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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » PB Video Analysis: Five Things That Will Surprise You
We’re all routinely wrong. Mostly that’s because we’re simply don’t know any better. But increasingly it’s the result of us reading things on Facebook, Twitter, and the like that push persuasive narratives. The stories make sense, so we believe them.
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Seemed complete to me! Thanks for another interesting video.
https://twitter.com/njstone9/status/1029017018232594432
Fun fact; St Peter Port's most prestigious cemetery is called 'CANDIE' - after the adjacent house and park from which the land was taken - the gate splits the name in two - CAN - DIE - a useful reminder to us all.....
The aim of the conference..... culminated in the laying of a wreath at a memorial for the dozens of people killed, civilians among them, when the Israelis bombed the PLO’s headquarters in 1985......
.....This week’s controversy has focused on the graves of two other senior PLO figures, Salah Khalaf and Atef Bseiso: Corbyn was pictured a few metres away from both, and a photograph shows a wreath laid by Khalaf’s tomb.
Great use of nominalisation Owen - 'a wreath laid' - but by whom? And at which memorial/graves did Jeremy help lay a wreath?
And:
There is nothing immoral about laying a wreath to remember the victims of an attack that even Margaret Thatcher condemned.
But Jeremy didn't do that, did he? He stood at the back.....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/14/corbyn-wreath-terror-victims-memorial-israel-palestinian
A column in a leading newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, warned on Monday that Corbyn’s actions, including a visit to the “grave of the person who planned the terror attack at the Munich Olympics”, were of deep concern.
“The paradox is that the least antisemitic country in Europe is liable to fall into the hands of an antisemitic politician,” wrote Ben-Dror Yemini. “Up until recently, the biggest concern was that this would be as a result of the rise of one of the extreme rightwing parties. As of now, the chance is much greater is that this will come from the left of all places.”
Israel’s Labor party secretary general, Yehiel Bar, said: “The grave new discoveries about Corbyn are no surprise, to my regret, and they only further justify the Labor party’s decision from several months ago to completely sever all ties with Mr Corbyn and his office.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/14/labour-calls-claims-about-corbyn-palestinian-cemetery-visit-false
Five things that surprise me? All five are how much I still detest flying...
As for solidarity with Palestine, I respect the voices saying that the two state solution is hard. It is. But it is necessary, because we have to allow Jewish nationhood and that means a Jewish state. Yes, Israel is doing very bad things and needs it's friends and allies to ease it away from the checkpoints and the illegal settlements. But how did we get here? It's not like life is secure and peaceful in towns like Sderot where missiles rain down. It's not Israel who waged war on its neighbours, the opposite happened.
Solidarity cuts both ways. Corbyn lays wreaths only on one side. That's not impartial....
It will do the job (because most people will think “no one who carried out the attack” covers everyone involved).
But Corbyn is an evil man.
I despair that so many people would vote for a party under his leadership and that there are such a large number of enthusiastic supporters
Now then, let's get this right. When I challenged Jezziah over this (where is he, btw), he claimed they were 'fireworks'. When pressed, he changed it to 'advanced fireworks'.
(Which covers everything from the things you buy in the shops every October to the Space Shuttle's SRB's.)
So the Palestinians are not firing rockets into Israel, they're just trying to give their foes a great fireworks display. Which is very kind of them.
(end sarcasm mode).
This is a particularly poignant observation having watched the latest episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are featuring Robert 'Judge' Rinder.
F1: I do wonder how things will pan out now. Whilst good news for Vandoorne that Alonso's going (just because it increases the prospect of the Belgian retaining his seat), Sainz is also out of one. Norris is surely likely to get promoted too.
In a similar vein, an interview with Prof Steven Pinker from last week, making the point that no matter how much bad stuff is in the news ever day, at a macro level the world is a better place than it’s ever been.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=t33pow_AK4E
Even now the unemployment rate is 15.2% compared with 4% in the UK and that is despite a significant number of young Spaniards coming here for work. Spain's population has also been rising fairly rapidly meaning simply measuring the number of people in employment does not really give a fair indication of the unemployment rate.
What Robert's video shows is that (1) the starting point of any series of statistics is key and (2) that you need to be careful to compare like with like to get a meaningful picture but (3) it is also sometimes informative not to compare like with like to cross check if that gives you a different view and to see if there is something going on under the surface that one statistic on its own does not pick up.
In the Spanish example a fairly rapidly increasing population has meant more people in work but also a seriously high unemployment rate. If Spain can moderate population growth (mainly through migration) but keep creating jobs at its current rate unemployment might fall quite rapidly.
(Too soon?)
That said, Heathrow has got better (provided you fly from either T2 or T5) even though it’s public transport is still woeful, and Air Canada are still quite good.
BA is only really one very small rung above easyJet now.
When I was a kid in Singapore we used to go to the airport occasionally as an exciting and exotic day out. How did we go from that to this?
Putting it cynically, it would not matter to most people in the UK if a Corbyn-led government took a hostile approach to Israel, although it might put the UK in Trump's black book. A previous Labour administration was hardly sympathetic to the foundation of the Zionist state, at the same time as it was highly lauded (and continues to be) for founding the NHS.
Foreign policy is generally of little concern, unless folk are directly affected, as where Britain intervenes. However, Corbyn's view of the disastrous meddling in Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya has been proven wise, and is undoubtedly seen positively by many people.
However, and of far more concern from a domestic perspective, is that this affair illustrates his indecision/incompetence in taking a clear line on the matter when under pressure, which has been evident elsewhere, e.g. on the much more important issue of Brexit. That is one reason why Corbyn might make a poor PM.
Whisky. Water of life and all that but perhaps somewhat misleading when you are considering whether we can actually feed ourselves in the post Brexit apocalypse.
Fare (ie goes to airline) Eur6.49
Taxes and fees (goes to not airline) 31.65.
That might be why ancillaries are important. There's no legal obligation to fly if you don't like it.
In today's money the ticket cost over £800 (£50 then).
While technology has advanced - enabling much cheaper flying (I routinely fly to the Far East and back for substantially less than £800) the experience has gone backwards.
The accountants and engineers can take their "lower altitude cabin pressure" and stick it up their harder narrower seats. I loathe the 787 and take steps to avoid it. The 350 is not much better. The only plane I go out of my way to fly is the 380 - big, smooth, comfortable and quiet.
Don't get me started on the age of policemen......
The airlines are mainly responding to what their customers want, which is cheaper flights. I don't think I'd pay more than $15 premium to fly on my favourite airline over my least favourite.
Chief Executive pay increased by 11% last year to almost £4m pa. This is obviously a much, much bigger increase than the average (which from memory was under 3%) and not obviously justified by any massive increase in the profitability or growth of UK business.
Despite being Tory leaning there is a real issue here. How does our society remain even vaguely cohesive with this level of inequality? There are genuine issues to debate but we are more focussed on wreaths. Labour are just AWOL.
Corbyn, and the threat he poses, needs to be taken seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_21st-century_France
https://nypost.com/2018/02/24/anti-semitism-drove-these-jews-out-of-france/
But I must say I'm board of moaning about Corbyn. Even for most political moaning it does not matter any, he's still adored and even those that don't afore him will vote for him. At least in moaning about May one gets the sense some people will switch to ukip or the lds because of her.
However, NATO became obsolescent at the same time as the demise of the Warsaw Pact. Following Brexit, the EU should take the primary responsibility for the security and the defense of Europe, and the UK will be outside the EU, so sharing of intelligence with the UK will diminish. Russia is not the main threat to the UK - China and Salafism are much more important foes.
So, does anyone actually believe that there is any evidence that having more than 100 mls of liquid in a container makes you a threat to the lives of your fellow passengers? Does anyone feel safer having to take off your belt or shoes before going through a scanner? Has anyone, anywhere, actually used a tablet to bring a bomb on a plane?
There was this one off story about a laptop: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3443756/Laptop-bomb-used-blow-hole-Somalian-plane-sophisticated-managed-X-ray-scanners-undetected.html but the consequences for passengers world wide of this, the shoe bomber and the attempt to bring on liquid explosives in 2006 have been terrible. The responses to these isolated incidents have been poorly focussed and hugely disproportionate making flying a misery. This is not the airlines fault but it is well past time some thought was given as to how security can be conducted in a less intrusive, less irritating and more facilitative way.
But then we'd probably get said pm to be decisive on all the wrong things instead.
http://global100.adl.org/#map/weurope
While the UK at 8% anti-semitic is not the best (Netherlands 5%, Sweden 4%) its comfortably better than Italy (20%), Germany (27%), Spain (29%), or France (37%), let alone Greece (69%).
The Tories better hope the next Labour leader is as useless as the last two. The simple fact is that when millions no longer feel they have a stake in a society that society is no longer sustainable.
This isn't a policy question any more. It's a character debate. And that's far more important.
Well, let’s take Corbyn at his word and see what was being dicussed at the Tunis Conference he attended which was, in his words, a 'conference searching for peace'. In Corbyn’s words: 'The only way we achieve peace is by bringing people together and talking’.
According to reports, one of the speakers was Hamas co-founder, Mahmoud al-Zahar, who has declared that killing Jewish children is ‘legitmate’’.
Note how such people rightly criticise Israel when it kills Palestinian children but Jewish children are, apparently, fair game.
In a TV interview he added that Jews were ‘hungry dogs and wild beasts’ who had ‘no future among the nations of the world’ and were ‘headed to annihilation’.
Colour me sceptical but that does not look to me like a search for peace and debate.
The former Tunisian foreign office minister Othman Jerandi compared Israel with the blood-soaked terrorists of ISIS. He said: 'ISIS and Israel are the same thing.' There was not a murmur of disapproval from Corbyn.
Plenty more at that peace conference in the same vein.
There is intemperate language being used but it is by those with whom Corbyn is in dialogue and, for someone who, according to you, has fought all his life against racism, there is no evidence that he ever once calls them out on their blatant racism and incitements of violence against Jews.
The links south, south west and west are shocking.
Yes, its a bad idea. But not doing it is a worse idea. Much worse.
https://twitter.com/albertonardelli/status/1029619567608426496?s=21
That said, I've worked within the Heathrow free travel zone and used it as a pure railway station a number of times - that system is excellent.
I had a five hour flight, and I needed to be there at least 90 minutes prior to departure. Without me purchasing very expensive water either at the airport or in the flight I would not have access to water.
Corbyn is happy to associate with and tacitly endorse the actions of the murderers of innocents. Trump's relationship with Putin is much more unidimensional (how much money can he make) rather than being a political endorsement of what he does.
thought provoking as ever Robert, keep them comong
mines a Bushmills
If however, as is rumoured, the government are going to spend the autumn trying Project Fear II on the no-deal scenario, then the PM might not make it to Christmas.
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1029616338942259201
If they’ve got any sense (yes I know) they’ll keep the teams that worked on it together and have them start on CR2 as soon as possible.
It will speed up transit from Heathrow into central London, the City and Canary Wharf.
It will do nothing to improve Heathrow’s rail connectivity to the west, south and south west, which is where a large chunk of its private motor transport comes from clogging up the M3/M4 and M25.
A new scheme is currently being considered but even if it goes ahead is unlikely to open before the 2030s.
There’s also a scheme called WRATH (Western Rail Access to Heathrow) which will allow passengers from the west to get to Heathrow without going via Paddington, but again don’t expect anything to be open any time soon.
https://twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/885021668669870080
On topic, I do remember plans for a rail spur from Woking to Heathrow at one time. There should also be a fast rail service direct from Reading to at least provide some connection to the south, west, south west and north west.
As with housing, people talk about the end product before considering all the required infrastructure and you end up with housing estates cut off from any services or amenities or airports which are only useful if you are approaching from one direction,
As to the notion of "things have only got better" (as someone once nearly said), as someone else said "the Devil can quote statistics to make a point". Yes, we may all be healthier and living longer but life isn't just about existing, how we live is as important as the fact of living itself.
I suspect much of the neurosis of the time is built on the recognition our civilisation is actually built on quite fragile foundations. Our society is built on the availability of power, the effective and efficient distribution of food and the respect for the law. Take any of those away for a week or so and see how we get along.
There's also death which we don't talk about enough. People were much more familiar with death and dying a century ago but it's almost the last taboo (apart from pineapple on pizza it seems).
St Pancras to Provence (direct to Avignon) was AMAZING.
And people like my parents who grew up and lived through world war and knew a time before antibiotics were familiar with death and dying. It was not that long ago.
Anyway, since we're on transport. Buses and, specifically, rural buses. I rarely say anything nice about Corbyn but today - gasp! - I will. He was right - a few weeks back - to raise the question of buses in rural areas at PMQs.
They may not be sexy but they are critical to living a good life - rather than simply surviving - particularly for the elderly, the poor, the young who don't earn much. And if we want to reduce our dependance on the car they are likely to become more essential. It is pretty easy to get around London. But the UK is more than London.
Really? I find Southwest manages to be both a budget airline, and - frankly - a reasonably pleasant experience.
Corbyn does have the knack of identifying bread and butter issues the Tories ignore, but his exotic past and mannerisms never let them get much attention.
(Currently, I'm on an American Airlines 777 just south of Greenland...)