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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Irish General Election 2020 : Predictions & Review, Part One

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  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,769
    Night all. Sweet dreams to all. I shall try not to lie awake and think of 5G.
  • On Huawei, I don't have the technical insight, but the Government (which I do not suspect of being anti-Trump) seems to think there isn't a problem and the US are just trying to make life difficult for China, which would be an inadequate reason not to do it. I don't really see it as a party political issue. Does anyone here have technical insight into what risks we are taking?

    No. But China is a surveillance state, so why take the risk?
    Did I read somewhere that Blighty has the second highest per capita concentration of CCTV cameras after China?
    I see the 50p coin as an icon handle is spreading!
    @MarqueeMark copied me :lol:
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    FF43 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Johnson has two decisions this week. I know, I know it is a hell of a lot for him to take on.

    But it has to be HS2 Yes, 5G No.

    Let's hope he is as good with acronyms as Greek.

    My money is it being the other way around.
    Mine too. More rail lines are optional; 5G has to happen in the next few years. On my understanding Huawei is getting the nod, not because of any love for the company, but because of a lack of alternatives. France and Germany seem to be coming to the same conclusion.
    A lack of alternatives created by Chinese cheating of the global trading system. It's tech dumping. This is why the EU is a pile of shit. An organisation with that kind of power should be calling China out on it and imposing a 500% tariff on Huawei phones and infrastructure with the proceeds going to EU companies in the same fields. They haven't though, and China will keep winning and keep putting European companies out of business, especially in the mature tech industry.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 4,502

    Andy_JS said:

    Do you think Matthew Goodwin is partisan?
    Goodwin has a main thesis which he doesn't like to depart from, the inexorable rise of the populist right (with failing EU as a side dish). Like many monothesists ( a word I have just made up), he's not keen on anything that spoils it.
    He’s still grief stricken from the Euro elections where the much vaunted right surge failed to materialize .
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,609

    On Huawei, I don't have the technical insight, but the Government (which I do not suspect of being anti-Trump) seems to think there isn't a problem and the US are just trying to make life difficult for China, which would be an inadequate reason not to do it. I don't really see it as a party political issue. Does anyone here have technical insight into what risks we are taking?

    No. But China is a surveillance state, so why take the risk?
    Did I read somewhere that Blighty has the second highest per capita concentration of CCTV cameras after China?
    I see the 50p coin as an icon handle is spreading!
    @MarqueeMark copied me :lol:
    The two of us together are giving it a pounding.....
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    Gabs3 said:

    MaxPB said:

    On the point of why don't we just do our own 5G, the issue is that no one country can have it's own 5G. It's an international standard made so that 5G phones all work with 5G everywhere in the world. Huawei owns about 30% of the IP associated with 5G. It has done this by acquiring smaller European telecoms specialists and IP holding companies. There is no way around Huawei's patents, even Nokia (the grandest mobile communications company of all) are having to get a licence.

    A British company world start with no IP, no royalties to offset licence costs and no expertise. It would be a disaster.

    Why the hell did we allow China to buy up such critical technology?
    Individually they were all pretty small, it was only once Huawei had got to a pretty large ownership of 5g patents that people even realised their game. Also, Huawei is a nominally private company, the CMA or other more serious bodies can't treat it like an arm of the Chinese government, despite it being pretty fucking obvious that it is.
  • MaxPB said:

    On Huawei, I don't have the technical insight, but the Government (which I do not suspect of being anti-Trump) seems to think there isn't a problem and the US are just trying to make life difficult for China, which would be an inadequate reason not to do it. I don't really see it as a party political issue. Does anyone here have technical insight into what risks we are taking?

    Yes, the theory is that Huawei retain ultimate control over their equipment (which they do to some degree) and if the Chinese state decided it wanted to know what Britain was doing they could call up the Huawei CEO and just ask. In practice it's a bit tougher, but Huawei is the primary maintenance contractor for its equipment, it's not a case of them just selling it, they also have on going access.

    Also, there's the unfortunate case of them actually leaving s backdoor open in a lot of their current equipment which they had to admit to. It could hav given malicious state actors a way into core networks too iirc.

    All in all, they aren't to be trusted and neither is China.
    Backdoor. Backdoor. Backdoor. Why take the bloody risk?

    An interesting question is why different parts of our intelligence services seem to have different views of this.
    Didn't this 'backdoor' turn out to be a completely standard feature of the open source software which Huawei (and many other firms) were using?

    I'm a little sceptical about the anti-Chinese lobbying by the US. It does sound very suspiciously like pure protectionism. I believe that France, like the UK, is not convinced by the US position.
  • On Huawei, I don't have the technical insight, but the Government (which I do not suspect of being anti-Trump) seems to think there isn't a problem and the US are just trying to make life difficult for China, which would be an inadequate reason not to do it. I don't really see it as a party political issue. Does anyone here have technical insight into what risks we are taking?

    No. But China is a surveillance state, so why take the risk?
    Did I read somewhere that Blighty has the second highest per capita concentration of CCTV cameras after China?
    I see the 50p coin as an icon handle is spreading!
    @MarqueeMark copied me :lol:
    The two of us together are giving it a pounding.....
    Actually if you click our names, our profile pages say we both changed to the 50p pic at 2.06pm today... spooky!
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868

    MaxPB said:

    On Huawei, I don't have the technical insight, but the Government (which I do not suspect of being anti-Trump) seems to think there isn't a problem and the US are just trying to make life difficult for China, which would be an inadequate reason not to do it. I don't really see it as a party political issue. Does anyone here have technical insight into what risks we are taking?

    Yes, the theory is that Huawei retain ultimate control over their equipment (which they do to some degree) and if the Chinese state decided it wanted to know what Britain was doing they could call up the Huawei CEO and just ask. In practice it's a bit tougher, but Huawei is the primary maintenance contractor for its equipment, it's not a case of them just selling it, they also have on going access.

    Also, there's the unfortunate case of them actually leaving s backdoor open in a lot of their current equipment which they had to admit to. It could hav given malicious state actors a way into core networks too iirc.

    All in all, they aren't to be trusted and neither is China.
    Backdoor. Backdoor. Backdoor. Why take the bloody risk?

    An interesting question is why different parts of our intelligence services seem to have different views of this.
    Didn't this 'backdoor' turn out to be a completely standard feature of the open source software which Huawei (and many other firms) were using?

    I'm a little sceptical about the anti-Chinese lobbying by the US. It does sound very suspiciously like pure protectionism. I believe that France, like the UK, is not convinced by the US position.
    Protecting what though? The companies that stand to gain from locking out Huawei are Nokia (Finland) and Ericsson (Sweden). The US doesn't have an industry to protect.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    MaxPB said:

    On Huawei, I don't have the technical insight, but the Government (which I do not suspect of being anti-Trump) seems to think there isn't a problem and the US are just trying to make life difficult for China, which would be an inadequate reason not to do it. I don't really see it as a party political issue. Does anyone here have technical insight into what risks we are taking?

    Yes, the theory is that Huawei retain ultimate control over their equipment (which they do to some degree) and if the Chinese state decided it wanted to know what Britain was doing they could call up the Huawei CEO and just ask. In practice it's a bit tougher, but Huawei is the primary maintenance contractor for its equipment, it's not a case of them just selling it, they also have on going access.

    Also, there's the unfortunate case of them actually leaving s backdoor open in a lot of their current equipment which they had to admit to. It could hav given malicious state actors a way into core networks too iirc.

    All in all, they aren't to be trusted and neither is China.
    Backdoor. Backdoor. Backdoor. Why take the bloody risk?

    An interesting question is why different parts of our intelligence services seem to have different views of this.
    Didn't this 'backdoor' turn out to be a completely standard feature of the open source software which Huawei (and many other firms) were using?

    I'm a little sceptical about the anti-Chinese lobbying by the US. It does sound very suspiciously like pure protectionism. I believe that France, like the UK, is not convinced by the US position.
    If development of 5g is critical to future prosperity, then isn’t the idea that the US is scrabbling around with ideas of US-UK partnerships to develop it an indication that even they might find themselves having to go with a part Huawei solution in the end?
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    edited January 2020
    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Johnson has two decisions this week. I know, I know it is a hell of a lot for him to take on.

    But it has to be HS2 Yes, 5G No.

    Let's hope he is as good with acronyms as Greek.

    My money is it being the other way around.
    Mine too. More rail lines are optional; 5G has to happen in the next few years. On my understanding Huawei is getting the nod, not because of any love for the company, but because of a lack of alternatives. France and Germany seem to be coming to the same conclusion.
    A lack of alternatives created by Chinese cheating of the global trading system. It's tech dumping. This is why the EU is a pile of shit. An organisation with that kind of power should be calling China out on it and imposing a 500% tariff on Huawei phones and infrastructure with the proceeds going to EU companies in the same fields. They haven't though, and China will keep winning and keep putting European companies out of business, especially in the mature tech industry.
    You don't think the same happens in America? I don't know the specifics of 5G but in general terms this battle was lost years ago. China makes the vast majority of hardware circuits and they have been putting some very interesting devices into servers operated by Apple and Microsoft, through nominally American companies. Those applications are I suspect a lot more sensitive than what they will be allowed to do in this decision. Huawei happens to be the company everyone has heard of.
  • Gabs3Gabs3 Posts: 836

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    We should reject Huawei, and accept that 5G will be years late in the UK.

    And then ask ourselves long and deeply why we can't develop next gen Internet technology in the country that invented the computer.


    A huge part of the equation is Huawei being able to undercut Western companies due to Chinese government subsidies. It's completely crazy that we're going to allow it, but speaks volumes about the complete c***s in the civil service that are pushing to approve it.

    What are other countries (ex USA) doing?
    Waiting until Nokia and Ericson have the tech ready to go, so are the US. The US proposal is for the UK and US to form a joint 5G infrastructure company, but it's not realistic as neither country really has the expertise any more.
    Thatcher did this.
    Not really, it's just the same failure of British management to think beyond the next quarter's bonus. Not sure that's changed much in 100 years.
    So what do you do about it? The culture I mean.
    More private companies and co-ops. Fewer PLCs and PE owned ones.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,602
    Does anyone know when Farage is expected to launch his Reform Party?
  • MaxPB said:


    Protecting what though? The companies that stand to gain from locking out Huawei are Nokia (Finland) and Ericsson (Sweden). The US doesn't have an industry to protect.

    Cisco want a piece of the action, don't they?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    FF43 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Johnson has two decisions this week. I know, I know it is a hell of a lot for him to take on.

    But it has to be HS2 Yes, 5G No.

    Let's hope he is as good with acronyms as Greek.

    My money is it being the other way around.
    Mine too. More rail lines are optional; 5G has to happen in the next few years. On my understanding Huawei is getting the nod, not because of any love for the company, but because of a lack of alternatives. France and Germany seem to be coming to the same conclusion.
    A lack of alternatives created by Chinese cheating of the global trading system. It's tech dumping. This is why the EU is a pile of shit. An organisation with that kind of power should be calling China out on it and imposing a 500% tariff on Huawei phones and infrastructure with the proceeds going to EU companies in the same fields. They haven't though, and China will keep winning and keep putting European companies out of business, especially in the mature tech industry.
    You don't think the same happens in America? I don't know the specifics of 5G but in general terms this battle was lost years ago. China makes the vast majority of hardware circuits and they have been putting some very interesting devices into servers operated by Apple and Microsoft, through nominally American companies. Those applications are I suspect a lot more sensitive than what they will be allowed to do in this decision. Huawei happens to be the company everyone has heard of.
    Well the US is doing something about it, unless you haven't noticed they've opened up a gigantic trade war with China that the EU denounced instead of supported. We should have backed the US and forced China to play by the rules, but the EU is worthless, 28 countries would never agree to it.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868

    MaxPB said:


    Protecting what though? The companies that stand to gain from locking out Huawei are Nokia (Finland) and Ericsson (Sweden). The US doesn't have an industry to protect.

    Cisco want a piece of the action, don't they?
    Different part of the network. They'll be in anyway. Huawei don't really compete there either, their expertise is more on the radio transmission side than the network backhaul (though they provide both, most don't choose them for the latter, hilariously citing security concerns).
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,602
    edited January 2020
    I'm hoping it's yes to HS2 and no to Huawei, (even though HS2 is going to be built about one mile from where I'm living atm with no station anywhere near).
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,868
    Lol, the Times reporting that Johnson says he hasn't been bounced into a decision by Whitehall. Who's he kidding?!

    Weak from the PM.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,609
    Andy_JS said:

    Does anyone know when Farage is expected to launch his Reform Party?

    Who?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,127
    edited January 2020
    MaxPB said:

    We should reject Huawei, and accept that 5G will be years late in the UK.

    And then ask ourselves long and deeply why we can't develop next gen Internet technology in the country that invented the computer.


    A huge part of the equation is Huawei being able to undercut Western companies due to Chinese government subsidies. It's completely crazy that we're going to allow it, but speaks volumes about the complete c***s in the civil service that are pushing to approve it.
    I swear to God the Government could cut your knees off and you'd still blame somebody else. Why in the name of all that's holy do you think the civil service is the final decider??What do you think the Prime Minister does? The clue's in the name... :(
  • viewcode said:

    MaxPB said:

    We should reject Huawei, and accept that 5G will be years late in the UK.

    And then ask ourselves long and deeply why we can't develop next gen Internet technology in the country that invented the computer.


    A huge part of the equation is Huawei being able to undercut Western companies due to Chinese government subsidies. It's completely crazy that we're going to allow it, but speaks volumes about the complete c***s in the civil service that are pushing to approve it.
    I swear to God the Government could cut your knees off and you'd still blame somebody else. Why in the name of all that's holy do you think the civil service is the final decider??What do you think the Prime Minister does? The clue's in the name... :(
    Chooses within a range of options given to him. It’s he only way gvt can function.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,127
    Andy_JS said:

    Do you think Matthew Goodwin is partisan?
    Yes: read his stuff. But the art is separate from the artist and his analysis is separate from the analyst, and his analysis (but see below) is good.

    Although I would point out that his recent tweet ("lowest in France since 1964", etc) was a bit scrambled because you build tweets like that about anything: "the Conservative vote in Scotland is the lowest since 2017", for example. You need to do the whole thing instead of cherrypicking subelements that support the argument.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,127

    viewcode said:

    MaxPB said:

    We should reject Huawei, and accept that 5G will be years late in the UK.

    And then ask ourselves long and deeply why we can't develop next gen Internet technology in the country that invented the computer.


    A huge part of the equation is Huawei being able to undercut Western companies due to Chinese government subsidies. It's completely crazy that we're going to allow it, but speaks volumes about the complete c***s in the civil service that are pushing to approve it.
    I swear to God the Government could cut your knees off and you'd still blame somebody else. Why in the name of all that's holy do you think the civil service is the final decider??What do you think the Prime Minister does? The clue's in the name... :(
    Chooses within a range of options given to him. It’s he only way gvt can function.
    Fair point. And there's a Yes Minister episode (more than one?) on this specific point.

    But that doesn't remove the responsibility from Boris. If he thinks he's being bounced into a decision, it's his job to throw the paper in the bin and demand a third alternative. So much has been said by Dom et al about the Blob that when an actual serious case comes along, throwing Boris's hands up and going "Nothing to do with the PM, I'm just stupid Boris" is not good enough.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,052



    As a point of fact the SNP didn't vote for the GE, though either way it didn't turn out too badly for us.

    Interesting point. Does the SNP have more influence in a hung Parliament with fewer MPs, or one with a large Conservative majority and rather more MPs? I'd argue the former, but could be persuaded to say the latter. Applies to all other opposition parties of course.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited January 2020

    Andy_JS said:

    Do you think Matthew Goodwin is partisan?
    Goodwin has a main thesis which he doesn't like to depart from, the inexorable rise of the populist right (with failing EU as a side dish). Like many monothesists ( a word I have just made up), he's not keen on anything that spoils it.
    I'm pretty damned agnostic, but even I think God showed us plenty of proof of His existence on December 12th :wink:
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,218

    MaxPB said:

    We should reject Huawei, and accept that 5G will be years late in the UK.

    And then ask ourselves long and deeply why we can't develop next gen Internet technology in the country that invented the computer.


    A huge part of the equation is Huawei being able to undercut Western companies due to Chinese government subsidies. It's completely crazy that we're going to allow it, but speaks volumes about the complete c***s in the civil service that are pushing to approve it.
    Of course it’s the civil service’s fault and not the government’s.
    Jesus wept.
    This goes back decades.

    Where are Plessey, GEC, Marconi?

    Our short term mentality means we are in the mess we are in.
    Well, GEC was renamed Marconi. They then spent an absolute fortune in the early 2000s on a bunch of stupid acquisitions, and assumed the BT cash cow would bail them out forever.

    Telecoms Equipment spending fell - especially on wireline - in the early 2000s and they found themselves overstretched.

    Management hubris, not "short termism" killed GEC/Marconi.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,218
    MaxPB said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    What are we thinking...

    "ministers are poised to allow Huawei, effectively China’s state-owned tech company, to play a central role in the development of Britain’s 5G network. This technology is not, as some say, simply the next generation for mobile phones. It will be at the heart of everything we do – in life at home, commerce, public services and our national security – for years to come."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/26/handing-5g-network-huawei-would-generation-defining-error/

    If true - and I fear it is - a disastrous decision. Quite the worst any government will take in my lifetime, I suspect.
    I don't see the issue really. China is clearly spying on us. This makes it a bit easier possibly? We're already snooped upon by big business, the US, and our own agencies, and goodness alone knows who else. I cannot get worked up about adding the Chinese to the list. Yet again the US wanted us to fight their battles and pay for their more expensive 5G. No thanks.
    The issue is not spying. It is that utterly vital UK infrastructure will be under the control of the Chinese Communist party, which runs one of the nastiest and most authoritarian regimes in the world.

    Why on earth would a PM who has railed against EU regulations and about wanting to take back control want to make us a vassal of the Chinese state? If they control our infrastructure that is exactly what we will be.
    The argument has been presented as such:

    1. There's no real alternative, even if we commit to a non Huawei solution it's an additional £3-5bn and 2-3 years away.
    2. Huawei won't be involved in the "core" parts of the network, so critical infrastructure will be "protected", though it's not clear what that means for Joe public, so we have to live with Chinese state intrusion?
    3. People who oppose China are alarmist idiots and you wouldn't want to be one of those, plus cost the country all the money from point 1.

    That's from the Japanese point of view of the British civil service argument being pushed to the British government.
    1. Is not really true, Ericsson is not far behind - albeit their prices are much higher than Huawei, and they want you to sign a managed service contract.

    2. There's some truth in this. Ultimately, there are two separate issues: (1) whether someone could spy on the network by looking at packets, and (2) whether an external actor could "flip a switch" and turn off your network. The former is not that much of an issue, the latter really is.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,218
    When I first watched This Life, they were much older than me. They now look like children.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,218
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    On Huawei, I don't have the technical insight, but the Government (which I do not suspect of being anti-Trump) seems to think there isn't a problem and the US are just trying to make life difficult for China, which would be an inadequate reason not to do it. I don't really see it as a party political issue. Does anyone here have technical insight into what risks we are taking?

    Yes, the theory is that Huawei retain ultimate control over their equipment (which they do to some degree) and if the Chinese state decided it wanted to know what Britain was doing they could call up the Huawei CEO and just ask. In practice it's a bit tougher, but Huawei is the primary maintenance contractor for its equipment, it's not a case of them just selling it, they also have on going access.

    Also, there's the unfortunate case of them actually leaving s backdoor open in a lot of their current equipment which they had to admit to. It could hav given malicious state actors a way into core networks too iirc.

    All in all, they aren't to be trusted and neither is China.
    Backdoor. Backdoor. Backdoor. Why take the bloody risk?

    An interesting question is why different parts of our intelligence services seem to have different views of this.
    Didn't this 'backdoor' turn out to be a completely standard feature of the open source software which Huawei (and many other firms) were using?

    I'm a little sceptical about the anti-Chinese lobbying by the US. It does sound very suspiciously like pure protectionism. I believe that France, like the UK, is not convinced by the US position.
    Protecting what though? The companies that stand to gain from locking out Huawei are Nokia (Finland) and Ericsson (Sweden). The US doesn't have an industry to protect.
    Qualcomm (US) does OK too
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,218
    viewcode said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Do you think Matthew Goodwin is partisan?
    Yes: read his stuff. But the art is separate from the artist and his analysis is separate from the analyst, and his analysis (but see below) is good.

    Although I would point out that his recent tweet ("lowest in France since 1964", etc) was a bit scrambled because you build tweets like that about anything: "the Conservative vote in Scotland is the lowest since 2017", for example. You need to do the whole thing instead of cherrypicking subelements that support the argument.
    Mathew Goodwin is very smart, and well worth reading. But he does himself no favours by always focusing on the data supports his thesis.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,218
    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Johnson has two decisions this week. I know, I know it is a hell of a lot for him to take on.

    But it has to be HS2 Yes, 5G No.

    Let's hope he is as good with acronyms as Greek.

    My money is it being the other way around.
    Mine too. More rail lines are optional; 5G has to happen in the next few years. On my understanding Huawei is getting the nod, not because of any love for the company, but because of a lack of alternatives. France and Germany seem to be coming to the same conclusion.
    A lack of alternatives created by Chinese cheating of the global trading system. It's tech dumping. This is why the EU is a pile of shit. An organisation with that kind of power should be calling China out on it and imposing a 500% tariff on Huawei phones and infrastructure with the proceeds going to EU companies in the same fields. They haven't though, and China will keep winning and keep putting European companies out of business, especially in the mature tech industry.
    Whoah, whoah.

    Huawei's share of the EU mobile phone market is tiny. You could put 500% tariffs on their phones, and I doubt they would even notice.

    Huawei has invested a crazy amount in R&D. They've hired engineers from Cisco, from Qualcomm, from Ericsson, and paid them megabucks to work for them.

    Now, they've been able to do this because (being essentially owned by the Chinese Red Army), they aren't constrained by the need to earn returns for shareholders*. But ultimately, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them paying up for engineering talent. It's smart long-term thinking.

    Huawei has done very well against Ericsson, because Ericsson has tried to tie every base station sale to a managed services contract, and operators hate that. And Nokia Siemens Alcatel Lucent (or whatever it's currently called) is struggling with the fact that it's a roll-up of a dozen companies with a tonne of different product lines. Huawei has been focused and sold a good product at a reasonable price.

    As an aside, don't underestimate Samsung here. Their products are looking pretty good.

    * This has been true of Amazon too, of course. Indeed, I'd be staggered if Huawei's return on capital employed is worse than Amazon's.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,127
    rcs1000 said:

    When I first watched This Life, they were much older than me. They now look like children.
    The episodes are on YouTube. The actors are now 25 years older and are now in different categories, so it's odd to compare them: twentysomethings vs fiftysomethings.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,127
    rcs1000 said:

    viewcode said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Do you think Matthew Goodwin is partisan?
    Yes: read his stuff. But the art is separate from the artist and his analysis is separate from the analyst, and his analysis (but see below) is good.

    Although I would point out that his recent tweet ("lowest in France since 1964", etc) was a bit scrambled because you build tweets like that about anything: "the Conservative vote in Scotland is the lowest since 2017", for example. You need to do the whole thing instead of cherrypicking subelements that support the argument.
    Mathew Goodwin is very smart, and well worth reading. But he does himself no favours by always focusing on the data supports his thesis.
    Indeed
  • New Thread

  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    MaxPB said:

    FF43 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Johnson has two decisions this week. I know, I know it is a hell of a lot for him to take on.

    But it has to be HS2 Yes, 5G No.

    Let's hope he is as good with acronyms as Greek.

    My money is it being the other way around.
    Mine too. More rail lines are optional; 5G has to happen in the next few years. On my understanding Huawei is getting the nod, not because of any love for the company, but because of a lack of alternatives. France and Germany seem to be coming to the same conclusion.
    A lack of alternatives created by Chinese cheating of the global trading system. It's tech dumping. This is why the EU is a pile of shit. An organisation with that kind of power should be calling China out on it and imposing a 500% tariff on Huawei phones and infrastructure with the proceeds going to EU companies in the same fields. They haven't though, and China will keep winning and keep putting European companies out of business, especially in the mature tech industry.
    You don't think the same happens in America? I don't know the specifics of 5G but in general terms this battle was lost years ago. China makes the vast majority of hardware circuits and they have been putting some very interesting devices into servers operated by Apple and Microsoft, through nominally American companies. Those applications are I suspect a lot more sensitive than what they will be allowed to do in this decision. Huawei happens to be the company everyone has heard of.
    Well the US is doing something about it, unless you haven't noticed they've opened up a gigantic trade war with China that the EU denounced instead of supported. We should have backed the US and forced China to play by the rules, but the EU is worthless, 28 countries would never agree to it.
    If we are talking about security, the trade war isn't useful to that. It isn't useful to trade either, but that's another matter. And I agree there is a China problem.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    Story relevant to Alastair Meek's recent articles here on towns. Not clear what government can and should do, beyond funding more education, which would mean channeling more resources through (in this case Labour) local authorities.

    Also hints that people are already noticing that the "levelling up" rhetoric is proving empty.

    https://twitter.com/DavidHenigUK/status/1221690391977758720
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,484
    MaxPB said:

    Johnson has two decisions this week. I know, I know it is a hell of a lot for him to take on.

    But it has to be HS2 Yes, 5G No.

    Let's hope he is as good with acronyms as Greek.

    My money is it being the other way around.
    I hope it is.
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