again, as with immigration, I think my views and positions are probably not in line with the British public and nunu's are much closer to the mark.
What I'd ask all those people who want a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity is take a look at French industry and then take a look at ours. Workers and management of similar calibre, one nation has such a test for foreign takeovers and the other doesn't. Political interference in capital markets is, IMO, a bad idea and leads to lazy management, higher union activity and lower employment.
Mr. Max, this question reminds me of the alleged story about George Bernard Shaw and the woman who said she would sleep with him for a very large sum of money. When he asked if she would sleep with him for a trivial sum she was shocked and said, "What do think I am, a whore?" He replied, "We have already established that, I am just trying to work out the price".
Are there industries or companies that HMG would not allow to be sold to a foreign buyer? Rolls Royce for example or BAe? How about a Huawei takeover of BT? I think the answer is that no foreign takeover of those businesses would be allowed. Therefore we have established that there is a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity. The only question is where you draw the line.
That's a national security interest. To ensure UK state secrets and functioning of vital infrastructure does not fall into potential enemy hands.
Extending that to a more generalised national interest has little justification.
Fair go, but other countries have a different idea of what constitutes vital infrastructure (and who you consider a potential enemy). As I said it depends where you want to draw the line.
Precisely. Is food production not an issue of national security?
@Topping - retaining the Palace of Westminster does not say anything negative about our confidence as a nation.
Frankly, I am at a loss to understand this obsession with renewal and modernity that requires us to sacrifice at its altar anything that is slightly inconvenient for how we choose to live in our modern age. It's the same philosophy that saw huge swathes of historic town and city centre swept away in the 1960s for brutalist architecture (the fad of the time) and is in no small part now why we have listed buildings.
The Palace of Westminster was new when the nation of England was new (or newish). Our whole national story (indeed, that of the world) has been shaped there.
It is right that we refurbish and retain it and future generations will thank us for it.
That's a national security interest. To ensure UK state secrets and functioning of vital infrastructure does not fall into potential enemy hands.
Extending that to a more generalised national interest has little justification.
Fair go, but other countries have a different idea of what constitutes vital infrastructure (and who you consider a potential enemy). As I said it depends where you want to draw the line.
It does, but ARM, Autonomy or Cadburys don't fulfil any kind of national interest test IMO. I think as a country we could enforce tougher binding terms on continued investment part of any takeover deal. The US has done this in the past in the telecoms sector in particular, we could adapt that, but even so, it's pretty marginal. Most companies who spend billions on buying a business aren't going to want to are it wither.
@Topping - retaining the Palace of Westminster does not say anything negative about our confidence as a nation.
Frankly, I am at a loss to understand this obsession with renewal and modernity that requires us to sacrifice at its altar anything that is slightly inconvenient for how we choose to live in our modern age. It's the same philosophy that saw huge swathes of historic town and city centre swept away in the 1960s for brutalist architecture (the fad of the time) and is in no small part now why we have listed buildings.
The Palace of Westminster was new when the nation of England was new (or newish). Our whole national story (indeed, that of the world) has been shaped there.
It is right that we refurbish and retain it and future generations will thank us for it.
Fair enough. I'm still sorry that the select committees moved out of Stonehenge.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
It's as easy as anything to spend money. To spend it wisely ...
The problem with the HoC is that its structure and fittings are massively ornate, and can often only be worked on by specialists in paintings, fabrics, plastering, stonework etc. These are only available at a premium.
As an aside, I've often been around churches, and particularly cathedrals, and seen stonework being replaced. Since we have 3D scanning now, would it be possible to automate the chiseling and creation of ornate stone blockwork? Scan in the old piece, 'fix' it in a 3D package, and allow the machine/robot to do the work.
It's almost certainly more complex than that, especially in blocks that are not freestone and have strata and flaws that have to be worked around. But it would surely save money.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
Is money all you care about?
The point was about whether we should have a refit of the old building or something modern instead.
It's a World Heritage site.
Only until we Brexit from UNESCO.
That has been done before. The US, UK and Singapore left in 1985 when UNESCO was spending 95% of its budget in its HQ in Paris (mainly on anti-Western propaganda) and refused to reform. We rejoined in 1997.
But I see that in 2011 we stopped funding for UNIDO, Habitat, ILO and the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and put other UN agencies, including UNESCO, on notice that we might suspend funding for them too:
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'. for the record my last 17 years of teaching was at a Kent Grammar which has a very socially mixed intake from both the local town and parts of south London easily accessible. The selection tests are not perfect but are actually difficult to coach effectively for unless the IQ is pretty high anyway. We took the few that relatively few ever got a place that was not merited judged by subsequent performance. The success of any kind of school owes much to the skill of the staff and the leadership at the top - my own school was actually under-subscribed and in danger of closure prior to the appointment of the head who was in post when I joined - that all changed within 3/4 years and 3 consecutive OFSTED's rated it as outstandingly successful - and of course, massively over-subscribed.
I think the main argument against grammar schools is that they deplete the comprehensives of their best and brightest role models, thus lowering the chances that pupils at these schools achieve their potential.
There is also the argument that, aside from the coaching arguments, selection by a single test at a certain age is rather arbitrary given the different speeds of development of different children. It's generally a one-way process, with little chance for late developers to enter a grammar school or for those who end up struggling at a grammar school to leave.
Is there any evidence that pupils in those areas that retained grammar schools achieve better grades, on average, than those in areas that didn't, allowing for demographic factors? It'd also be interesting to know how many went on to get degrees, given that university students from comprehensive schools tend to do better then those from grammar schools with the same A levels.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'.
May is still making a mistake here. There is no particlar call for grammar schools from the public, and there are so many more pressing issues.
Grammar schools are one of many issues that need to be addressed. Government should not wait for a public demand. Those who would like them are often intimidated by lefties who shout "unfair".
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
SeanT's theory was that £50 was the top price worth paying. My own suspicion, as a non-drinker, is that the first bottle (while people are still sober) is most important and the third or fourth may as well be $2 plonk. Looking at supermarkets, £20 is the most common "top" price which I guess might equate to £50 in a restaurant.
£15-£20 (in a shop rather than a restaurant) will get you some very nice wine indeed. And yes, after people have drunk one bottle each, what's served may as well be £2 a bottle.
"Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse" John 2:10
But the verse concludes, "but thou hast kept the good wine until now." Which has always struck me as an inherent contradiction. If they could tell that the wine they were drinking at the end was better than the stuff at the beginning then they could have drunk well enough for the bad stuff to have been produced.
Because the new wine was so amazing?
You'd expect that ol' Jesus juice would be pretty amazing..
The J-boy had hypnotised the drinkers - they were drinking water but thought it was super-duper plonk.
I see our Sean has made it into this week's edition of the Spectator.
Speaking of SeanT, can anyone remember the Italian plonk he was raving about recently? I need to "bring a bottle" but don't drink. I thought it was from Waitrose but I can't see anything over about £20 on the web site and iirc SeanT's wine was about double that.
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
It's as easy as anything to spend money. To spend it wisely ... D package, and allow the machine/robot to do the work.
It's almost certainly more complex than that, especially in blocks that are not freestone and have strata and flaws that have to be worked around. But it would surely save money.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
Is money all you care about?
The point was about whether we should have a refit of the old building or something modern instead.
It's a World Heritage site.
Only until we Brexit from UNESCO.
That has been done before. The US, UK and Singapore left in 1985 when UNESCO was spending 95% of its budget in its HQ in Paris (mainly on anti-Western propaganda) and refused to reform. We rejoined in 1997.
But I see that in 2011 we stopped funding for UNIDO, Habitat, ILO and the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and put other UN agencies, including UNESCO, on notice that we might suspend funding for them too:
Surely a bottle of fizz works best in those circumstances. A lone bottle of wine can sometimes be of little use (unless it's for a sangria in which case a £4.99 red from Aldi will do).
Also, could one of the builders or plasterers on here pls, succinctly, explain how you get to spend £4bn on a building.
It's as easy as anything to spend money. To spend it wisely ...
The problem with the HoC is that its structure and fittings are massively ornate, and can often only be worked on by specialists in paintings, fabrics, plastering, stonework etc. These are only available at a premium.
As an aside, I've often been around churches, and particularly cathedrals, and seen stonework being replaced. Since we have 3D scanning now, would it be possible to automate the chiseling and creation of ornate stone blockwork? Scan in the old piece, 'fix' it in a 3D package, and allow the machine/robot to do the work.
It's almost certainly more complex than that, especially in blocks that are not freestone and have strata and flaws that have to be worked around. But it would surely save money.
What would it cost, whether there is the political or public will or not, of razing it to the ground (selling off artifacts, fittings, bits of wall, the Edstone when they find it deep in the cellars), and giving the brief for something modern to Fosters? Or whoever?
Is money all you care about?
The point was about whether we should have a refit of the old building or something modern instead.
It's a World Heritage site.
Only until we Brexit from UNESCO.
That has been done before. The US, UK and Singapore left in 1985 when UNESCO was spending 95% of its budget in its HQ in Paris (mainly on anti-Western propaganda) and refused to reform. We rejoined in 1997.
But I see that in 2011 we stopped funding for UNIDO, Habitat, ILO and the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and put other UN agencies, including UNESCO, on notice that we might suspend funding for them too:
Precisely. Is food production not an issue of national security?
Or even energy production and distribution, water supply and sewage disposal, national transport. There are lots of areas where perhaps the market is not the right solution and the people of the UK are getting screwed and the profits made are going out of the country.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'.
May is still making a mistake here. There is no particlar call for grammar schools from the public, and there are so many more pressing issues.
Grammar schools are one of many issues that need to be addressed. Government should not wait for a public demand. Those who would like them are often intimidated by lefties who shout "unfair".
It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.
The problem is that given the opportunity to give their children advantage, wealthier parents will do so. Whether that is down to simple affluence, or to ambition is not clear.
Not sure how you legislate against that. Not 100% sure that should be legislated against, or have structural barriers put in place to avoid it.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'. for the record my last 17 years of teaching was at a Kent Grammar which has a very socially mixed intake from both the local town and parts of south London easily accessible. The selection tests are not perfect but are actually difficult to coach effectively for unless the IQ is pretty high anyway. We took the few that relatively few ever got a place that was not merited judged by subsequent performance. The success of any kind of school owes much to the skill of the staff and the leadership at the top - my own school was actually under-subscribed and in danger of closure prior to the appointment of the head who was in post when I joined - that all changed within 3/4 years and 3 consecutive OFSTED's rated it as outstandingly successful - and of course, massively over-subscribed.
I think the main argument against grammar schools is that they deplete the comprehensives of their best and brightest role models, thus lowering the chances that pupils at these schools achieve their potential.
There is also the argument that, aside from the coaching arguments, selection by a single test at a certain age is rather arbitrary given the different speeds of development of different children. It's generally a one-way process, with little chance for late developers to enter a grammar school or for those who end up struggling at a grammar school to leave.
Is there any evidence that pupils in those areas that retained grammar schools achieve better grades, on average, than those in areas that didn't, allowing for demographic factors? It'd also be interesting to know how many went on to get degrees, given that university students from comprehensive schools tend to do better then those from grammar schools with the same A levels.
I can understand why people might argue that the division between grammar schools and secondary moderns is counter-productive, but I struggle to understand the amount of angst that their existence generates; far more angst than the existence of private schools.
Precisely. Is food production not an issue of national security?
Or even energy production and distribution, water supply and sewage disposal, national transport. There are lots of areas where perhaps the market is not the right solution and the people of the UK are getting screwed and the profits made are going out of the country.
Hmm, that's a bit of populist nonsense, Mr Llama. Quite apart from anything else, a number of UK companies are rather good at those areas, which is why they are successful abroad, bringing profits into this country.
I don't have strong ideas about it one way or another but the Palace of Westminster was new and shiny once, although I appreciate borrowing from the gothic vernacular. So was the Florence Baptistry.
Why shouldn't we have a brand new, cutting-edge design for our houses of Parliament which shows off all the beauty, innovation and aspiration of the UK moving confidently into the future?
Apart, of course, from us being beholden to a supranational body that forbids us from exercising our sovereignty by bulldozing it, as @Ishmael_X noted earlier.
Because the UK isn't moving confidently into the future (and before you start, it wasn't doing so before the referendum either), and so called 'cutting edge' design offers little in the way of beauty, innovation or aspiration.
The Victorians (and the Georgians in a different way) knew who they were and what they believed, and had a strong code of ethics - a rulebook from the past. That's why their buildings are still revered today when today's stumpy toys will be demolished and forgotten in decades hence.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'.
May is still making a mistake here. There is no particlar call for grammar schools from the public, and there are so many more pressing issues.
Grammar schools are one of many issues that need to be addressed. Government should not wait for a public demand. Those who would like them are often intimidated by lefties who shout "unfair".
It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.
The problem is that given the opportunity to give their children advantage, wealthier parents will do so. Whether that is down to simple affluence, or to ambition is not clear.
Not sure how you legislate against that. Not 100% sure that should be legislated against, or have structural barriers put in place to avoid it.
It's why you can never create true equality of opportunity in a society (let alone equality of outcome). People will always favour their own children over other peoples'.
Precisely. Is food production not an issue of national security?
Or even energy production and distribution, water supply and sewage disposal, national transport. There are lots of areas where perhaps the market is not the right solution and the people of the UK are getting screwed and the profits made are going out of the country.
Hmm, that's a bit of populist nonsense, Mr Llama. Quite apart from anything else, a number of UK companies are rather good at those areas, which is why they are successful abroad, bringing profits into this country.
Not enough to staunch the disastrous BOP situation.
I don't have strong ideas about it one way or another but the Palace of Westminster was new and shiny once, although I appreciate borrowing from the gothic vernacular. So was the Florence Baptistry.
Why shouldn't we have a brand new, cutting-edge design for our houses of Parliament which shows off all the beauty, innovation and aspiration of the UK moving confidently into the future?
Apart, of course, from us being beholden to a supranational body that forbids us from exercising our sovereignty by bulldozing it, as @Ishmael_X noted earlier.
Because the UK isn't moving confidently into the future (and before you start, it wasn't doing so before the referendum either), and so called 'cutting edge' design offers little in the way of beauty, innovation or aspiration.
The Victorians (and the Georgians in a different way) knew who they were and what they believed, and had a strong code of ethics - a rulebook from the past. That's why their buildings are still revered today when today's stumpy toys will be demolished and forgotten in decades hence.
I don't disagree, and the whole gherkin, walkie-talkie, etc we shall have to wait to see their longevity. But at the same time surely there is room for something essentially modern British isn't there? Of course there is also the whole one man's brutal is another's...
I don't have strong ideas about it one way or another but the Palace of Westminster was new and shiny once, although I appreciate borrowing from the gothic vernacular. So was the Florence Baptistry.
Why shouldn't we have a brand new, cutting-edge design for our houses of Parliament which shows off all the beauty, innovation and aspiration of the UK moving confidently into the future?
Apart, of course, from us being beholden to a supranational body that forbids us from exercising our sovereignty by bulldozing it, as @Ishmael_X noted earlier.
Because the UK isn't moving confidently into the future (and before you start, it wasn't doing so before the referendum either), and so called 'cutting edge' design offers little in the way of beauty, innovation or aspiration.
The Victorians (and the Georgians in a different way) knew who they were and what they believed, and had a strong code of ethics - a rulebook from the past. That's why their buildings are still revered today when today's stumpy toys will be demolished and forgotten in decades hence.
Their *surviving* buildings are revered. The best (and the ones most easily adapted) survived; the dross was demolished and replaced. And there was a heck of a lot of dross.
There is plenty of architecture being built today that stands a good chance of being revered in 100 or 200 years' time. The one problem we have is that there is no single architectural epoch at the moment: stylistically we are all over the place. But that's perhaps not a bad thing.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'. for the record my last 17 years of teaching was at a Kent Grammar which has a very socially mixed intake from both the local town and parts of south London easily accessible. The selection tests are not perfect but are actually difficult to coach effectively for unless the IQ is pretty high anyway. We took the few that relatively few ever got a place that was not merited judged by subsequent performance. The success of any kind of school owes much to the skill of the staff and the leadership at the top - my own school was actually under-subscribed and in danger of closure prior to the appointment of the head who was in post when I joined - that all changed within 3/4 years and 3 consecutive OFSTED's rated it as outstandingly successful - and of course, massively over-subscribed.
I think the main argument against grammar schools is that they deplete the comprehensives of their best and brightest role models, thus lowering the chances that pupils at these schools achieve their potential.
There is also the argument that, aside from the coaching arguments, selection by a single test at a certain age is rather arbitrary given the different speeds of development of different children. It's generally a one-way process, with little chance for late developers to enter a grammar school or for those who end up struggling at a grammar school to leave.
Is there any evidence that pupils in those areas that retained grammar schools achieve better grades, on average, than those in areas that didn't, allowing for demographic factors? It'd also be interesting to know how many went on to get degrees, given that university students from comprehensive schools tend to do better then those from grammar schools with the same A levels.
I can understand why people might argue that the division between grammar schools and secondary moderns is counter-productive, but I struggle to understand the amount of angst that their existence generates; far more angst than the existence of private schools.
Perhaps people consider that depriving comprehensives of their brightest pupils is more damaging than depriving them of their richest pupils.
That's a national security interest. To ensure UK state secrets and functioning of vital infrastructure does not fall into potential enemy hands.
Extending that to a more generalised national interest has little justification.
Fair go, but other countries have a different idea of what constitutes vital infrastructure (and who you consider a potential enemy). As I said it depends where you want to draw the line.
It does, but ARM, Autonomy or Cadburys don't fulfil any kind of national interest test IMO. I think as a country we could enforce tougher binding terms on continued investment part of any takeover deal. The US has done this in the past in the telecoms sector in particular, we could adapt that, but even so, it's pretty marginal. Most companies who spend billions on buying a business aren't going to want to are it wither.
The likes of ARM, Cadbury, and Autonomy wouldn't pass my own national interest test (especially the latter), but other countries do see things differently. How easy is it for a UK company to take over a French, German, USA or Chinese one compared to the reverse?
I doubt many companies do want to see their investment on the acquisition of a UK Company wasted, in fact they most surely do want to see a good return. The means by which they achieve that return is not always to the advantage of the people of the UK. What politicians call inward investment seems so often to mean asset stripping.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'.
May is still making a mistake here. There is no particlar call for grammar schools from the public, and there are so many more pressing issues.
Grammar schools are one of many issues that need to be addressed. Government should not wait for a public demand. Those who would like them are often intimidated by lefties who shout "unfair".
It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.
The problem is that given the opportunity to give their children advantage, wealthier parents will do so. Whether that is down to simple affluence, or to ambition is not clear.
Not sure how you legislate against that. Not 100% sure that should be legislated against, or have structural barriers put in place to avoid it.
It's why you can never create true equality of opportunity in a society (let alone equality of outcome). People will always favour their own children over other peoples'.
The wealthier parents would argue that they are just doing their duty to ensure their kids get a good education. There's a difference between mummy or daddy securing their child an internship at a big firm in London and helping them with their maths homework.
''It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.''
No its the stigma of being chucked into a second rate school at eleven.
Streamed comprehensives are a much better idea. You learn with people who are as capable as you, but you get to mix with children of all talents and backgrounds. And everybody wears the same uniform.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'. for the record my last 17 years of teaching was at a Kent Grammar which has a very socially mixed intake from both the local town and parts of south London easily accessible. The selection tests are not perfect but are actually difficult to coach effectively for unless the IQ is pretty high anyway. We took the few that relatively few ever got a place that was not merited judged by subsequent performance. The success of any kind of school owes much to the skill of the staff and the leadership at the top - my own school was actually under-subscribed and in danger of closure prior to the appointment of the head who was in post when I joined - that all changed within 3/4 years and 3 consecutive OFSTED's rated it as outstandingly successful - and of course, massively over-subscribed.
I think the main argument against grammar schools is that they deplete the comprehensives of their best and brightest role models, thus lowering the chances that pupils at these schools achieve their potential.
There is also the argument that, aside from the coaching arguments, selection by a single test at a certain age is rather arbitrary given the different speeds of development of different children. It's generally a one-way process, with little chance for late developers to enter a grammar school or for those who end up struggling at a grammar school to leave.
Is there any evidence that pupils in those areas that retained grammar schools achieve better grades, on average, than those in areas that didn't, allowing for demographic factors? It'd also be interesting to know how many went on to get degrees, given that university students from comprehensive schools tend to do better then those from grammar schools with the same A levels.
I can understand why people might argue that the division between grammar schools and secondary moderns is counter-productive, but I struggle to understand the amount of angst that their existence generates; far more angst than the existence of private schools.
I can. It presses against the fundamental bruises that characterise much of British culture: the class system, suspicion of intellectualism and jealousy of success.
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leader, a foreign company buys it destroys its value and then a British company buys most of it back.
Sounds about right..
......why are we selling ARM to the Japanese ffs are we mad the French would never allow a company like ARM to go to foreign hands ffs and this is to a country who just recently threatened us making one of the garuntees worthless. We're the dumbest people in the world, let's just sell Buckingham Palace while we're at it, market forces must be worshipped at all costs!
"We" are not selling ARM as "we" do not own it.
I think Mr Jessop is a part owner.
I am, and sadly soon to be was.
It feels like a final connection with an important part of my life is going. To be honest, tht was probably the only reason I hung onto the shares for so long.
I don't have strong ideas about it one way or another but the Palace of Westminster was new and shiny once, although I appreciate borrowing from the gothic vernacular. So was the Florence Baptistry.
Why shouldn't we have a brand new, cutting-edge design for our houses of Parliament which shows off all the beauty, innovation and aspiration of the UK moving confidently into the future?
Apart, of course, from us being beholden to a supranational body that forbids us from exercising our sovereignty by bulldozing it, as @Ishmael_X noted earlier.
Because the UK isn't moving confidently into the future (and before you start, it wasn't doing so before the referendum either), and so called 'cutting edge' design offers little in the way of beauty, innovation or aspiration.
The Victorians (and the Georgians in a different way) knew who they were and what they believed, and had a strong code of ethics - a rulebook from the past. That's why their buildings are still revered today when today's stumpy toys will be demolished and forgotten in decades hence.
I don't disagree, and the whole gherkin, walkie-talkie, etc we shall have to wait to see their longevity. But at the same time surely there is room for something essentially modern British isn't there? Of course there is also the whole one man's brutal is another's...
Using your logic we'd bulldoze every thatched cottage in the land and replace them with cutting edge new builds to cut our carbon emissions.
''It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.''
No its the stigma of being chucked into a second rate school at eleven.
Streamed comprehensives are a much better idea. You learn with people who are as capable of you, but you get to mix with children of all talents and backgrounds. And everybody wears the same uniform.
Its way better.
Streamed or setted? I was streamed in year 7 whereby we went round the school as a class based on general ability. But from year 8 to 11 we were setted so that you could be top set for one subject and set 2/3 for another.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'. for the record my last 17 years of teaching was at a Kent Grammar which has a very socially mixed intake from both the local town and parts of south London easily accessible. The selection tests are not perfect but are actually difficult to coach effectively for unless the IQ is pretty high anyway. We took the few that relatively few ever got a place that was not merited judged by subsequent performance. The success of any kind of school owes much to the skill of the staff and the leadership at the top - my own school was actually under-subscribed and in danger of closure prior to the appointment of the head who was in post when I joined - that all changed within 3/4 years and 3 consecutive OFSTED's rated it as outstandingly successful - and of course, massively over-subscribed.
I think the main argument against grammar schools is that they deplete the comprehensives of their best and brightest role models, thus lowering the chances that pupils at these schools achieve their potential.
There is also the argument that, aside from the coaching arguments, selection by a single test at a certain age is rather arbitrary given the different speeds of development of different children. It's generally a one-way process, with little chance for late developers to enter a grammar school or for those who end up struggling at a grammar school to leave.
Is there any evidence that pupils in those areas that retained grammar schools achieve better grades, on average, than those in areas that didn't, allowing for demographic factors? It'd also be interesting to know how many went on to get degrees, given that university students from comprehensive schools tend to do better then those from grammar schools with the same A levels.
I can understand why people might argue that the division between grammar schools and secondary moderns is counter-productive, but I struggle to understand the amount of angst that their existence generates; far more angst than the existence of private schools.
Perhaps people consider that depriving comprehensives of their brightest pupils is more damaging than depriving them of their richest pupils.
The private school where I was accepted, Haberdashers' (but unable to attend because we didn't qualify for a bursary), had a very tough exam. Tougher than my grammar school entrance exam from what I remember.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'. for the record my last 17 years of teaching was at a Kent Grammar which has a very socially mixed intake from both the local town and parts of south London easily accessible. The selection tests are not perfect but are actually difficult to coach effectively for unless the IQ is pretty high anyway. We took the few that relatively few ever got a place that was not merited judged by subsequent performance. The success of any kind of school owes much to the skill of the staff and the leadership at the top - my own school was actually under-subscribed and in danger of closure prior to the appointment of the head who was in post when I joined - that all changed within 3/4 years and 3 consecutive OFSTED's rated it as outstandingly successful - and of course, massively over-subscribed.
I think the main argument against grammar schools is that they deplete the comprehensives of their best and brightest role models, thus lowering the chances that pupils at these schools achieve their potential.
There is also the argument that, aside from the coaching arguments, selection by a single test at a certain age is rather arbitrary given the different speeds of development of different children. It's generally a one-way process, with little chance for late developers to enter a grammar school or for those who end up struggling at a grammar school to leave.
Is there any evidence that pupils in those areas that retained grammar schools achieve better grades, on average, than those in areas that didn't, allowing for demographic factors? It'd also be interesting to know how many went on to get degrees, given that university students from comprehensive schools tend to do better then those from grammar schools with the same A levels.
I can understand why people might argue that the division between grammar schools and secondary moderns is counter-productive, but I struggle to understand the amount of angst that their existence generates; far more angst than the existence of private schools.
Perhaps people consider that depriving comprehensives of their brightest pupils is more damaging than depriving them of their richest pupils.
Do you have the same problem with streaming? ie depriving the "lower" classes of their brightest pupils is damaging. Yet streaming is widespread.
And what about the brightest pupils, why should they be pulled down? Shouldn't it be their human right to go to the best schooling they can?
Some good news for the UK tech sector, Micro Focus is expanding and purchasing HP's enterprise division. Not sure where that leaves HP in the future, consumer products is a low margin game that can turn at any time.
So we sold Autonomy when it was growing fast and a world leade
Yes; a world leader in aggressive accounting policies.
Local champion, maybe; the US leads the way in this with Enron, I think.
"By the summer of 2014, its founders had raised over $400 million from investors, valuing the company at $9 billion.[5][6]
In October 2015, controversy surrounding the company's blood testing process arose after a report in The Wall Street Journal raised concerns about the accuracy of its Edison device. An independent U.S. government review by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported inaccurate testing results and multiple deficiencies in sample handling during a recent inspection.
In June 1, 2016, Forbes revised its estimate of the company's net worth to $800 million.[7][8]
''It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.''
No its the stigma of being chucked into a second rate school at eleven.
Streamed comprehensives are a much better idea. You learn with people who are as capable as you, but you get to mix with children of all talents and backgrounds. And everybody wears the same uniform.
Its way better.
And there is always the opportunity for late developers and hard workers to move up a stream, as well as the threat to shirkers of being moved down.
I see the liberal left are up in arms today about the possibility of a few extra Grammar schools - the faux outrage is much akin to that relating to foxhunting - although ironically it is the small number of existing Grammars that are the red meat for 'disgusted of Finsbury park'.
May is still making a mistake here. There is no particlar call for grammar schools from the public, and there are so many more pressing issues.
Grammar schools are one of many issues that need to be addressed. Government should not wait for a public demand. Those who would like them are often intimidated by lefties who shout "unfair".
It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.
The problem is that given the opportunity to give their children advantage, wealthier parents will do so. Whether that is down to simple affluence, or to ambition is not clear.
Not sure how you legislate against that. Not 100% sure that should be legislated against, or have structural barriers put in place to avoid it.
It's why you can never create true equality of opportunity in a society (let alone equality of outcome). People will always favour their own children over other peoples'.
The wealthier parents would argue that they are just doing their duty to ensure their kids get a good education. There's a difference between mummy or daddy securing their child an internship at a big firm in London and helping them with their maths homework.
If you banned every other school (private, academy, free) and only had BS Comprehensives, you would be in with a shout.
It's not a policy I would agree with, nor would it be politically acceptable, but it would force wealthier, brighter parents to start using their pointy elbows for the common good.
''Streamed or setted? I was streamed in year 7 whereby we went round the school as a class based on general ability. But from year 8 to 11 we were setted so that you could be top set for one subject and set 2/3 for another.''
We had a 'grammar stream', and setting within that.
Worth saying on streaming/setting in comprehensives, that's done to the benefit of the less intelligent kids. There were 38 in my Year 11 top set maths class.
''It seems that the argument against them is that rich children cram for them if they are in (socio-economically) mixed areas and hence the disparity of outcomes. It was then suggested to put them into poor areas but apparently that phenomenon persists.''
No its the stigma of being chucked into a second rate school at eleven.
Streamed comprehensives are a much better idea. You learn with people who are as capable as you, but you get to mix with children of all talents and backgrounds. And everybody wears the same uniform.
Its way better.
And there is always the opportunity for late developers and hard workers to move up a stream, as well as the threat to shirkers of being moved down.
How about a reassessment at 13? The fails go into the comprehensive and those who take the "13 plus" can start at the grammar the following year. That way there is an ongoing need to achieve and those who have been coached will find themselves short of the necessary standards in the exam two years later.
Comments
Can't they just take over the conference centre across from parliament or something? That way everyone can keep using their offices at portcullis house and so on.
It's a world heritage site, it needs maintaining, but cheapest and quickest is best and that means moving out, alas.
* Barring certain exceptions like if an owner buys enough shares to compel the sale of the remainder etc
In the DotCom boom of the late nineties Autonomy made it into the FTSE 100 index, that was one of the most concrete signs to me that we were in the middle of a South Sea Bubble like boom and a crash was on its way.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. As you know, we have 100 passengers on board, and 52 of your recently voted to land and get out. Those 52 will be pleased that the decision to land is irrevocable, as we have just jettisoned hundreds of gallons of fuel. It is slightly disturbing that the 52 are not agreed on where to land, and those who have spoken to me are suggesting airports with runways that are too short or are beyond this aircraft's range. Croydon, by the way, has not been in use for decades. The 52 are saying the pilot is the one to land a plane, and could I just get on with it. Rest assured, I am determined to make a success of this situation. I will get back to you when I have further thoughts.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/07/brexit-means-never-having-to-say-youre-sorry-or-anything-at-all#comment-82794206
a) nobody but political nerds watches it
b) she is up against the almost impossibly inept Corbyn, who is going nowhere, thanks to the cultist devotion of Labour's newer members
If reminds me of the old joke about the two hikers and the hungry bear. "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you".
Occasional Baseball Betting PostBoston Red Sox to win the AL East at 13/10 (Betfair Sportsbook)
http://www.oddschecker.com/baseball/mlb/american-league-east/winner
http://www.fangraphs.com/coolstandings.aspx#ALE
Because the new wine was so amazing?
Nate Silver has the Broncos at 11% for the superbowl whereas they are about half that chance with the bookies.
Mind you I have the panthers defense and tight end in amongst my Fantasy NFL picks. Tonight could be instructive to the whole season..
Mind you I see I was too late with the quote anyway. Bugger.
If she wasn't facing Corbyn, I have little doubt that she would not just need to but be able to up her game.
http://www.waitrosecellar.com/italian-wine/inama-vigneti-di-foscarino-soave?gclid=CMrakaHL_84CFaMW0wodZG4NEQ
It would be extremely hard indeed to find any other wine of this quality at this price (and sometime Waitrose discount it, too).
I must say I was very negtaive about Italian wine until I was introduced to the Primitivo and Negroamara grapes. I’m cautious about buying Italian whites too, but I’ve done a little better lately.
Also your link shows me why I could not find what I think was SeanT's red -- I was looking at waitrose.com rather than waitrosecellar.com
I think it was this one:
http://www.waitrosecellar.com/barolo-wines/damilano-barolo-docg-liste-865119
"By the summer of 2014, its founders had raised over $400 million from investors, valuing the company at $9 billion.[5][6]
In October 2015, controversy surrounding the company's blood testing process arose after a report in The Wall Street Journal raised concerns about the accuracy of its Edison device. An independent U.S. government review by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported inaccurate testing results and multiple deficiencies in sample handling during a recent inspection.
In June 1, 2016, Forbes revised its estimate of the company's net worth to $800 million.[7][8]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/07/the-calais-wall-is-nothing-like-donald-trumps--the-left-just-don/
She likes to take her time before reaching a decision. And is quite thorough about it whilst giving little away in the process.
She was the same prior to declaring on the Brexit vote.
Then again, as with immigration, I think my views and positions are probably not in line with the British public and nunu's are much closer to the mark.
What I'd ask all those people who want a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity is take a look at French industry and then take a look at ours. Workers and management of similar calibre, one nation has such a test for foreign takeovers and the other doesn't. Political interference in capital markets is, IMO, a bad idea and leads to lazy management, higher union activity and lower employment.
http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/niall-mccrae-mocking-the-left-is-hate-crime-but-with-the-right-its-satire/
Would we suggest shifting the President out of the White House or congress out of the Capitol if it got a bit old?
There are some buildings and institutions that summarise who we are as a nation. The history of the Palace of Westminister stretches back over 1,000 years and captures our story of an evolving parliamentary democracy for centuries. It is absolutely fundamental to our identity as a people and nation.
There are some things that are (within reason) beyond money. I simply don't understand those who prioritise modernity and a 'year zero' approach to Government; although I do understand those on the Left who want to scrap it for precisely the same reasons I want to keep it.
And I think making our key institutions dead museums alone - making them part of our history, and consigning them to irrelevance, rather than our future - would be a huge mistake. And I think it does affect Governance, which is emotional as well as transactional. We are continually reminded of our story all around us in the fabric of the building of Westminster, and the lessons it has taught us, and I want future seminal moments in our nation's history to continue to be made there.
As Burke said, society is a contract between the living, the dead and those yet to be born and we would be doing future generations a huge disservice to selfishly scrap it for want of a few quid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mY4Qi7J4ag
Which earns me neither gratitude nor friends.
I was once criticised for returning money to contingency because I'd "overestimated" how much I needed in the first place.
Are there industries or companies that HMG would not allow to be sold to a foreign buyer? Rolls Royce for example or BAe? How about a Huawei takeover of BT? I think the answer is that no foreign takeover of those businesses would be allowed. Therefore we have established that there is a "national interest" test for foreign M&A activity. The only question is where you draw the line.
Why shouldn't we have a brand new, cutting-edge design for our houses of Parliament which shows off all the beauty, innovation and aspiration of the UK moving confidently into the future?
Apart, of course, from us being beholden to a supranational body that forbids us from exercising our sovereignty by bulldozing it, as @Ishmael_X noted earlier.
Extending that to a more generalised national interest has little justification.
May is still making a mistake here. There is no particlar call for grammar schools from the public, and there are so many more pressing issues.
Frankly, I am at a loss to understand this obsession with renewal and modernity that requires us to sacrifice at its altar anything that is slightly inconvenient for how we choose to live in our modern age. It's the same philosophy that saw huge swathes of historic town and city centre swept away in the 1960s for brutalist architecture (the fad of the time) and is in no small part now why we have listed buildings.
The Palace of Westminster was new when the nation of England was new (or newish). Our whole national story (indeed, that of the world) has been shaped there.
It is right that we refurbish and retain it and future generations will thank us for it.
It does, but ARM, Autonomy or Cadburys don't fulfil any kind of national interest test IMO. I think as a country we could enforce tougher binding terms on continued investment part of any takeover deal. The US has done this in the past in the telecoms sector in particular, we could adapt that, but even so, it's pretty marginal. Most companies who spend billions on buying a business aren't going to want to are it wither.
But I see that in 2011 we stopped funding for UNIDO, Habitat, ILO and the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and put other UN agencies, including UNESCO, on notice that we might suspend funding for them too:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/uk-becomes-latest-donor-country-withdraw-un-development-agency
There is also the argument that, aside from the coaching arguments, selection by a single test at a certain age is rather arbitrary given the different speeds of development of different children. It's generally a one-way process, with little chance for late developers to enter a grammar school or for those who end up struggling at a grammar school to leave.
Is there any evidence that pupils in those areas that retained grammar schools achieve better grades, on average, than those in areas that didn't, allowing for demographic factors? It'd also be interesting to know how many went on to get degrees, given that university students from comprehensive schools tend to do better then those from grammar schools with the same A levels.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3778989/Why-Paddy-Ashdown-clown-s-wrong-QUENTIN-LETTS.html
He could have been on Judea's Got Talent.
The problem is that given the opportunity to give their children advantage, wealthier parents will do so. Whether that is down to simple affluence, or to ambition is not clear.
Not sure how you legislate against that. Not 100% sure that should be legislated against, or have structural barriers put in place to avoid it.
The Victorians (and the Georgians in a different way) knew who they were and what they believed, and had a strong code of ethics - a rulebook from the past. That's why their buildings are still revered today when today's stumpy toys will be demolished and forgotten in decades hence.
There is plenty of architecture being built today that stands a good chance of being revered in 100 or 200 years' time. The one problem we have is that there is no single architectural epoch at the moment: stylistically we are all over the place. But that's perhaps not a bad thing.
The likes of ARM, Cadbury, and Autonomy wouldn't pass my own national interest test (especially the latter), but other countries do see things differently. How easy is it for a UK company to take over a French, German, USA or Chinese one compared to the reverse?
I doubt many companies do want to see their investment on the acquisition of a UK Company wasted, in fact they most surely do want to see a good return. The means by which they achieve that return is not always to the advantage of the people of the UK. What politicians call inward investment seems so often to mean asset stripping.
No its the stigma of being chucked into a second rate school at eleven.
Streamed comprehensives are a much better idea. You learn with people who are as capable as you, but you get to mix with children of all talents and backgrounds. And everybody wears the same uniform.
Its way better.
It feels like a final connection with an important part of my life is going. To be honest, tht was probably the only reason I hung onto the shares for so long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
Do you have the same problem with streaming? ie depriving the "lower" classes of their brightest pupils is damaging. Yet streaming is widespread.
And what about the brightest pupils, why should they be pulled down? Shouldn't it be their human right to go to the best schooling they can?
WATCH: Libertarian Gary Johnson asks Morning Joe "What is Aleppo?" https://t.co/aSypFX7dmV https://t.co/6u5owzBgME
"Optimizing chemistry"
"Leveraging software"
It's not a policy I would agree with, nor would it be politically acceptable, but it would force wealthier, brighter parents to start using their pointy elbows for the common good.
We had a 'grammar stream', and setting within that.