We need more entertainers like Doris. We've only got an octopus these days!
Yes but what an octopus President Trump is proving to be - couldn't keep his tentacles off the ladies and now he's got his mits all over world wide policy.
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
I see Chris Bryant has forgotten to take his pills this morning
I've always found him really an unattractive character - he's frequently rude, self-righteous in a puritanical way and too full of fake outrage. I can't imagine him as a vicar no matter how hard I try.
Captain Underpants.. I knew little or nothing about him until he posted that picture on a gay dating website..
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
Tim hunt.
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
It wasn't just the title, skimming the article there were several references to it being well deserved if Milo and his followers were subjected to physical assault. It's the same mentality that thought it was hilarious when someone got sucker-punched while being interviewed on live TV on Inauguration Day, just because that someone was of the right and those of the left found him offensive.
You should read the article.
The whole point of it is that Milo was shut down, not by leftists threatening physical violence, but by the right deciding he had breached one of their cherished taboos.
And the Milo fanbois who thought they were players, but now find they are pawns
I did read the article, well skimmed it as I don't have time to read 10,000 words of Penny Red. There's several references to justified and justifiable violence by left wingers against right wingers, although I don't doubt that his recent problem was more to do with upsetting his own side.
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
Tim hunt.
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
Speaking of enormous companies with shady ambitions, whenever the Facebook chap talks about his, an interconnected world and so on, i know it's supposed to be futurist and innovative, but it never sounds inspirational to me,more sinister. I will make the world work as I want kind of vibe. Maybe down to the way they overhype mundane company moves as profound attempts to improve the world.
Imagine if, today, working conditions improved drastically due to 30% of the population dying of incurable disease.
I've just read a good book on the Peasants Revolt by Juliet Barker. England saw a huge economic upswing during after 1350. Labourers saw their wages shoot up, and landlords tried to poach labour from each other by offering freedom to serfs in return for paying cash rents. Unsurprisingly free labour was much more productive than serf labour. Nor was it bad news for landlords, as there were fewer of them with bigger estates than before, and many of them switched to sheep-farming, which proved very lucrative. By 1400, England's GDP was probably the same as in 1350, but with half the population.
The Revolt was a good example of De Tocqueville's view that revolutions occur when things are getting better. Most rebels weren't poor, but rather well off peasants, burgesses, blacksmiths, innkeepers etc. even some minor gentry, and MP's, who were increasingly literate, could afford to go to law against grasping abbots and landlords, and who were protesting over unjust taxation and corrupt government (eg you had magistrates charged with enforcing maximum wage laws cheerfully breaking them with their labour forces, landlords imposing feudal fines much more rigorously on prospering peasants).
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
Tim hunt.
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
Speaking of enormous companies with shady ambitions, whenever the Facebook chap talks about his, an interconnected world and so on, i know it's supposed to be futurist and innovative, but it never sounds inspirational to me,more sinister. I will make the world work as I want kind of vibe. Maybe down to the way they overhype mundane company moves as profound attempts to improve the world.
Just me?
Nope, Facebook is one of the most sinister companies out there. Remember that you are their product, not their customer.
This ISIS suicide bomber from Gitmo seems to be putting one final nail in Tony Blair's reputational coffin, after he assured everyone that these extremists posed no danger, and gave him a million quid of taxpayers money, which he apparently gave straight to ISIS. Nice work Tony
And nice work Tony for letting him sneak out of the country to join ISIS, and later let his wife follow. Oh, hold on, that was Dave, not Tony.
I would rather ISIS suicide bombers were blowing themselves up a long way away from me, rather than locally.
Someone was booed for saying that ... probably Frank Field. I agree with him ... what a good idea for them all to go far away and blow themselves and any co-religionists up.
But I think we ought to call it I.S. or in some BBC-speak 'the so-called Islamic State Group' and stop insulting an Egyptian goddess, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis.
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
Tim hunt.
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
Speaking of enormous companies with shady ambitions, whenever the Facebook chap talks about his, an interconnected world and so on, i know it's supposed to be futurist and innovative, but it never sounds inspirational to me,more sinister. I will make the world work as I want kind of vibe. Maybe down to the way they overhype mundane company moves as profound attempts to improve the world.
Just me?
I think it's sinister - did you see the Facebook research they owned up to about influencing emotions of its users, without their consent? It's WTF stuff. And they were caught out fiddling with news to favour liberal views et al.
This is just plain creepy. I've seen all sorts of buggering about by tech firms trying to control the political conservation. Previously, I was pretty sceptical about such notions, not any more.
"Facebook’s controversial study exploring whether it could manipulate people’s moods by tweaking their news feeds to favor negative or positive content produced a particularly negative emotional response, but it is far from the social network’s first effort to control user behavior.
With huge amounts of data flooding in from more than a billion users, the company has a unique position to study their every move, and to perform experiments by measuring how behavior changes under different conditions (see “What Facebook Knows”). This helps Facebook persuade users to spend more time on the site. But in the past three years it has also been probing everything from voting to the effect of encouraging people to make organ donations..."
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
Tim hunt.
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
Speaking of enormous companies with shady ambitions, whenever the Facebook chap talks about his, an interconnected world and so on, i know it's supposed to be futurist and innovative, but it never sounds inspirational to me,more sinister. I will make the world work as I want kind of vibe. Maybe down to the way they overhype mundane company moves as profound attempts to improve the world.
Just me?
I think it's sinister - did you see the Facebook research they owned up to about influencing emotions of its users, without their consent? It's WTF stuff. And they were caught out fiddling with news to favour liberal views et al.
This is just plain creepy. I've seen all sorts of buggering about by tech firms trying to control the political conservation. Previously, I was pretty sceptical about such notions, not any more.
"Facebook’s controversial study exploring whether it could manipulate people’s moods by tweaking their news feeds to favor negative or positive content produced a particularly negative emotional response, but it is far from the social network’s first effort to control user behavior.
With huge amounts of data flooding in from more than a billion users, the company has a unique position to study their every move, and to perform experiments by measuring how behavior changes under different conditions (see “What Facebook Knows”). This helps Facebook persuade users to spend more time on the site. But in the past three years it has also been probing everything from voting to the effect of encouraging people to make organ donations..."
What's worse is, he is 25/1 at P Power for POTUS 2020. Be very afraid.
This idea people should always be connected sounds monstrous rather than magnificent to me. It sounds like step 1 on the road to The Machine Stops (a splendid-sounding novella I still need to read, written over a century ago about a future where humans are 100% reliant on technology).
Mr. F, interesting, and chimes with the idea that rising prosperity in the Third World is increasing migration to the West rather than diminishing it.
Talking of electoral duties, I was Returning Officer in the Oxford Union one election and had to help a very old voter who was partially sighted vote. Going through the list of candidates at one name he demanded "Is that the Jew boy?" Awkward pause, then "Vote for him".
I was at a polling station and a very long bearded Rabbi asked me if I could help him as his sight wasn't too good so I went into the little booth with him and asked where he wanted his cross. He looked at me like I was mad and said 'Conservative of course!'
Yes, had a similar experience - a blind voter was asked to whisper her preference to the Returning Officer in the presence of the rival tellers (not sure why we weren't just expected to trust the RO). She whispered "Conservative". Afterwards, she asked for help to get back to the bus stop over the road. The Tory teller looked blank, so I took her. I'm sure the same has happened in reverse - some activists just get too far into "vote cast, job done" mode.
I think it's sinister - did you see the Facebook research they owned up to about influencing emotions of its users, without their consent? It's WTF stuff. And they were caught out fiddling with news to favour liberal views et al.
Great to see Milo toppled by his own side. Strange that it is only now that it's happened. Milo was one of the class of true professional trolls like Katie Hopkins, who have these controversial opinions that spring out of nowhere and get more extreme over time, simply as part of their persona. At least with other 'contrarians' like Farage or Mensch, you get the sense that they genuinely believe the majority of what they are arguing.
Incidentally I don't believe that the old maxim of ignoring a troll like you should ignore a bully is really possible. I've never actually seen a case IRL where a bully stopped bullying because you ignored them, it is always better to confront the problem. Likewise, for trolls it's never seemed clear to me that ignoring people like Milo or Hopkins is going to stop them. I'm not saying hysterical reactions are the way forward, but rather that it is better to engage, disprove, and discredit them (as has happened with Milo here).
I'm not saying hysterical reactions are the way forward, but rather that it is better to engage, disprove, and discredit them (as has happened with Milo here).
reading the Laurie Penny piece, it doesn't seem to be what has happened here.
I can't shed any tears for the chap as he does seem to engage in thoroughly nasty behaviour, but nobody comes out of this looking particularly good (including m'self, I guess)
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
Tim hunt.
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
snip
Just me?
I think it's sinister - did you see the Facebook research they owned up to about influencing emotions of its users, without their consent? It's WTF stuff. And they were caught out fiddling with news to favour liberal views et al.
This is just plain creepy. I've seen all sorts of buggering about by tech firms trying to control the political conservation. Previously, I was pretty sceptical about such notions, not any more.
"Facebook’s controversial study exploring whether it could manipulate people’s moods by tweaking their news feeds to favor negative or positive content produced a particularly negative emotional response, but it is far from the social network’s first effort to control user behavior.
With huge amounts of data flooding in from more than a billion users, the company has a unique position to study their every move, and to perform experiments by measuring how behavior changes under different conditions (see “What Facebook Knows”). This helps Facebook persuade users to spend more time on the site. But in the past three years it has also been probing everything from voting to the effect of encouraging people to make organ donations..."
What's worse is, he is 25/1 at P Power for POTUS 2020. Be very afraid.
It's Pravda and Izvestia with knobs on - but on a global scale. Anyone who doesn't think this is scary is kidding themselves.
"My father told me that one of the running jokes throughout most of the Soviet dominion over Russia was this assessment of the two newspapers by the non-Communist citizenry: "There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda" or in English "There is no truth in News, and there is no news in Truth." But this was said carefully and to people who would not report you to the Central Committee.
Need to tap into the PB Hivemind: what was the name of that professor who made a joke about female scientists then got dropped/made to resign from his university position based on a single complaint from a later discredited source?
Tim hunt.
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
Just me?
I think it's sinister - did you see the Facebook research they owned up to about influencing emotions of its users, without their consent? It's WTF stuff. And they were caught out fiddling with news to favour liberal views et al.
This is just plain creepy. I've seen all sorts of buggering about by tech firms trying to control the political conservation. Previously, I was pretty sceptical about such notions, not any more.
"Facebook’s controversial study exploring whether it could manipulate people’s moods by tweaking their news feeds to favor negative or positive content produced a particularly negative emotional response, but it is far from the social network’s first effort to control user behavior.
With huge amounts of data flooding in from more than a billion users, the company has a unique position to study their every move, and to perform experiments by measuring how behavior changes under different conditions (see “What Facebook Knows”). This helps Facebook persuade users to spend more time on the site. But in the past three years it has also been probing everything from voting to the effect of encouraging people to make organ donations..."
What's worse is, he is 25/1 at P Power for POTUS 2020. Be very afraid.
That's definitely a lay, but time value of money and all that.
Right now the most likely President in 2020 is Donald Trump again, and maybe after him the Americans might not want another entrepreneurial businessman in charge for a while!
The buildup to 2020 is going to be fascinating to watch. Trump will obviously have delivered, or not, the policies he set out in his manifesto, a fair amount of his own party will still hate him and he could well get primaried, the Democrats meanwhile don't understand why they lost and are doubling down on the identity politics. It's quite possible, nay probable, that the next President is someone we've barely heard of right now.
on-topic: I think if the storm hits it is likely to depress the vote more the younger you get. the truly dedicated oldies aren't going to let a storm stop them. UKIP will have been relying on a fairly soft body of support to take this seat, and flaky/swing voters more likely to stay home than long time voters. As others have pointed out, postal votes also likely to be a greater overall share of the vote therefore (which I guess helps Labour and Tories at expense of UKIP and LDs)
So, for Stoke, Lib Dems and Labour lose younger voters who CBA, UKIP loses a lot of the flaky 'protest' support it may have had. End result, very reduced Labour hold, Tories nipping at their heels, UKIP just behind, Lib Dems in a relatively disappointing 4th.
I think it's sinister - did you see the Facebook research they owned up to about influencing emotions of its users, without their consent? It's WTF stuff. And they were caught out fiddling with news to favour liberal views et al.
Cambridge analytica?
I think someone linked this here the other week. Absolutely fascinating read about how Big Data knows an awful lot about you, and how politicians are using this to influence elections.
AIUI the UK Conservatives spent millions on this in the year running up to 2015, Trump and the US Republicans took it to the next level entirely - and it's not going to go away.
on-topic: I think if the storm hits it is likely to depress the vote more the younger you get. the truly dedicated oldies aren't going to let a storm stop them. UKIP will have been relying on a fairly soft body of support to take this seat, and flaky/swing voters more likely to stay home than long time voters. As others have pointed out, postal votes also likely to be a greater overall share of the vote therefore (which I guess helps Labour and Tories at expense of UKIP and LDs)
So, for Stoke, Lib Dems and Labour lose younger voters who CBA, UKIP loses a lot of the flaky 'protest' support it may have had. End result, very reduced Labour hold, Tories nipping at their heels, UKIP just behind, Lib Dems in a relatively disappointing 4th.
For Copeland, I think the Tories will take it.
It's raining heavily in Northermost Darkest North Staffordshire where everyone local is stunted in height if born pre 1970 - a combination of coal smog and poor diet :-)
Labout to win Stoke - easily.. (UKIP has some real fruitcakes here)
Mr. Borough, could be profitable, then. Backed Labour to win in Copeland (still at 3.5 with Ladbrokes).
French political shifts - Le Pen down to 2.75, Macron out to 3.25, Fillon has the biggest change, down from 3.5 to 3 (all Ladbrokes). Le Pen is 3.55 with Betfair, incidentally.
This ISIS suicide bomber from Gitmo seems to be putting one final nail in Tony Blair's reputational coffin, after he assured everyone that these extremists posed no danger, and gave him a million quid of taxpayers money, which he apparently gave straight to ISIS. Nice work Tony
And nice work Tony for letting him sneak out of the country to join ISIS, and later let his wife follow. Oh, hold on, that was Dave, not Tony.
How do you propose Dave stopped a free citizen from leaving the country ? Once Tony let him off the damage was done.
A bullet in the back of the head would have done the trick. President Duterte has the right approach,
Yes, what this country needs is right wing death squads doing extrajudicial killings.
Actually, I find this story a positivve one about the rule of law in the UK. At the time that he was compensated for our governments complicity in his illegal detention, this fellow was not guilty in law. The fact that a decade later he went on to be a suicide bomber is beside the point.
If the law only protects people who the state likes then it is no protection at all.
Mr. Borough, could be profitable, then. Backed Labour to win in Copeland (still at 3.5 with Ladbrokes).
French political shifts - Le Pen down to 2.75, Macron out to 3.25, Fillon has the biggest change, down from 3.5 to 3 (all Ladbrokes). Le Pen is 3.55 with Betfair, incidentally.
on-topic: I think if the storm hits it is likely to depress the vote more the younger you get. the truly dedicated oldies aren't going to let a storm stop them. UKIP will have been relying on a fairly soft body of support to take this seat, and flaky/swing voters more likely to stay home than long time voters. As others have pointed out, postal votes also likely to be a greater overall share of the vote therefore (which I guess helps Labour and Tories at expense of UKIP and LDs)
So, for Stoke, Lib Dems and Labour lose younger voters who CBA, UKIP loses a lot of the flaky 'protest' support it may have had. End result, very reduced Labour hold, Tories nipping at their heels, UKIP just behind, Lib Dems in a relatively disappointing 4th.
For Copeland, I think the Tories will take it.
It's raining heavily in Northermost Darkest North Staffordshire where everyone local is stunted in height if born pre 1970 - a combination of coal smog and poor diet :-)
Labout to win Stoke - easily.. (UKIP has some real fruitcakes here)
This ISIS suicide bomber from Gitmo seems to be putting one final nail in Tony Blair's reputational coffin, after he assured everyone that these extremists posed no danger, and gave him a million quid of taxpayers money, which he apparently gave straight to ISIS. Nice work Tony
And nice work Tony for letting him sneak out of the country to join ISIS, and later let his wife follow. Oh, hold on, that was Dave, not Tony.
How do you propose Dave stopped a free citizen from leaving the country ? Once Tony let him off the damage was done.
A bullet in the back of the head would have done the trick. President Duterte has the right approach,
Yes, what this country needs is right wing death squads doing extrajudicial killings.
Actually, I find this story a positivve one about the rule of law in the UK. At the time that he was compensated for our governments complicity in his illegal detention, this fellow was not guilty in law. The fact that a decade later he went on to be a suicide bomber is beside the point.
If the law only protects people who the state likes then it is no protection at all.
Notice 'could' win not 'should' win and this is a seat Labour have held for decades we are talking about here!
'could' in this context never ever ever refers to probabilities below 50% when used in this context by a political party. Ever. Especially Labour.
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Slightly offtopic, but does anyone have a link to the background of the proposed changes in business rates which appear to be annoying a lot of small businesses?
Most of the reports seem to contain more heat than light when it comes to the proposals themselves, rather than the fact some people have got a bigger bill next year than this year.
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Or shy fascists. Perhaps all the noise over Trump etc has made people less inclined to admit support for hard right parties.
@TheScreamingEagles - Might not be a bad idea to delete the post and replies here.
Nevertheless its useful betting info.
#Piegate
Yes, but those who need to know have already seen it!
I don't think you can rely on such tweets. Some labour bods got all excited in 2015 by the sheer number of postal votes that they thought they'd won. How is EMPM doing?
Wicked old hag. She once claimed that one of the victims of the Moors Murders was in heaven but terribly lonely and miserable because no one ever visited him. I don't know if the family of the victim in question either heard or believed her drivel, but it would be extremely distressing for them if they did.
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Exactly. And I'm taking this as a sign to top up lib dem if they drift much further
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Actually FN is now over 40% in the runoff, the highest score it has ever achieved and still has a clear first round lead, the PVV is still first in virtually every poll and the AfD is third equal in this German poll but only because some of its voters have moved back to the CDU who are now first again
Steve hawkesVerified account@steve_hawkes 47m47 minutes ago
By-election: one source, Labour now think they COULD win Copeland as postal votes good- and believe they have romped it in Stoke
Every possible combination of results has been briefed to journalists in the last fortnight.
Indeed. Anyway postal votes should fall more to Tories. Or is that old hat these days when lots of people have them?
I thought it was long suggested postal votes favoured Labour which is why they were extended by Labour.
I think its much of a muchness between Labour and the Conservatives. Probably favours the Conservatives nationally as they're well ahead at the moment - but if the parties were equal it'd be 50-50 on postals too. The one party I'm convinced is not good at postals is UKIP. Not sure about the Lib Dems specific postal but GOTV is very good.
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Actually FN is now over 40% in the runoff, the highest score it has ever achieved, the PVV is still first im virtually every poll and the AfD is third equal in this German poll but only because some of its voters have moved back to the CDU who are now first again
I'm just intrigued as to why you think fewer people are saying they will vote PVV, FN (first round) or AfD than said they would three months ago.
Steve hawkesVerified account@steve_hawkes 47m47 minutes ago
By-election: one source, Labour now think they COULD win Copeland as postal votes good- and believe they have romped it in Stoke
Every possible combination of results has been briefed to journalists in the last fortnight.
Indeed. Anyway postal votes should fall more to Tories. Or is that old hat these days when lots of people have them?
I thought it was long suggested postal votes favoured Labour which is why they were extended by Labour.
In stoke aren't there lots of student lib dems with postal votes too? I think they favour those with the ground game to get their supporters registered and then check they've been filled in
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Or shy fascists. Perhaps all the noise over Trump etc has made people less inclined to admit support for hard right parties.
That's an interesting observation.
The PVV has tended to outperform its poll scores (unlike the FN), so we should hopefully see evidence - either way - in just three weeks.
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Exactly. And I'm taking this as a sign to top up lib dem if they drift much further
Maybe worth an outside bet but Copeland will be between the Tories and Labour and while Labour will likely hold Stoke the Tories should come second
@BBCsarahsmith: £30 mill budget for new Scottish BBC channel. Similar to BBC 4 budget. Launch summer 2018
@BBCsarahsmith: New 9pm hour long news programme on new BBC Scotland channel. Scottish, UK and world news. #ScottishNine
How depressing. Why is the BBC bowing to SNP pressure?
Fortunately younger people don't really watch TV news.
I guess it depends on whether it becomes a SNP propaganda tool, or is used to properly hold the Scottish government to account on health, education, policing etc?
Will probably keep OFCOM busy with all the bias complaints, that's for sure.
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Third on 8%. The same score as the LDs in 2015 in the UK.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
Actually FN is now over 40% in the runoff, the highest score it has ever achieved, the PVV is still first im virtually every poll and the AfD is third equal in this German poll but only because some of its voters have moved back to the CDU who are now first again
I'm just intrigued as to why you think fewer people are saying they will vote PVV, FN (first round) or AfD than said they would three months ago.
All 3 parties are polling above their total in the last election as you say in the runoff FN are polling above even where they were before Trump was elected and Leave outperformed its final poll score average as did Trump, at least at state level
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Exactly. And I'm taking this as a sign to top up lib dem if they drift much further
Maybe worth an outside bet but Copeland will be between the Tories and Labour and while Labour will likely hold Stoke the Tories should come second
That sounds about right.
Fortunately the prices being all over the place in the past four weeks have made a pair of green books relatively easy to assemble. A Tory win in Stoke would be my best result, although if it precipitates chaos and splits in Labour then maybe it's not the best result for the Tories themselves!
Steve hawkesVerified account@steve_hawkes 47m47 minutes ago
By-election: one source, Labour now think they COULD win Copeland as postal votes good- and believe they have romped it in Stoke
Every possible combination of results has been briefed to journalists in the last fortnight.
Indeed. Anyway postal votes should fall more to Tories. Or is that old hat these days when lots of people have them?
I thought it was long suggested postal votes favoured Labour which is why they were extended by Labour.
In stoke aren't there lots of student lib dems with postal votes too? I think they favour those with the ground game to get their supporters registered and then check they've been filled in
Outside areas where fiddling has been suspected (some people went to prison and I've not heard of recent cases, so maybe it's been cleaned up/deterred), PVs tend to favour the Tories, partly because they are better at it (more money for a professional effort) and partly because PVs tend to be older. Labour has caught up a bit, don't think the other parties have had the resources.
In my experience it's really hard to persuade students to register in the university constituency - they register at home and if they're not there when the election happens, oh well. Uni constituencies do lean left, but that's mainly because of the staff.
Oh dear, what a shame. The 'Business for Scotland' SNP front totally independent organisation's leader has shut his only business - a 'social media consultancy' which he ran from his livingroom (sure it wasn't the spare room? - ed.) after losing 'a significant amount of money':
Gordon Macintyre-Kemp, who is behind a new fundraising campaign for a second referendum, put more than £50,000 into a social media consultancy that ended with net assets of £594.
Intelligise Limited, which was based at Mr Macintyre-Kemp’s home in Jordanhill in Glasgow, was “dissolved via voluntary strike-off” in February 2016, the Herald can reveal.
Will they change the name to 'Failed Business for Scotland'?
No depths to your gloating on people's misfortunes , what made you hate Scottish people so much. Must be a sad life being so bitter and twisted you are revelling at a strangers misfortune.
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Exactly. And I'm taking this as a sign to top up lib dem if they drift much further
Maybe worth an outside bet but Copeland will be between the Tories and Labour and while Labour will likely hold Stoke the Tories should come second
That sounds about right.
Fortunately the prices being all over the place in the past four weeks have made a pair of green books relatively easy to assemble. A Tory win in Stoke would be my best result, although if it precipitates chaos and splits in Labour then maybe it's not the best result for the Tories themselves!
I don't think too many Tories will be distraught if Corbyn holds Stoke and they take second from UKIP, no
Is there provision for elections to be called off/postponed if the weather conditions are too bad, etc?
Happened in 2001 for foot and mouth disease, but with a month's notice. Required emergency legislation rushed through Parliament to delay the local elections. As it happened a general election was also called for the same date (7th June) as the revised local election date. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1255703.stm
I'd guess that once postal votes have gone out it's very difficult to stop, maybe if there were weather-related evacuations then there would have to be something done about extending the voting period.
Is there provision for elections to be called off/postponed if the weather conditions are too bad, etc?
As far as I am aware no election has ever been called off because of the weather, certainly not in the UK?
Tony had to cancel the 2001 general election by a month because of foot and mouth but that was under different circumstances as he hadn't actually called it before the crisis began - Begs the question what would have happened if it had started in the middle of the election campaign though?
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Exactly. And I'm taking this as a sign to top up lib dem if they drift much further
Maybe worth an outside bet but Copeland will be between the Tories and Labour and while Labour will likely hold Stoke the Tories should come second
That sounds about right.
Fortunately the prices being all over the place in the past four weeks have made a pair of green books relatively easy to assemble. A Tory win in Stoke would be my best result, although if it precipitates chaos and splits in Labour then maybe it's not the best result for the Tories themselves!
I don't think too many Tories will be distraught if Corbyn holds Stoke and they take second from UKIP, no
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Exactly. And I'm taking this as a sign to top up lib dem if they drift much further
Maybe worth an outside bet but Copeland will be between the Tories and Labour and while Labour will likely hold Stoke the Tories should come second
That sounds about right.
Fortunately the prices being all over the place in the past four weeks have made a pair of green books relatively easy to assemble. A Tory win in Stoke would be my best result, although if it precipitates chaos and splits in Labour then maybe it's not the best result for the Tories themselves!
I'm green but as of 15 minutes ago really need either Tory or LD to win stoke as I've accidentally bought a Lego monorail on ebay
On present polling Copeland should be exactly 50 50 between the Tories and Labour and Labour should hold Stoke so this doesn't really tell us much we did not know already
Exactly. And I'm taking this as a sign to top up lib dem if they drift much further
Maybe worth an outside bet but Copeland will be between the Tories and Labour and while Labour will likely hold Stoke the Tories should come second
That sounds about right.
Fortunately the prices being all over the place in the past four weeks have made a pair of green books relatively easy to assemble. A Tory win in Stoke would be my best result, although if it precipitates chaos and splits in Labour then maybe it's not the best result for the Tories themselves!
I don't think too many Tories will be distraught if Corbyn holds Stoke and they take second from UKIP, no
Oh dear, what a shame. The 'Business for Scotland' SNP front totally independent organisation's leader has shut his only business - a 'social media consultancy' which he ran from his livingroom (sure it wasn't the spare room? - ed.) after losing 'a significant amount of money':
Gordon Macintyre-Kemp, who is behind a new fundraising campaign for a second referendum, put more than £50,000 into a social media consultancy that ended with net assets of £594.
Intelligise Limited, which was based at Mr Macintyre-Kemp’s home in Jordanhill in Glasgow, was “dissolved via voluntary strike-off” in February 2016, the Herald can reveal.
Will they change the name to 'Failed Business for Scotland'?
So does that make him 6 times as successful as Trump? (or only 1/6th as successful?)
When it comes to losing money, Mr Macintyre-Kemp is but an amateur compared to Mr Trump. and whats worse (or better, depending on your point of view) is it appears to be his own money......putting Mr Macintyre-Kemp's personal embarrassment to one side, the broader point is who do 'Business for Scotland' represent? Business in Scotland, or the SNP?
Oh dear, what a shame. The 'Business for Scotland' SNP front totally independent organisation's leader has shut his only business - a 'social media consultancy' which he ran from his livingroom (sure it wasn't the spare room? - ed.) after losing 'a significant amount of money':
Gordon Macintyre-Kemp, who is behind a new fundraising campaign for a second referendum, put more than £50,000 into a social media consultancy that ended with net assets of £594.
Intelligise Limited, which was based at Mr Macintyre-Kemp’s home in Jordanhill in Glasgow, was “dissolved via voluntary strike-off” in February 2016, the Herald can reveal.
Will they change the name to 'Failed Business for Scotland'?
So does that make him 6 times as successful as Trump? (or only 1/6th as successful?)
When it comes to losing money, Mr Macintyre-Kemp is but an amateur compared to Mr Trump. and whats worse (or better, depending on your point of view) is it appears to be his own money......putting Mr Macintyre-Kemp's personal embarrassment to one side, the broader point is who do 'Business for Scotland' represent? Business in Scotland, or the SNP?
Is there provision for elections to be called off/postponed if the weather conditions are too bad, etc?
As far as I am aware no election has ever been called off because of the weather, certainly not in the UK?
Tony had to cancel the 2001 general election by a month because of foot and mouth but that was under different circumstances as he hadn't actually called it before the crisis began - Begs the question what would have happened if it had started in the middle of the election campaign though?
True but Foot and Mouth disease is not the weather
Is there provision for elections to be called off/postponed if the weather conditions are too bad, etc?
As far as I am aware no election has ever been called off because of the weather, certainly not in the UK?
Tony had to cancel the 2001 general election by a month because of foot and mouth but that was under different circumstances as he hadn't actually called it before the crisis began - Begs the question what would have happened if it's started in the middle of the election campaign though?
I've vivid memories of that. The farmer opposite me couldn't move his sheep across a lane to another field - and were left knee deep in mud because of the restriction. It harmed their health and cost a small fortune re feed and lost income. He earned under £7k that year.
I'd a good friend work colleague who was pissed off about the inconvenience to his family walking holiday and moaning about farmers. I gave him both barrels. He was also a Man U fan who lived all his life in Woking.
Comments
Google, god bless you and your evil company, you're just too useful. If it weren't for the Chinese not using you you'd run the planet.
Just me?
The Revolt was a good example of De Tocqueville's view that revolutions occur when things are getting better. Most rebels weren't poor, but rather well off peasants, burgesses, blacksmiths, innkeepers etc. even some minor gentry, and MP's, who were increasingly literate, could afford to go to law against grasping abbots and landlords, and who were protesting over unjust taxation and corrupt government (eg you had magistrates charged with enforcing maximum wage laws cheerfully breaking them with their labour forces, landlords imposing feudal fines much more rigorously on prospering peasants).
But I think we ought to call it I.S. or in some BBC-speak 'the so-called Islamic State Group' and stop insulting an Egyptian goddess, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis.
This is just plain creepy. I've seen all sorts of buggering about by tech firms trying to control the political conservation. Previously, I was pretty sceptical about such notions, not any more.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/528706/facebooks-emotional-manipulation-study-is-just-the-latest-effort-to-prod-users/
"Facebook’s controversial study exploring whether it could manipulate people’s moods by tweaking their news feeds to favor negative or positive content produced a particularly negative emotional response, but it is far from the social network’s first effort to control user behavior.
With huge amounts of data flooding in from more than a billion users, the company has a unique position to study their every move, and to perform experiments by measuring how behavior changes under different conditions (see “What Facebook Knows”). This helps Facebook persuade users to spend more time on the site. But in the past three years it has also been probing everything from voting to the effect of encouraging people to make organ donations..."
This idea people should always be connected sounds monstrous rather than magnificent to me. It sounds like step 1 on the road to The Machine Stops (a splendid-sounding novella I still need to read, written over a century ago about a future where humans are 100% reliant on technology).
Mr. F, interesting, and chimes with the idea that rising prosperity in the Third World is increasing migration to the West rather than diminishing it.
Incidentally I don't believe that the old maxim of ignoring a troll like you should ignore a bully is really possible. I've never actually seen a case IRL where a bully stopped bullying because you ignored them, it is always better to confront the problem. Likewise, for trolls it's never seemed clear to me that ignoring people like Milo or Hopkins is going to stop them. I'm not saying hysterical reactions are the way forward, but rather that it is better to engage, disprove, and discredit them (as has happened with Milo here).
I can't shed any tears for the chap as he does seem to engage in thoroughly nasty behaviour, but nobody comes out of this looking particularly good (including m'self, I guess)
"My father told me that one of the running jokes throughout most of the Soviet dominion over Russia was this assessment of the two newspapers by the non-Communist citizenry: "There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda" or in English "There is no truth in News, and there is no news in Truth." But this was said carefully and to people who would not report you to the Central Committee.
For anyone unfamiliar with the joke
http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2007/09/there_is_no_truth_in_the_news_and_no_news_in_the_t.html
Right now the most likely President in 2020 is Donald Trump again, and maybe after him the Americans might not want another entrepreneurial businessman in charge for a while!
The buildup to 2020 is going to be fascinating to watch. Trump will obviously have delivered, or not, the policies he set out in his manifesto, a fair amount of his own party will still hate him and he could well get primaried, the Democrats meanwhile don't understand why they lost and are doubling down on the identity politics. It's quite possible, nay probable, that the next President is someone we've barely heard of right now.
So, for Stoke, Lib Dems and Labour lose younger voters who CBA, UKIP loses a lot of the flaky 'protest' support it may have had. End result, very reduced Labour hold, Tories nipping at their heels, UKIP just behind, Lib Dems in a relatively disappointing 4th.
For Copeland, I think the Tories will take it.
AIUI the UK Conservatives spent millions on this in the year running up to 2015, Trump and the US Republicans took it to the next level entirely - and it's not going to go away.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump
what is the wage gap between all 58 genders?
Labout to win Stoke - easily..
(UKIP has some real fruitcakes here)
French political shifts - Le Pen down to 2.75, Macron out to 3.25, Fillon has the biggest change, down from 3.5 to 3 (all Ladbrokes). Le Pen is 3.55 with Betfair, incidentally.
What kind of a political genius summons a conference to discuss Europe's future at VERSAILLES? https://t.co/kwtIvRwTn7 H/t @James_Barr
Washex.am
"Dog the Bounty Hunter" will appear at #CPAC to rally support for a Sheriff Clarke Senate run https://t.co/4kH3AQHDxW https://t.co/SwaHocHx0G
Actually, I find this story a positivve one about the rule of law in the UK. At the time that he was compensated for our governments complicity in his illegal detention, this fellow was not guilty in law. The fact that a decade later he went on to be a suicide bomber is beside the point.
If the law only protects people who the state likes then it is no protection at all.
https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/834337038379974656
If GO was a "genius" - Phil Hammond must be Stephen Hawking.
Ever.
Especially Labour.
#Piegate
Most of the reports seem to contain more heat than light when it comes to the proposals themselves, rather than the fact some people have got a bigger bill next year than this year.
I'd say that the size of the UK economy was revised down, although the trajectory was revised up.
Why do you think AfD, FN and the PVV have all come back (as far as first round votes go) in the last three months? Is it the Trump effect? An outside threat forces people to seek protection in the status quo?
@BBCsarahsmith: New 9pm hour long news programme on new BBC Scotland channel. Scottish, UK and world news. #ScottishNine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st8uIAAJ368
The one party I'm convinced is not good at postals is UKIP.
Not sure about the Lib Dems specific postal but GOTV is very good.
The PVV has tended to outperform its poll scores (unlike the FN), so we should hopefully see evidence - either way - in just three weeks.
Fortunately younger people don't really watch TV news.
Will probably keep OFCOM busy with all the bias complaints, that's for sure.
So looks like it could be Merkel and Fillon May is negotiating with rather than Macron and Schulz after all but still not much in it
Fortunately the prices being all over the place in the past four weeks have made a pair of green books relatively easy to assemble. A Tory win in Stoke would be my best result, although if it precipitates chaos and splits in Labour then maybe it's not the best result for the Tories themselves!
In my experience it's really hard to persuade students to register in the university constituency - they register at home and if they're not there when the election happens, oh well. Uni constituencies do lean left, but that's mainly because of the staff.
https://twitter.com/johnharris1969/status/834339405401878528
Except that Professor Murphy has been predicting imminent recessions for a good deal longer than 5 years.
What's the best odds available on Kippers winning neither ?
From here it looks like a case similar to "Mine Fuhrer".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1255703.stm
I'd guess that once postal votes have gone out it's very difficult to stop, maybe if there were weather-related evacuations then there would have to be something done about extending the voting period.
What was the turnout in the referendum in that area?
Is Carlotta annoying you?
I'd a good friend work colleague who was pissed off about the inconvenience to his family walking holiday and moaning about farmers. I gave him both barrels. He was also a Man U fan who lived all his life in Woking.