Watched The Social Dilemma last night on Netflix. Very interesting to hear from many people previously involved apparently at high levels in social media companies somewhat apocalyptic analysis of how dangerous social media is for society.
It also made me think that political ads on social media should be banned. The lack of transparency with targeted ads is a problem. Everyone sees the same advert on TV, everyone sees different ads on Facebook. This might not matter much when the ads are for toothpaste, but for political parties we all might vote for it seems very dangerous.
Imagine if you wanted to read a party's manifesto (which few people do), and on the internet you would be taken to a different manifesto for the same party, depending on who you are and your web history.
The attack on lawyers, growing in volume, is in part desperation as well as ignorance. Even most MPs, dim though some are, realise that the legal system as a whole puts into effect what parliament has sanctioned, provided for or compelled. Attacks on 'activist' lawyers are of course attacks on the rule of law, parliamentary democracy and the judiciary. The PM and Home Secretary joining in is a sign of desperation about their own competence and ability to cope.
As to the poor old voter, I can't be the only moderate liberal minded centrist who usually votes Tory because all the alternatives are worse who is hoping that SKS can quietly purge his abysmal party and offer us something which would be recognisable to Roy Jenkins and Lord Clarke as a government.
There is a degree of desperation in using lawyers as aunt sally's but the desperation is real. The asylum system is a total disaster and has been for decades. Many, many tens of thousands of people have had their applications for leave to remain refused but they are still here. Many are so here for so long that they acquire rights to family life, children born in this country etc all of which make enforcement more complicated and invites further court intervention and the wasting of more public money. This is not the fault of the lawyers, they are doing their job, it is the fault of a massively under-resourced and ineffective system.
This was the deeply unsatisfactory picture at the beginning of this year. God knows what it is like after months of Immigration Tribunals either not operating at all or with very restricted capacity. The reality is that hundreds of thousands of people who came here on student or holiday visas and overstayed, economic migrants and ineligible claims (because we weren't their first safe country, for example) are never going to be removed. Never.
A system that has never coped has totally buckled. Wide spread amnesties, (eg an amnesty for all those who have been here more than 5 years already) is the only answer but politically difficult. Of course very much the same applies to summary crime. Tens of thousands of cases are just never going to be dealt with.
This very much suggests we are shutting down entire regions, and ruining their economies, to defend the health of kids who will never get sick
No it does not. That is a significant rise in the orange graph and the escalating case numbers in hospital are not kids.
If the orange graph was a flat line you'd be right. It isn't.
And it would also need for students to be all-but-immune to the virus, as well.
People have segued straight from “less likely to get so ill they’d need hospital treatment and far more likely to recover if they do, but can end up with long-term issues” to “it does nothing to them.”
Is it a case of really wanting that to be true? Because I can fully understand that - my second daughter is a first year student right now. But wanting it to be true doesn’t change that most students who catch it get ill and some less lucky ones will end up in hospital, and quite a few will have issues lasting a long time.
Looking at the regional admissions figures, it does look as if it breaks through to an older population in time, following on from the students.
Why do we think there was no stand out epidemic amongst students first time around?
How about this. First time round university students were in the middle of their (final) term (of the year). There wasn't necessarily a route for significant base infection of the population, and at the end of the year many students are spending their time in established social groups.
Second time around thousands of students descended on the campuses from all over the country - some with high areas of infection and some not. In the first weeks there is widespread mixing in large groups as students get to meet their new compatriots in student domitories and on courses. This is some of the most cramped and overcrowded accommodation in the country. There was nothing to resist the spread.
And... first time around there was zero testing. So it may well have been all over campuses and the question is based on a false premise.
I'm surprised York is not higher on the infections list considering it is quite a small city but has two universities combined with a cramped city centre.
I think York had low infection rates to start with, so there was less of a well of infection from which the students could catch it. You look at which universities it has taken off at first and town-to-gown transmission has clearly been a significant factor, not just already-infected-student--goes-to-uni transmission. Add in that York is another uni with a substantial posh element and fewer will have gone to York already infected from central Burnley or Bradford compared to the red bricks.
That said, it may only be a lull for York or the Southern universities - I note 82 cases in the 'university' neighbourhood in York, so there's now around 1000 per 100k infection rate in that neighbourhood.
Apparently what we need is for the younger people - especially focused on ages, say, 16-24, to get the infection primarily. Increasing spread there won't cause any problems.
Something like this, say, won't cause any alarms or hospital overload:
It's not as though it would cause hospitalisation rates to soar.
(blue bars actual daily figures for England; red line 7-day average for England).
Because that would cause serious consternation around Government and the imposition of fresh restrictions.
Watched The Social Dilemma last night on Netflix. Very interesting to hear from many people previously involved apparently at high levels in social media companies somewhat apocalyptic analysis of how dangerous social media is for society.
It also made me think that political ads on social media should be banned. The lack of transparency with targeted ads is a problem. Everyone sees the same advert on TV, everyone sees different ads on Facebook. This might not matter much when the ads are for toothpaste, but for political parties we all might vote for it seems very dangerous.
Imagine if you wanted to read a party's manifesto (which few people do), and on the internet you would be taken to a different manifesto for the same party, depending on who you are and your web history.
This is a key point. In the past the universality of political ads and PPBs etc allowed for challenge. Political ads on social media are like a highly advanced version of the targeted local leaflet.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
It’s time for the Government to start asking the right questions; framing things in the light of accumulating evidence, not unexamined preconceptions. On that basis, the course we should be taking is clear: asymptomatic spread is good . Advise and help the very elderly and those with serious illnesses to shield if they wish – but do not compel them, it’s their life, after all. And let everyone else get completely back to normal.
Good morning all. Last night I asserted that R has been above 1 since the pubs opened, and some PBers questioned this claim. I didn't have a chance to respond, as I wanted to go to bed!
So, looking at the "Cases by Specimen Date" data, the 7-day average reached a minimum on 1st July, and has been rising since then. Now doesn't that coincide with the reopening of pubs?
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Totally agree. We are not all shining lights of liberty, compassion and justice (or as dull as SKS, for that matter). Most of us just want to make a living and are as prone to misjudgement as the next profession.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
I much prefer it when you have your US politics hat on. I suspect you have made some worthwhile points around the death of Breanne Taylor.
It’s time for the Government to start asking the right questions; framing things in the light of accumulating evidence, not unexamined preconceptions. On that basis, the course we should be taking is clear: asymptomatic spread is good . Advise and help the very elderly and those with serious illnesses to shield if they wish – but do not compel them, it’s their life, after all. And let everyone else get completely back to normal.
Mr. Alex, it's also why actual physical newspapers have an advantage over electronic ones. When you flick through an actual paper you're more likely to read a story you'd never search for, or that belongs to a category you'd usually ignore on a website.
Online papers and targeted ads and the like promote bubbles.
It's why mainstream news, including news channels, are so important. They've a critical role to play, and declining confidence in them often for legitimate reasons, is cause for concern.
The Tories are casting around for a new target for their culture war. They sense Starmer may be vulnerable as a former human rights lawyer. Lawyers are not well-loved.
Critics of Starmer understandably want him to criticize the government's lies. But I suspect this is one of those cases where it would be smart for Labour to stick to platitudes and say as little as possible.
It's a tricky one though. At some point, Labour's reluctance to engage on a lose-lose issue becomes complicity.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
I much prefer it when you have your US politics hat on. I suspect you have made some worthwhile points around the death of Breanne Taylor.
Absolutely I am amongst those who criticise the Police when they go wrong - and politicians - and indeed lawyers.
So I'm not a hypocrite. I am more than content to be an "equal opportunities" critic. Some here are just as vocal as me in criticising the Police but are horrified by any criticism of lawyers - what makes lawyers so special that they can criticise others but can't be criticised in return?
Once you include the 6% for Traditional Unionist Voice though Unionists will still have more Assembly seats than Nationalists as Stormont uses STV not FPTP, overall the Unionist vote is on 41% and the Nationalist vote on 37% with the Alliance on 16%
If you add alliance and SDLP to the SF alphabet soup, you are over the 50% for the Nationalists. Now I accept that is a more than spurious statement, but then so is yours.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
You clearly have not understood the article at all. Criticism on the basis of facts is welcome and desirable. Such facts as the Home Secretary put forward in her conference speech were untrue. That is not criticism. It is rabble rousing and can have adverse consequences for people put in danger by it.
Lord Sumption, for instance, criticises how some aspects of the law have developed in his Reith Lectures. Very cogently and persuasively too. And I agree with some of what he says. Law can often fill the space where politics ought to be and that can be dangerous for the health of a democracy.
There is a big difference between that and the vacuous content-free rubbish Patel and Johnson were saying in their conference speeches.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
Anyway stuff to do before the government announces that we’re all to be locked up in our bathrooms for the next year with now’t but a ferret for a company.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
You clearly have not understood the article at all. Criticism on the basis of facts is welcome and desirable. Such facts as the Home Secretary put forward in her conference speech were untrue. That is not criticism. It is rabble rousing and can have adverse consequences for people put in danger by it.
Lord Sumption, for instance, criticises how some aspects of the law have developed in his Reith Lectures. Very cogently and persuasively too. And I agree with some of what he says. Law can often fill the space where politics ought to be and that can be dangerous for the health of a democracy.
There is a big difference between that and the vacuous content-free rubbish Patel and Johnson were saying in their conference speeches.
That's all a matter of perspective and judgement.
I'm sure there will be some in the Police who regard your criticism of them as 'vacuous and content-free rubbish' too.
Either it is OK to criticise others, or it is not. As a fervent believer in free speech and someone who believes more is achieved by shining a light than hiding in darkness I think criticism can be a very good thing. But you're trying to have it both ways.
So? The SNP are as arrogant as the Tories - we won a big majority, we alone represent the best interests of our country, so we can do what we like.
For sure , megalomania has corrupted those at the top and they think they can get away with anything. Time for a clear out of the cabal at the top lining their own nests .
Are you ok, Malcolm? Your comments haven't been as aggressive as they used to be of late.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Except that it's not "any criticism of lawyers". It's specifically the Home Secretary criticising lawyers for doing their job.
It’s time for the Government to start asking the right questions; framing things in the light of accumulating evidence, not unexamined preconceptions. On that basis, the course we should be taking is clear: asymptomatic spread is good . Advise and help the very elderly and those with serious illnesses to shield if they wish – but do not compel them, it’s their life, after all. And let everyone else get completely back to normal.
It’s time for the Government to start asking the right questions; framing things in the light of accumulating evidence, not unexamined preconceptions. On that basis, the course we should be taking is clear: asymptomatic spread is good . Advise and help the very elderly and those with serious illnesses to shield if they wish – but do not compel them, it’s their life, after all. And let everyone else get completely back to normal.
Retired pathologist, no expertise in public health. Arguing for the same policy since March, but changing his arguments as the previous ones get demolished by the facts, without acknowledging that he was wrong before.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
The American Police claimed - and the American legal system agreed with the Police - that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was "the Police doing their job properly".
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
Once you include the 6% for Traditional Unionist Voice though Unionists will still have more Assembly seats than Nationalists as Stormont uses STV not FPTP, overall the Unionist vote is on 41% and the Nationalist vote on 37% with the Alliance on 16%
If you add alliance and SDLP to the SF alphabet soup, you are over the 50% for the Nationalists. Now I accept that is a more than spurious statement, but then so is yours.
Amazing how the Unionist/Nationalist majority goalposts shift when HYUFD's Sauronic gaze turns to Scotland.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
The American Police claimed - and the American legal system agreed with the Police - that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was "the Police doing their job properly".
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
With all due respect, what a load of tosh. You can't seriously believe that whether, say, a doctor, a bricklayer or a teacher does their job properly is "entirely subjective". I despair.
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
It’s time for the Government to start asking the right questions; framing things in the light of accumulating evidence, not unexamined preconceptions. On that basis, the course we should be taking is clear: asymptomatic spread is good . Advise and help the very elderly and those with serious illnesses to shield if they wish – but do not compel them, it’s their life, after all. And let everyone else get completely back to normal.
It’s time for the Government to start asking the right questions; framing things in the light of accumulating evidence, not unexamined preconceptions. On that basis, the course we should be taking is clear: asymptomatic spread is good . Advise and help the very elderly and those with serious illnesses to shield if they wish – but do not compel them, it’s their life, after all. And let everyone else get completely back to normal.
Retired pathologist, no expertise in public health. Arguing for the same policy since March, but changing his arguments as the previous ones get demolished by the facts, without acknowledging that he was wrong before.
Ignore.
--AS
Another issue is that many people have eagerly leapt on the "86% of people don't have symptoms at the time they're tested" stat to try to say that 86% of people who get covid get it asymptomatically.
The issue that the majority of that 86% go on to develop symptoms later (so were presymptomatic rather than asymptomatic) gets ignored in the eagerness to believe it's harmless.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
The American Police claimed - and the American legal system agreed with the Police - that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was "the Police doing their job properly".
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
With all due respect, what a load of tosh. You can't seriously believe that whether, say, a doctor, a bricklayer or a teacher does their job properly is "entirely subjective". I despair.
When it comes to political debate absolutely you can.
Was the shooting of Breonna Taylor "objectively" "the Police doing their job properly" or not? The grand jury said it was, that was a legal judgement, but I disagree - do you?
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
It does rather clash with the frequent "Sweden didn't have a lockdown" cry.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
You clearly have not understood the article at all. Criticism on the basis of facts is welcome and desirable. Such facts as the Home Secretary put forward in her conference speech were untrue. That is not criticism. It is rabble rousing and can have adverse consequences for people put in danger by it.
Lord Sumption, for instance, criticises how some aspects of the law have developed in his Reith Lectures. Very cogently and persuasively too. And I agree with some of what he says. Law can often fill the space where politics ought to be and that can be dangerous for the health of a democracy.
There is a big difference between that and the vacuous content-free rubbish Patel and Johnson were saying in their conference speeches.
That's all a matter of perspective and judgement.
I'm sure there will be some in the Police who regard your criticism of them as 'vacuous and content-free rubbish' too.
Either it is OK to criticise others, or it is not. As a fervent believer in free speech and someone who believes more is achieved by shining a light than hiding in darkness I think criticism can be a very good thing. But you're trying to have it both ways.
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
It does rather clash with the frequent "Sweden didn't have a lockdown" cry.
This very much suggests we are shutting down entire regions, and ruining their economies, to defend the health of kids who will never get sick
No it does not. That is a significant rise in the orange graph and the escalating case numbers in hospital are not kids.
If the orange graph was a flat line you'd be right. It isn't.
And it would also need for students to be all-but-immune to the virus, as well.
People have segued straight from “less likely to get so ill they’d need hospital treatment and far more likely to recover if they do, but can end up with long-term issues” to “it does nothing to them.”
Is it a case of really wanting that to be true? Because I can fully understand that - my second daughter is a first year student right now. But wanting it to be true doesn’t change that most students who catch it get ill and some less lucky ones will end up in hospital, and quite a few will have issues lasting a long time.
Looking at the regional admissions figures, it does look as if it breaks through to an older population in time, following on from the students.
Why do we think there was no stand out epidemic amongst students first time around?
How about this. First time round university students were in the middle of their (final) term (of the year). There wasn't necessarily a route for significant base infection of the population, and at the end of the year many students are spending their time in established social groups.
Second time around thousands of students descended on the campuses from all over the country - some with high areas of infection and some not. In the first weeks there is widespread mixing in large groups as students get to meet their new compatriots in student domitories and on courses. This is some of the most cramped and overcrowded accommodation in the country. There was nothing to resist the spread.
And... first time around there was zero testing. So it may well have been all over campuses and the question is based on a false premise.
Good thinking. The former is probably the nub of it. Back then, the virus was seeded by people coming from abroad, being leisure and business travellers, who didn't have a lot of interaction with students who were away at their studies, and the students themselves were in established social groups at uni.
So it wasn't until the summer holidays that students picked up infections from their families, non uni friends and non uni social places. Now, with the added dimension of a cohort of new students from all over, it is spreading through unis quite rapidly.
It does however follow from the first conclusion that the epidemics within unis - which isn't likely to be throwing up much medical workload given their minimal age-related risk of serious illness - presents a relatively low risk to the rest of the community, provided it burns out well before they all come home for Xmas.
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
Yup. Even at the very height of our lockdown I was going out for a run several times a day, to the shops etc. Not a lockdown
The attack on lawyers, growing in volume, is in part desperation as well as ignorance. Even most MPs, dim though some are, realise that the legal system as a whole puts into effect what parliament has sanctioned, provided for or compelled. Attacks on 'activist' lawyers are of course attacks on the rule of law, parliamentary democracy and the judiciary. The PM and Home Secretary joining in is a sign of desperation about their own competence and ability to cope.
As to the poor old voter, I can't be the only moderate liberal minded centrist who usually votes Tory because all the alternatives are worse who is hoping that SKS can quietly purge his abysmal party and offer us something which would be recognisable to Roy Jenkins and Lord Clarke as a government.
There is a degree of desperation in using lawyers as aunt sally's but the desperation is real. The asylum system is a total disaster and has been for decades. Many, many tens of thousands of people have had their applications for leave to remain refused but they are still here. Many are so here for so long that they acquire rights to family life, children born in this country etc all of which make enforcement more complicated and invites further court intervention and the wasting of more public money. This is not the fault of the lawyers, they are doing their job, it is the fault of a massively under-resourced and ineffective system.
This was the deeply unsatisfactory picture at the beginning of this year. God knows what it is like after months of Immigration Tribunals either not operating at all or with very restricted capacity. The reality is that hundreds of thousands of people who came here on student or holiday visas and overstayed, economic migrants and ineligible claims (because we weren't their first safe country, for example) are never going to be removed. Never.
A system that has never coped has totally buckled. Wide spread amnesties, (eg an amnesty for all those who have been here more than 5 years already) is the only answer but politically difficult. Of course very much the same applies to summary crime. Tens of thousands of cases are just never going to be dealt with.
100% agree.
That is a very good point David and Cyclefree's piece, as usual, is also very good and very well argued (even though I may be slightly different in political stance). One thing I would add though that does not help is the activity of certain groups who will do anything they can such as disrupting flights, engaging in last minute tactics etc to stop people being deported who should be. I think there would be a lot more sympathy for many on the pro-immigration side if they showed that they realised that some people should indeed be deported. However, the face they present is that ALL deportations are wrong and that therefore ALL deportations should be stopped. I think it is that aspect which gets people's backs up.
Watched The Social Dilemma last night on Netflix. Very interesting to hear from many people previously involved apparently at high levels in social media companies somewhat apocalyptic analysis of how dangerous social media is for society.
It also made me think that political ads on social media should be banned. The lack of transparency with targeted ads is a problem. Everyone sees the same advert on TV, everyone sees different ads on Facebook. This might not matter much when the ads are for toothpaste, but for political parties we all might vote for it seems very dangerous.
Imagine if you wanted to read a party's manifesto (which few people do), and on the internet you would be taken to a different manifesto for the same party, depending on who you are and your web history.
This is a key point. In the past the universality of political ads and PPBs etc allowed for challenge. Political ads on social media are like a highly advanced version of the targeted local leaflet.
Agreed. It needs to be exposed when it happens, but that's difficult, since it needs different people to download "their" versions of the ad, and someone to sit through all the versions comparing them. It tends to come out after elections, when people gloat about how clever they were (even in in-party strife, as when officials supposedly delivered one ad to a small circle around the leadership and different ads to the wider public), but 5 years later people forget.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
So, my thoughts on the L3 list. This may not exactly match Malmesbury's list of the highest infection rates, but rather reflects places where high infection rates are diffuse across a borough - so community rather than university.
Liverpool, St Helens, Knowsley, Halton, Wigan, Manchester, Rochdale, Burnley, Pendle, Bradford, Sheffield and Nottingham.
Mood music from the government seems to be touring Liverpool region only, so first four plus Sefton and Wirral.
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
Describing a non-lockdown as a lockdown allows people to claim that a lockdown doesn't work.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse of human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and say they will do something about it. It's not personal.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
The American Police claimed - and the American legal system agreed with the Police - that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was "the Police doing their job properly".
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
With all due respect, what a load of tosh. You can't seriously believe that whether, say, a doctor, a bricklayer or a teacher does their job properly is "entirely subjective". I despair.
Attempts to define non-subjective criteria for doctors and teachers have been heavily criticised for not taking into account fundamental aspects of what they do.
As to bricklayers - perhaps easier to set targets, but even then simple targets and metrics don't work.
Big G is to neutral objectivity, what Donald Trump is to quiet, dignified leadership.
I am not neutral.
I am a conservative member and support the conservative government
No matter how useless and evil they are ? Tories are a cult.
Oh the irony. SNP support is by far the most cultish support of any political party in the UK today. Willing to excuse anything for the cause of independence.
Always good to know in advance whether it's going to be an EssEnnPee Civil War day or an EssEnnPee Ovine Cult day.
I'm still working through Sturgeon must resign because she covered up for Salmond whilst at the same time letting the investigation of Salmond proceed whilst at the same time forcing people to investigate Salmond which she covered up.
It's not quite at the "secret Covid deaths that are announced daily and discussed" but it is in the vicinity
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
The word is seriously misused and not understood, I do think the UK is going in the wrong direction in terms of its restrictions. Only those enforceable should be legal requirements, to gain acceptance they need to be reasonable and not remove freedoms unnecessarily, the solution to the 10 pm crowds was to extend opening times with full enforcement inside restaurants and bars to spread the leaving times.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
You clearly have not understood the article at all. Criticism on the basis of facts is welcome and desirable. Such facts as the Home Secretary put forward in her conference speech were untrue. That is not criticism. It is rabble rousing and can have adverse consequences for people put in danger by it.
Lord Sumption, for instance, criticises how some aspects of the law have developed in his Reith Lectures. Very cogently and persuasively too. And I agree with some of what he says. Law can often fill the space where politics ought to be and that can be dangerous for the health of a democracy.
There is a big difference between that and the vacuous content-free rubbish Patel and Johnson were saying in their conference speeches.
That's all a matter of perspective and judgement.
I'm sure there will be some in the Police who regard your criticism of them as 'vacuous and content-free rubbish' too.
Either it is OK to criticise others, or it is not. As a fervent believer in free speech and someone who believes more is achieved by shining a light than hiding in darkness I think criticism can be a very good thing. But you're trying to have it both ways.
Its entirely subjective. I'm sure you believe in what you're writing - and I suspect Patel believes in what she's saying too. I'm equally certain that just as you disagree with Patel there will be many within the Police who disagree with what you wrote and consider it to be vacuous or a distortion etc
Yet one is apparently reasonable and the other is beyond the pale? I'm sorry but its hypocrisy. You are entirely within your rights to criticise the Police. Others are entirely within their rights to criticise activist lawyers.
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
The American Police claimed - and the American legal system agreed with the Police - that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was "the Police doing their job properly".
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
With all due respect, what a load of tosh. You can't seriously believe that whether, say, a doctor, a bricklayer or a teacher does their job properly is "entirely subjective". I despair.
Philip has gone a-Roveing ? "...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do..."
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse of human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and say they will do something about it. It's not personal.
"abuse of human rights laws"
You mean using the laws that exist to support their cases. The fact that you call them "laws" torpedoes your argument.
If we don't like the laws then there is an easy mechanism to change them - vote in a government which promises to do so.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
It isn't. Generalised criticism of a profession is ludicrous. Specific criticisms are relevant and testable. Lawyers who break rules get struck and or disbarred. police have procedures too for dealing with bad apples.
Quite a bit of rational criticism of police officers is when they appear to exceed their powers. Like telling people they are committing an offence by going to the park and sitting down during lockdown (so it is said).
Rational criticism of solicitors occurs for example when (as occasionally happens) they mix up client account money with their own and disappear.
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
It does rather clash with the frequent "Sweden didn't have a lockdown" cry.
Sweden is actually the country that was closest to the UK lockdown. Almost everywhere else was a lot stricter, especially in April.
For many of us, the ending of the lockdown simply meant a couple of months that we could exercise outside in household groups and didn't need permission to leave the house - but with a hard 10pm curfew and almost everything still shut.
Ironically, those countries who went down that route mostly have it easier now, my own example of the UAE running at 1,000 cases a day (6,000 UK equivalent) and steady for a few weeks, with most places except nightclubs now open with distancing rules, masks compulsory outside the home except in restaurants.
It's a crap time to be any government right now but ,watching from outside, some of the hyperbolic language being used by politicians and especially journalists is really annoying. Closing the pubs early really isn't the end of the world or the start of a massive mental health crisis - and while financial support can always be higher, the UK government has provided a lot more than the vast majority of countries.
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse if human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and day they will do something about it. It's not personal.
I can recall when Michael Howard was roundly condemned for "over turning the law" on immigration.
What was happening was that, as part of deportation cases, the defending lawyer(s) would cliam that country X was a dangerous hell hole. A detailed report was then required - which was only usable for that case.
What Howard did was to get the rules changed so that a report on country X was valid for a period of time - it could be reused. Unless evidence was bought that conditions in the country had changed - change of government etc.
This destroyed overnight a favourite delaying tactic in such cases.
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
Describing a non-lockdown as a lockdown allows people to claim that a lockdown doesn't work.
It was never an offence to leave your house as such. There were always grounds upon which you could leave. These were always wide enough to allow a decent amount of leeway if you read them carefully.
This very much suggests we are shutting down entire regions, and ruining their economies, to defend the health of kids who will never get sick
No it does not. That is a significant rise in the orange graph and the escalating case numbers in hospital are not kids.
If the orange graph was a flat line you'd be right. It isn't.
And it would also need for students to be all-but-immune to the virus, as well.
People have segued straight from “less likely to get so ill they’d need hospital treatment and far more likely to recover if they do, but can end up with long-term issues” to “it does nothing to them.”
Is it a case of really wanting that to be true? Because I can fully understand that - my second daughter is a first year student right now. But wanting it to be true doesn’t change that most students who catch it get ill and some less lucky ones will end up in hospital, and quite a few will have issues lasting a long time.
Looking at the regional admissions figures, it does look as if it breaks through to an older population in time, following on from the students.
Why do we think there was no stand out epidemic amongst students first time around?
How about this. First time round university students were in the middle of their (final) term (of the year). There wasn't necessarily a route for significant base infection of the population, and at the end of the year many students are spending their time in established social groups.
Second time around thousands of students descended on the campuses from all over the country - some with high areas of infection and some not. In the first weeks there is widespread mixing in large groups as students get to meet their new compatriots in student domitories and on courses. This is some of the most cramped and overcrowded accommodation in the country. There was nothing to resist the spread.
And... first time around there was zero testing. So it may well have been all over campuses and the question is based on a false premise.
Good thinking. The former is probably the nub of it. Back then, the virus was seeded by people coming from abroad, being leisure and business travellers, who didn't have a lot of interaction with students who were away at their studies, and the students themselves were in established social groups at uni.
So it wasn't until the summer holidays that students picked up infections from their families, non uni friends and non uni social places. Now, with the added dimension of a cohort of new students from all over, it is spreading through unis quite rapidly.
It does however follow from the first conclusion that the epidemics within unis - which isn't likely to be throwing up much medical workload given their minimal age-related risk of serious illness - presents a relatively low risk to the rest of the community, provided it burns out well before they all come home for Xmas.
It has to be said that the orange community line: 6600x100, represents around ten times as many cases as the blue university line: 100x700.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
You clearly have not understood the article at all. Criticism on the basis of facts is welcome and desirable. Such facts as the Home Secretary put forward in her conference speech were untrue. That is not criticism. It is rabble rousing and can have adverse consequences for people put in danger by it.
Lord Sumption, for instance, criticises how some aspects of the law have developed in his Reith Lectures. Very cogently and persuasively too. And I agree with some of what he says. Law can often fill the space where politics ought to be and that can be dangerous for the health of a democracy.
There is a big difference between that and the vacuous content-free rubbish Patel and Johnson were saying in their conference speeches.
Either it is OK to criticise others, or it is not. As a fervent believer in free speech and someone who believes more is achieved by shining a light than hiding in darkness I think criticism can be a very good thing.
It is awfully selfless of you to give PB'ers so much material to practice on.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
The American Police claimed - and the American legal system agreed with the Police - that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was "the Police doing their job properly".
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
With all due respect, what a load of tosh. You can't seriously believe that whether, say, a doctor, a bricklayer or a teacher does their job properly is "entirely subjective". I despair.
When it comes to political debate absolutely you can.
Was the shooting of Breonna Taylor "objectively" "the Police doing their job properly" or not? The grand jury said it was, that was a legal judgement, but I disagree - do you?
Irrelevant, because what you are disagreeing about are objective questions about what the police did and how that fits with the laws and rules to which they were subject. It isn't about how you or the jury feel about the whole thing. The argument is about the police being criticised for doing their job properly. The jury says they did it properly, and you are criticising them for doing it improperly, so how is this relevant to criticism of them for doing their job properly?
So people are still describing a situation where pubs close at 10pm and don't serve drinks without food as a "Lockdown".
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
It does rather clash with the frequent "Sweden didn't have a lockdown" cry.
Sweden is actually the country that was closest to the UK lockdown. Almost everywhere else was a lot stricter, especially in April.
For many of us, the ending of the lockdown simply meant a couple of months that we could exercise outside in household groups and didn't need permission to leave the house - but with a hard 10pm curfew and almost everything still shut.
Ironically, those countries who went down that route mostly have it easier now, my own example of the UAE running at 1,000 cases a day (6,000 UK equivalent) and steady for a few weeks, with most places except nightclubs now open with distancing rules, masks compulsory outside the home except in restaurants.
It's a crap time to be any government right now but ,watching from outside, some of the hyperbolic language being used by politicians and especially journalists is really annoying. Closing the pubs early really isn't the end of the world or the start of a massive mental health crisis - and while financial support can always be higher, the UK government has provided a lot more than the vast majority of countries.
The biggest effect in the UK came from everywhere being shut and hence there was nowhere to go.
Watched The Social Dilemma last night on Netflix. Very interesting to hear from many people previously involved apparently at high levels in social media companies somewhat apocalyptic analysis of how dangerous social media is for society.
It also made me think that political ads on social media should be banned. The lack of transparency with targeted ads is a problem. Everyone sees the same advert on TV, everyone sees different ads on Facebook. This might not matter much when the ads are for toothpaste, but for political parties we all might vote for it seems very dangerous.
Imagine if you wanted to read a party's manifesto (which few people do), and on the internet you would be taken to a different manifesto for the same party, depending on who you are and your web history.
Everyone should watch The Social Dilemma, and then get rid of Facebook and Twitter from their phones. It's addictive by design, you are the product and the social media companies make more money the angrier you get.
It's only now we are edging damn close to a civil war in the US, that people are finally starting to own up to the monsters they helped create.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse of human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and say they will do something about it. It's not personal.
"abuse of human rights laws"
You mean using the laws that exist to support their cases. The fact that you call them "laws" torpedoes your argument.
If we don't like the laws then there is an easy mechanism to change them - vote in a government which promises to do so.
The spirit of human rights laws was never intended to protect criminals from facing justice. It's an abuse to use them in that manner.
Though I agree with your sentiment and isn't that what the government is proposing to do? Change the law and close the loopholes. It still doesn't mean lawyers should be some kind of protected class free from criticism. If anything as people who play such a critical role in UK life they should accept or answer it not try and shut it down.
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
I was astonished that I can't find a graph showing some kind of estimate of GDP allocated by sector through the 19th cent. Obviously, much of the required data for high accuracy is missing. But we should have something...
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse of human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and say they will do something about it. It's not personal.
"abuse of human rights laws"
You mean using the laws that exist to support their cases. The fact that you call them "laws" torpedoes your argument.
If we don't like the laws then there is an easy mechanism to change them - vote in a government which promises to do so.
The spirit of human rights laws was never intended to protect criminals from facing justice. It's an abuse to use them in that manner.
Though I agree with your sentiment and isn't that what the government is proposing to do? Change the law and close the loopholes. It still doesn't mean lawyers should be some kind of protected class free from criticism. If anything as people who play such a critical role in UK life they should accept or answer it not try and shut it down.
Oh the "spirit" of the law. I don't think it's reasonable to hope that people will interpret that spirit in the same way. The law is the law (IANAL) and it is any lawyer's job to position their arguments in accordance with it.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Lawyers are being criticised for doing their job properly. I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
The American Police claimed - and the American legal system agreed with the Police - that the shooting of Breonna Taylor was "the Police doing their job properly".
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
With all due respect, what a load of tosh. You can't seriously believe that whether, say, a doctor, a bricklayer or a teacher does their job properly is "entirely subjective". I despair.
Philip has gone a-Roveing ? "...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do..."
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse if human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and day they will do something about it. It's not personal.
I can recall when Michael Howard was roundly condemned for "over turning the law" on immigration.
What was happening was that, as part of deportation cases, the defending lawyer(s) would cliam that country X was a dangerous hell hole. A detailed report was then required - which was only usable for that case.
What Howard did was to get the rules changed so that a report on country X was valid for a period of time - it could be reused. Unless evidence was bought that conditions in the country had changed - change of government etc.
This destroyed overnight a favourite delaying tactic in such cases.
Who was in the right?
And we're in the same situation now, an elected politician is changing the law to make life more difficult for those lawyers the public loves to hate. This special pleading is them protecting their business model from a government with a large majority and wide public support to reform the immigration system and make it much easier to deport criminals, overstayers and failed asylum seekers.
There's not a lot else to it, the righteous indignation from Cyclefree is unwarranted. No one should be free from criticism, in the height of the financial crisis politicians were happy to criticise bankers at every opportunity. I'm sure the bankers felt as though they were also being unfairly targeted.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination....
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
I always think that it's quite revealing when people use a phrase like "do-gooder". As if doing good is something to look down on!
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
There is surely important philosophical question there as well -- whether Britain ended slavery knowing it would take a significant economic hit for doing the right thing.
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse if human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and day they will do something about it. It's not personal.
I can recall when Michael Howard was roundly condemned for "over turning the law" on immigration.
What was happening was that, as part of deportation cases, the defending lawyer(s) would cliam that country X was a dangerous hell hole. A detailed report was then required - which was only usable for that case.
What Howard did was to get the rules changed so that a report on country X was valid for a period of time - it could be reused. Unless evidence was bought that conditions in the country had changed - change of government etc.
This destroyed overnight a favourite delaying tactic in such cases.
Who was in the right?
And we're in the same situation now, an elected politician is changing the law to make life more difficult for those lawyers the public loves to hate. This special pleading is them protecting their business model from a government with a large majority and wide public support to reform the immigration system and make it much easier to deport criminals, overstayers and failed asylum seekers.
There's not a lot else to it, the righteous indignation from Cyclefree is unwarranted. No one should be free from criticism, in the height of the financial crisis politicians were happy to criticise bankers at every opportunity. I'm sure the bankers felt as though they were also being unfairly targeted.
The lawyers are being criticised for applying the law.
Once you include the 6% for Traditional Unionist Voice though Unionists will still have more Assembly seats than Nationalists as Stormont uses STV not FPTP, overall the Unionist vote is on 41% and the Nationalist vote on 37% with the Alliance on 16%
If you add alliance and SDLP to the SF alphabet soup, you are over the 50% for the Nationalists. Now I accept that is a more than spurious statement, but then so is yours.
What an absurd statement, only 30% of Alliance voters back a united Ireland compared to 70% who support the Union.
The DUP, UUP and TUV are the main Protestant Unionist parties in NI however and SF and the SDLP the main Catholic Nationalist parties, the Alliance is non sectarian and has both Catholic and Protestant voters but most of its vote comes from soft Unionists ie its current Westminster seat is North Down which was held by Lady Hermon until 2019 who was first elected as an Ulster Unionist.
The hypocrisy that gets to me in viewing any criticism of lawyers as beyond the pale is that certain people here are more than content to vehemently criticise not just politicians but also other individuals and institutions like the Police.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
Its not, and that's a rather desperate attempt to delegitimise criticism. Its perfectly possible as with the police to criticise lawyers and the legal system without abandoning respect for institutions, rule of law and advocate a more cautious reform where it is needed.
Its not one extreme or the other, no criticism allowed vs nothing but criticism.
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
I always think that it's quite revealing when people use a phrase like "do-gooder". As if doing good is something to look down on!
Isn't it an implicitly sarcastic term?
The implication is that those doing it claim to be "doing good" but what they're doing is not actually [in the perspective of the critic] good.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination....
To some (I'd say a large) degree they are knowingly aiding people trafficking by making it difficult or impossible to deport those who arrive illegally having paid to do so.
Immigration lawyers are the useful idiots of the system at the very least.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination....
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
I always think that it's quite revealing when people use a phrase like "do-gooder". As if doing good is something to look down on!
Isn't it an implicitly sarcastic term?
The implication is that those doing it claim to be "doing good" but what they're doing is not actually [in the perspective of the critic] good.
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
I think this is a fair point. Someone who does good thing has always been different to a do gooder, which implies things around motivation. Same way a goody two shoes is a criticism.
In each case it might be an unfairly critical label depending on target, but the term is only meant critically as we don't refer to people thst way when praising them.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse if human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and day they will do something about it. It's not personal.
I can recall when Michael Howard was roundly condemned for "over turning the law" on immigration.
What was happening was that, as part of deportation cases, the defending lawyer(s) would cliam that country X was a dangerous hell hole. A detailed report was then required - which was only usable for that case.
What Howard did was to get the rules changed so that a report on country X was valid for a period of time - it could be reused. Unless evidence was bought that conditions in the country had changed - change of government etc.
This destroyed overnight a favourite delaying tactic in such cases.
Who was in the right?
And we're in the same situation now, an elected politician is changing the law to make life more difficult for those lawyers the public loves to hate. This special pleading is them protecting their business model from a government with a large majority and wide public support to reform the immigration system and make it much easier to deport criminals, overstayers and failed asylum seekers.
There's not a lot else to it, the righteous indignation from Cyclefree is unwarranted. No one should be free from criticism, in the height of the financial crisis politicians were happy to criticise bankers at every opportunity. I'm sure the bankers felt as though they were also being unfairly targeted.
Two other examples, I can think of
- A large amount of effort was put into making large fraud trials impossible - by developing legal precedent and theory. At one stage, a few years back, it was basically impossible to get a conviction, provided the criminals were moderately clever and employed suitably skill representation. International frauds were engineered so that the UK would be prosecuting country, if any, to take advantage of this.
- A great deal of work was put into making the evidence of criminals against each other hard to use for prosecutions. This had the interesting result, in the mainland UK, that police used such information to ambush gangs of armed robbers at their targets.. since prosecuting their intent based on super grass testimony wouldn't work. This, perhaps ironically, led to the rapid extinction of armed robbery as a major* crime in the UK. In NI this led similar behaviour, directed against PIRA, largely.
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
I always think that it's quite revealing when people use a phrase like "do-gooder". As if doing good is something to look down on!
Isn't it an implicitly sarcastic term?
The implication is that those doing it claim to be "doing good" but what they're doing is not actually [in the perspective of the critic] good.
There is no such thing as objective good or bad.
Yeah well that's like just your opinion, man.
Not just my opinion.
It is the opinion of many philosophers for thousands of years.
Seems Guy Ritchie is trying to overcome his posho upbringing by single-handedly trying to normalise the use of the "c" word in films.
It was like a 2hr therapy session for him but did pass the time.
Since you can now say shit on prime time tv and racist foul language is right out except in specific contexts there are few options left for shocking profanity to show you are gritty. Quim just doesn't get the job done.
Hmm, I wonder whether the same "mustn't criticise lawyers" extends to tax specialists who get their multinational corporation clients off billions in tax.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination....
Great header. Nothing worse than softhead bigotry being embraced by government to pander to softhead bigots. That they owe their majority to such people is no excuse.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
I was astonished that I can't find a graph showing some kind of estimate of GDP allocated by sector through the 19th cent. Obviously, much of the required data for high accuracy is missing. But we should have something...
Is it my imagination or is there a vast increase in every fcuker and their aunty with an arguable expertise in one area believing that they're eminently qualified to pronounce on all sorts of shit? (dangerous observation for PB I accept)
Language is important and no-one should either be or feel threatened. However, the existing asylum system is widely abused and full of loopholes. Far too many in the legal profession seem sanguine about this and are as quick to defend themselves as they are criticise those in the general public who object to this.
So, at present, it's ending up as a plague on both your houses. As with so many issues around asylum/immigration there is no real sensible conversation going on.
Great post. Something poisonous seems to have infected this government, a kind of unfettered lust for raw power that can brook no compromise or checks and balances. It really scares me.
Statchoos are important to the type of person that drives a P reg Rover 100 with an odd coloured door. ie the new core tory vote.
Down with all reminders of racial oppression and the use of slave labour! Away with them forever!
Signed
A Porsche driver
Have you got your test result yet?
My wife and I were talking about this a few days ago; so far as we know no-one in our families received reparations for freed slaves. However, we have no idea whether any of our ancestors were sailors on the ships which carried the poor souls across the Atlantic, and my wife's family, as cotton mill workers, undoubtedly benefited from being able to work with the cheap cotton the South produced, although some were probably among the Lancashire people who, at personal hardship, supported the Ant-Slavery side in the American Civil War. So it's complicated.
Not yet, but not been 24 hours yet
Very good point. There can't be a white Englishman alive without an ancestor who made a living out of the slave trade one way or another. What I'd like to see rather than twattery over statues is some serious economic history - slavery and ancillary activities as a % of GDP and overseas trade, 1600-1850, which I expect would expose the UK as a slaving nation like Saudi Arabia is an oil nation, rather than a lot of lovely blokes with a few bad tory slave-trader eggs getting statues made of themselves.
Didn't know about those Lancastrians. I am from there myself so will claim them as forebears from now on.
Thanks. Agree, although incidentally I describe myself as 'British', the majority of my DNA being Welsh. The rest is a 'right mix'; mostly English, but some Scots, Irish, even a bit of Swedish!
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows: 'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
I haven't seen a good academic quality study of the proportion of GDP etc involved in slavery, in the UK. It would make an interesting study. And probably a thick book.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
There are at least two PhD's theses in there for someone. Almost certainly more. Probably keep a professor in tenure for life, with a constant stream of students. And think of the extra income from newspaper articles, TV appearances and so on.
There is surely important philosophical question there as well -- whether Britain ended slavery knowing it would take a significant economic hit for doing the right thing.
More theses and another Professor tenured for life!
On cyclefree on the words of Johnson and Patel: It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them. Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
Politicians aren't redefining "do-gooder" as scornful, it is the definition of the term.
I always think that it's quite revealing when people use a phrase like "do-gooder". As if doing good is something to look down on!
I think there's a sort of person who is interested in doing good to people rather than doing good for people and had thought that the term "do-gooder" was one way to talk about one rather than the other.
I don't see this being a distinction that applies in this case. I rather imagine that, on the whole, the refugees concerned feel that good is being done for them by immigration lawyers, rather than to them - although, of course, society as a whole may have a different view as to whether a good is achieved.
However, the Conservatives have spent more than a decade in government. None of their home secretaries have been particularly welcoming to refugees. Why have they not changed the law?
It looks like just an ugly clap line that further erodes trust in the rule of law.
Comments
It also made me think that political ads on social media should be banned. The lack of transparency with targeted ads is a problem. Everyone sees the same advert on TV, everyone sees different ads on Facebook. This might not matter much when the ads are for toothpaste, but for political parties we all might vote for it seems very dangerous.
Imagine if you wanted to read a party's manifesto (which few people do), and on the internet you would be taken to a different manifesto for the same party, depending on who you are and your web history.
Second time around thousands of students descended on the campuses from all over the country - some with high areas of infection and some not. In the first weeks there is widespread mixing in large groups as students get to meet their new compatriots in student domitories and on courses. This is some of the most cramped and overcrowded accommodation in the country. There was nothing to resist the spread.
And... first time around there was zero testing. So it may well have been all over campuses and the question is based on a false premise.
That said, it may only be a lull for York or the Southern universities - I note 82 cases in the 'university' neighbourhood in York, so there's now around 1000 per 100k infection rate in that neighbourhood.
Something like this, say, won't cause any alarms or hospital overload:
It's not as though it would cause hospitalisation rates to soar.
(blue bars actual daily figures for England; red line 7-day average for England).
Because that would cause serious consternation around Government and the imposition of fresh restrictions.
Why is it fair game to attack the Police, but to criticise lawyers is beyond the pale?
So, looking at the "Cases by Specimen Date" data, the 7-day average reached a minimum on 1st July, and has been rising since then. Now doesn't that coincide with the reopening of pubs?
One wonders why the Home Secretary did not boast about this in her conference speech. I mean this is what she wants, isn’t it?
COVID-19 Long-Acting AntiBody (LAAB) combination AZD7442 rapidly advances into Phase III clinical trials
https://www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2020/covid-19-long-acting-antibody-laab-combination-azd7442-rapidly-advances-into-phase-iii-clinical-trials.html
Online papers and targeted ads and the like promote bubbles.
It's why mainstream news, including news channels, are so important. They've a critical role to play, and declining confidence in them often for legitimate reasons, is cause for concern.
The Tories are casting around for a new target for their culture war. They sense Starmer may be vulnerable as a former human rights lawyer. Lawyers are not well-loved.
Critics of Starmer understandably want him to criticize the government's lies. But I suspect this is one of those cases where it would be smart for Labour to stick to platitudes and say as little as possible.
It's a tricky one though. At some point, Labour's reluctance to engage on a lose-lose issue becomes complicity.
So I'm not a hypocrite. I am more than content to be an "equal opportunities" critic. Some here are just as vocal as me in criticising the Police but are horrified by any criticism of lawyers - what makes lawyers so special that they can criticise others but can't be criticised in return?
It comes across rather "snowflake" like.
Lord Sumption, for instance, criticises how some aspects of the law have developed in his Reith Lectures. Very cogently and persuasively too. And I agree with some of what he says. Law can often fill the space where politics ought to be and that can be dangerous for the health of a democracy.
There is a big difference between that and the vacuous content-free rubbish Patel and Johnson were saying in their conference speeches.
I've never seen the police criticised for doing their job properly.
Bye!
I'm sure there will be some in the Police who regard your criticism of them as 'vacuous and content-free rubbish' too.
Either it is OK to criticise others, or it is not. As a fervent believer in free speech and someone who believes more is achieved by shining a light than hiding in darkness I think criticism can be a very good thing. But you're trying to have it both ways.
It's specifically the Home Secretary criticising lawyers for doing their job.
Ignore.
--AS
I don't agree. Do you? Whether someone is doing their job properly or not is entirely subjective.
On the Lancastrian point have a look at the Revealing Histories site. There's a section on Rochdale, my wife's home town, as follows:
'The area was also graciously recognised for its support in the liberation struggle against slavery, when cotton workers in Rochdale mills refused to handle slave-grown cotton in support for the blockade of the southern states cotton exports. During the cotton famine (1862-3), the people of Lancashire received donations of food carried from the USA by the ship George Griswold, specially donated by President Lincoln. One of these barrels (the only remaining one) is now on display at Touchstones Rochdale.'
There are similar entries for Manchester etc.
A lockdown is when all but key workers are fined if they leave their houses, and people need prior permission from the police to go out to the grocery or pharmacy. That's what I had for three weeks in April, as did billions of people in many other countries. The UK restrictions were not even close to a lockdown back then, and are miles away from anything that's being announced today.
The issue that the majority of that 86% go on to develop symptoms later (so were presymptomatic rather than asymptomatic) gets ignored in the eagerness to believe it's harmless.
(Only 20% remained asymptomatic in studies)
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/938195
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/20-percent-of-people-with-covid-19-are-asymptomatic-but-can-spread-the-disease#COVID-19-can-have-hidden-symptoms
Was the shooting of Breonna Taylor "objectively" "the Police doing their job properly" or not? The grand jury said it was, that was a legal judgement, but I disagree - do you?
Content free?
So it wasn't until the summer holidays that students picked up infections from their families, non uni friends and non uni social places. Now, with the added dimension of a cohort of new students from all over, it is spreading through unis quite rapidly.
It does however follow from the first conclusion that the epidemics within unis - which isn't likely to be throwing up much medical workload given their minimal age-related risk of serious illness - presents a relatively low risk to the rest of the community, provided it burns out well before they all come home for Xmas.
Mind you, I am still digging around in the data to try and come up with an estimate of the peak proportion of GDP that was devoted to manufacturing in the UK. You'd think that would be a common statistic.....
Liverpool, St Helens, Knowsley, Halton, Wigan, Manchester, Rochdale, Burnley, Pendle, Bradford, Sheffield and Nottingham.
Mood music from the government seems to be touring Liverpool region only, so first four plus Sefton and Wirral.
I'm not sure that going down a road where we have protected classes or professions that can't be criticised is a desirable end destination.
Immigration lawyers knowingly represent convicted criminals and block them from being deported after their conviction is spent. I find that to be deplorable because they know what the spirit of the law intends but will find loopholes to ensure their clients are able flout that and remain in the UK for a long enough period to claim a right to family life.
Yes, ultimately the law is written poorly and should be tightened significantly and human rights laws should be limited in scope within UK law so they can't be abused by these lawyers. The issue is that we need to do it because immigration lawyers are treating this like a war of attrition in the first place.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to expect politicians to not fight back against them. Politicians want to win votes, it's fairly universally recognised that immigration lawyers are extremely unpopular due to their abuse of human rights laws to prevent convicted criminals from being deported. I don't think it's unfair for politicians to say this and say they will do something about it. It's not personal.
As to bricklayers - perhaps easier to set targets, but even then simple targets and metrics don't work.
It's not quite at the "secret Covid deaths that are announced daily and discussed" but it is in the vicinity
Yet one is apparently reasonable and the other is beyond the pale? I'm sorry but its hypocrisy. You are entirely within your rights to criticise the Police. Others are entirely within their rights to criticise activist lawyers.
It’s interesting how, from the mouths of people in power, descriptions of people can be turned into derogatory terms for them.
Myself I favour people doing good, and I think it good that there should be lawyers with opinions left of our present government's. But if I call someone a “do-gooder” or a “lefty lawyer”, then I’ll be taken to pour scorn on them. Not wanting to pour scorn, I’m prevented from speaking freely.
"...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do..."
You mean using the laws that exist to support their cases. The fact that you call them "laws" torpedoes your argument.
If we don't like the laws then there is an easy mechanism to change them - vote in a government which promises to do so.
Quite a bit of rational criticism of police officers is when they appear to exceed their powers. Like telling people they are committing an offence by going to the park and sitting down during lockdown (so it is said).
Rational criticism of solicitors occurs for example when (as occasionally happens) they mix up client account money with their own and disappear.
For many of us, the ending of the lockdown simply meant a couple of months that we could exercise outside in household groups and didn't need permission to leave the house - but with a hard 10pm curfew and almost everything still shut.
Ironically, those countries who went down that route mostly have it easier now, my own example of the UAE running at 1,000 cases a day (6,000 UK equivalent) and steady for a few weeks, with most places except nightclubs now open with distancing rules, masks compulsory outside the home except in restaurants.
It's a crap time to be any government right now but ,watching from outside, some of the hyperbolic language being used by politicians and especially journalists is really annoying. Closing the pubs early really isn't the end of the world or the start of a massive mental health crisis - and while financial support can always be higher, the UK government has provided a lot more than the vast majority of countries.
What was happening was that, as part of deportation cases, the defending lawyer(s) would cliam that country X was a dangerous hell hole. A detailed report was then required - which was only usable for that case.
What Howard did was to get the rules changed so that a report on country X was valid for a period of time - it could be reused. Unless evidence was bought that conditions in the country had changed - change of government etc.
This destroyed overnight a favourite delaying tactic in such cases.
Who was in the right?
Seems Guy Ritchie is trying to overcome his posho upbringing by single-handedly trying to normalise the use of the "c" word in films.
It was like a 2hr therapy session for him but did pass the time.
It's only now we are edging damn close to a civil war in the US, that people are finally starting to own up to the monsters they helped create.
Though I agree with your sentiment and isn't that what the government is proposing to do? Change the law and close the loopholes. It still doesn't mean lawyers should be some kind of protected class free from criticism. If anything as people who play such a critical role in UK life they should accept or answer it not try and shut it down.
"Man is the measure of all things"
There's not a lot else to it, the righteous indignation from Cyclefree is unwarranted. No one should be free from criticism, in the height of the financial crisis politicians were happy to criticise bankers at every opportunity. I'm sure the bankers felt as though they were also being unfairly targeted.
What is at issue is the Home Secretary's use of words (which have tended to consist of derogatory epithets rather than arguments) on a charged issue much of her own making.
She directly conflated immigration lawyers with people traffickers.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/10/she-sneers-at-do-gooders-but-priti-patel-has-power-to-do-bad-shes-using-it
Is that really acceptable criticism from a senior minister ?
The DUP, UUP and TUV are the main Protestant Unionist parties in NI however and SF and the SDLP the main Catholic Nationalist parties, the Alliance is non sectarian and has both Catholic and Protestant voters but most of its vote comes from soft Unionists ie its current Westminster seat is North Down which was held by Lady Hermon until 2019 who was first elected as an Ulster Unionist.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/just-29-in-northern-ireland-would-vote-for-unity-major-study-reveals-38966196.html
Its not one extreme or the other, no criticism allowed vs nothing but criticism.
The implication is that those doing it claim to be "doing good" but what they're doing is not actually [in the perspective of the critic] good.
There is no such thing as objective good or bad.
Immigration lawyers are the useful idiots of the system at the very least.
In each case it might be an unfairly critical label depending on target, but the term is only meant critically as we don't refer to people thst way when praising them.
So this one really isn't on politicians
- A large amount of effort was put into making large fraud trials impossible - by developing legal precedent and theory. At one stage, a few years back, it was basically impossible to get a conviction, provided the criminals were moderately clever and employed suitably skill representation. International frauds were engineered so that the UK would be prosecuting country, if any, to take advantage of this.
- A great deal of work was put into making the evidence of criminals against each other hard to use for prosecutions. This had the interesting result, in the mainland UK, that police used such information to ambush gangs of armed robbers at their targets.. since prosecuting their intent based on super grass testimony wouldn't work. This, perhaps ironically, led to the rapid extinction of armed robbery as a major* crime in the UK. In NI this led similar behaviour, directed against PIRA, largely.
It is the opinion of many philosophers for thousands of years.
Great header. Nothing worse than softhead bigotry being embraced by government to pander to softhead bigots. That they owe their majority to such people is no excuse.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/statistics/research-datasets/a-millennium-of-macroeconomic-data-for-the-uk.xlsx (28Mb)
https://twitter.com/DonalkCoffey/status/1315506002951835648?s=20
Is it my imagination or is there a vast increase in every fcuker and their aunty with an arguable expertise in one area believing that they're eminently qualified to pronounce on all sorts of shit?
(dangerous observation for PB I accept)
So, at present, it's ending up as a plague on both your houses. As with so many issues around asylum/immigration there is no real sensible conversation going on.
I don't see this being a distinction that applies in this case. I rather imagine that, on the whole, the refugees concerned feel that good is being done for them by immigration lawyers, rather than to them - although, of course, society as a whole may have a different view as to whether a good is achieved.
However, the Conservatives have spent more than a decade in government. None of their home secretaries have been particularly welcoming to refugees. Why have they not changed the law?
It looks like just an ugly clap line that further erodes trust in the rule of law.