I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
What is truly astonishing, from a UK perspective, is that Trump has received 73.8m votes, far more than any candidate in history other than Joe Biden. Trump has very few supporters on this board, @MrEd is the only one that instantly comes to mind although @HYUFD dabbled, mainly, in fairness, pointing out that his chances were better than we thought. It shows the incredible gulf between American politics and mindset and ours.
Millions of Americans clearly believe that Biden is some sort of a socialist. Other than being thick I really struggle to see any evidence for that at all in a very long career. Their definition of socialism would clearly include most of the current Tory party.
I think that it is very difficult for us to predict what these millions might do. We simply do not understand their terms of reference.
Re: HYUFD It's impossible to truly know someone's mind, but the tenor of his posts made me think he would have voted Trump. Of course, he repeatedly claimed that he would vote for Biden if he had a vote, but, in short, I didn't believe him.
I find @HYUFD to be completely honest. He will stubbornly stand by his argument no matter how irrational it may get, but many are guilty of that. Conversely he will be flexible as the Conservative party amends its position, but he is consistent in that as well even if others like me find it bizarre. Again he is not alone in doing this and is doing it honestly even though it appears contradictory.
My recommendation would be to drill into the "facts" he posts. He often posts things that seem dubious to me, and sometimes, when you find the actual data, he's spot on. But other times you find that he's distorting the truth to just about fit it so some other narrative. And when you go back to the post, you'll see his wording is so very careful as to avoid an outright lie. To me, that shows a level of dishonest presentation that clever lawyers and journalists are so skilled at. And I would argue that nobody is really capable of that level wordsmithery without also knowing that they are offering misleading impressions of the data. But, hey, don't take my word for it. Try it some time, if he's even coming back. You'll see for yourselves.
The PB equivalent of "blink" by Malcolm Gladwell - only been here a month and made a full scale psychological profile of someone who's posted for years!
Well, it isn't unusual for posters to shapeshift on here...
"Twitter is preparing to hand control of the presidential @POTUS account - currently being used by Mr Trump - to Joe Biden on inauguration day even if Mr Trump has not conceded his loss by then, a spokesman for the company is quoted as saying by Politico"
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
"Twitter is preparing to hand control of the presidential @POTUS account - currently being used by Mr Trump - to Joe Biden on inauguration day even if Mr Trump has not conceded his loss by then, a spokesman for the company is quoted as saying by Politico"
Is that really news? Surely just standard operating procedure and that POTUS guy was never as popular on the twitter machine as Trump.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
Throwing the Jimmy Savile smear is the new Hitler for some as the go to, I am pissed off with therefore I will compare to him.
It is my theory that outrageous nonsense like this drives people who have some sympathy with moderates to the extremes, although it seems the committed barely notice it as long as it's condemning the enemy. I would have thought people who have suffered at the hands of rapists and paedophiles would find Esler's remarks Priti offensive
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
You have to go back 80ish years for a double digit Dem lead.
When I was there last year I picked up that there had been a lot of overspill from DC into Northern Virginia, such that people living in the south of the state talked about the bit near Washington as if it were a different state. I guess this demographic shift has flowed through into its voting behaviour.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
Throwing the Jimmy Savile smear is the new Hitler for some as the go to, I am pissed off with therefore I will compare to him.
It is my theory that outrageous nonsense like this drives people who have some sympathy with moderates to the extremes, although it seems the committed barely notice it as long as it's condemning the enemy. I would have thought people who have suffered at the hands of rapists and paedophiles would find Esler's remarks Priti offensive
Like the US, there is now selective outrage. "Your" opponents side does something, it is the most outrageous thing ever known to man, your side does it, its like Arsene Wenger as manager as Arsenal, foul what foul, I never saw a thing.
I really like Mackay's philosophy and style - he does a terrific job there of making a dry issue very readable. But on a rapid read he doesn't actually address the main objection to tidal, which is that it's coloissally less cost-efficient in energy generaiton than almost anything else (when I last looked at the figures the ratio was something like 20:1). He's right that it would last for ages (though maintaining underwater equipment is non-trivial) and reasonable in suggesting that if we had lots then the cost would come down as technology progressed.
I'm not saying it's wrong, and I should read Mackay's piece more carefully, but that's why when I was PPS to the then Minister of Energy (Malcolm Wicks) we didn't push it. The bargain for renewable energy by a large margin is ONshore wind, and the main problem is that some people don't like to see it in the hilly places where it's most effective. I think they should get over it in the interests of the country and the planet, but that's a controversial view.
Might just be me, but I think wind turbines are a rather magnificent sight.
Are you a big fan?
Not especially, but I thought I could generate some discussion.
Yet this conversation is simply going round in circles.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I see we are back on the popular PB pastime of conducting a post-mortem on the winning candidate. Strange behaviour, really.
Not really. The winner will be around next time (or the Democrats, if Biden doesn’t run again). The loser won’t be. So the question of why the winner won more narrowly than expected has significant betting implications for the future.
Well, analysing the election certainly is worthwhile, but I was mainly referring to the sense that people were discussing what went wrong for the Biden campaign. And when you think that Biden was up against a man who is extremely skilled in hogging attention, was the incumbent, was campaigning in a weird environment where political rallies were not just a partisan affair but a public health one, whose base turned out in huge numbers, and whose party is good at extracting the most value out of the electoral system... the fact that Biden still won 306 EC votes, an outright majority of votes, and a lead of some six million votes, is really quite something.
I was struck by the comment about "reconnecting with the base". That seemed excessively strange to me, given this has been the highest turnout election since universal suffrage. For me, the question of "what went wrong for Biden?" is just weird.
Yes. Cue the old George Best joke.
This was a great achievement by Biden. Far as I'm concerned he had one job to do (remove this piece of vermin from office by beating him in the election) and he did it. It was the most important "win" in any political contest in my lifetime simply because the consequences of failure were so unspeakably dire. And Joe stepped up at the age of 78 and delivered. Delivered the win. Delivered us from evil. There'll be time enough to talk about whether he should have won bigger. How he's either a front for the left or he's sold out to centrism and corporate interests. I look forward to that. But right now I love him and it will last for some time. I feel such gratitude and affection for the guy.
The Dems will fail to learn from Biden's success by putting up a woke hand-wringer obsessed with irrelevant bollocks in 2024 and then be totally baffled when they lose the votes of blue collar workers in the rust belt.
I hope I'm wrong.
I hope you are too. Fighting the inequalities of race and class and gender shouldn't imo be mutually exclusive. With the right messaging and policies, and of course a skillful and impactful Dem candidate, I think it can all be brought together under a "New American Dream" banner. I can see this winning out easily over the reactionary bombast of the competing MAGA vision.
I really like Mackay's philosophy and style - he does a terrific job there of making a dry issue very readable. But on a rapid read he doesn't actually address the main objection to tidal, which is that it's coloissally less cost-efficient in energy generaiton than almost anything else (when I last looked at the figures the ratio was something like 20:1). He's right that it would last for ages (though maintaining underwater equipment is non-trivial) and reasonable in suggesting that if we had lots then the cost would come down as technology progressed.
I'm not saying it's wrong, and I should read Mackay's piece more carefully, but that's why when I was PPS to the then Minister of Energy (Malcolm Wicks) we didn't push it. The bargain for renewable energy by a large margin is ONshore wind, and the main problem is that some people don't like to see it in the hilly places where it's most effective. I think they should get over it in the interests of the country and the planet, but that's a controversial view.
Might just be me, but I think wind turbines are a rather magnificent sight.
In their own way. However let's be honest people value an unspoiled landscape free of human development. Now we wouldn't need to put them everywhere but then how to decide which areas they should go? The logic is endless nimbyism. Offshore wind costs have come down substantially.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
I agree it's in poor taste, but, as I said, it's not a comparison. It's just meant as an extreme example of how even people who behave terribly behind closed doors can appear pleasant and friendly to outsiders. Nobody would seriously consider that Patel's actions are in any way comparable to Saville's.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
And a very poor one because it invites the comparison and makes the point so much easier to dismiss. Patel is getting some stupid defences from various MPs (including suggesting she's done nothing wrong when she has apologised and said she's changed her ways apparently), but that doesn't make stupid attacks a good thing. IN fact it lets her off.
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
To be honest she was probably trying to compensate for having to manage civil servants who are both a lot more clever than she is and with a lifetime experience of honing their inner Sir Humphreys. Which doesn't excuse anything, of course.
That's the Home Office civil servants ?
The same Home Office which hasn't been 'fit for purpose' for over a decade ?
Odd that you are picturing the bullied to be Old White Sir Humphrys. This is extremely unlikely.Try instead picturing them as young female from an ethnic minority background who possibly care more about the treatment of refugees than their boss?
Except in this case it is an old white Sir Humphrey claiming to be bullied. It's one area I agree with Dom, we should be rid of the lot of them in the civil service and big business. That network of Oxbridge elitists has been holding this country back for decades with poor decision making and a culture of managed decline.
When I worked in the public sector I saw a fair few senior people recruited in from private sector companies, many of whom arrived with a "bish, bosh, I'll sort all this out for you" attitude, blind to the complexity of stakeholders, the politics, media and public interest, industrial relations and the rest that you don't get working for a company that makes pallets or some such. A lot of them created havoc then left, others didn't have the patience and guile for it.
All of that stuff about stakeholders, politics etc... is the problem. That is the Sir Humphrey level that needs to be gotten rid of, all of those words you've used are just roadblocks put in place by Sir Humphrey to resist change and it's little wonder that people from the private sector get exasperated by it, especially people who aren't Oxbridge chums and get patronised day in day out by the chums at the top
It’s an opinion, and I’m not saying that there isn’t some truth in what you say.
But over many years I encountered a lot of people making similar such pronouncements, and not seen many of them succeed in changing very much. In my own extremely biased opinion, I achieved a lot more change by playing the game in a determined and persistent manner.
The comparison I would draw is with Cummings, who entered government with what he thought was a clear and damning critique of where everybody before him had been going wrong, and left....well, you be the judge.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Absolutely ridiculous. You've gone off into the deepend again Southam. You ought to take a look at yourself in the mirror and have a long hard think about what it is your saying here.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
Throwing the Jimmy Savile smear is the new Hitler for some as the go to, I am pissed off with therefore I will compare to him.
It is my theory that outrageous nonsense like this drives people who have some sympathy with moderates to the extremes, although it seems the committed barely notice it as long as it's condemning the enemy. I would have thought people who have suffered at the hands of rapists and paedophiles would find Esler's remarks Priti offensive
Like the US, there is now selective outrage. "Your" opponents side does something, it is the most outrageous thing ever known to man, your side does it, its like Arsene Wenger as manager as Arsenal, foul what foul, I never saw a thing.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
"According to the Evening Standard, which says it has a tape of the incident, the new row began as Mr Livingstone left City Hall on Tuesday night, having attended the party he organised to celebrate the "coming out" of Chris Smith as Britain's first openly gay MP 20 years ago. Mr Livingstone and the newspaper have a poor relationship and its reporter was not allowed into City Hall. On being approached by Mr Finegold outside, Mr Livingstone refused to talk about the party.
Instead, referring to the Daily Mail - the Standard's sister paper - and its support for the Nazis in the 1930s, Mr Livingstone is said to have baited the reporter, asking if he was "a German war criminal".
On learning that Mr Finegold is Jewish, the mayor apparently said: "You are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?"
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Absolutely ridiculous. You've gone off into the deepend again Southam. You ought to take a look at yourself in the mirror and have a long hard think about what it is your saying here.
Why? In what way am I wrong? Maybe it's you who needs to be looking in the mirror.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Absolutely ridiculous. You've gone off into the deepend again Southam. You ought to take a look at yourself in the mirror and have a long hard think about what it is your saying here.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
And a very poor one because it invites the comparison and makes the point so much easier to dismiss. Patel is getting some stupid defences from various MPs (including suggesting she's done nothing wrong when she has apologised and said she's changed her ways apparently), but that doesn't make stupid attacks a good thing. IN fact it lets her off.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
And a very poor one because it invites the comparison and makes the point so much easier to dismiss. Patel is getting some stupid defences from various MPs (including suggesting she's done nothing wrong when she has apologised and said she's changed her ways apparently), but that doesn't make stupid attacks a good thing. IN fact it lets her off.
I see we are back on the popular PB pastime of conducting a post-mortem on the winning candidate. Strange behaviour, really.
Not really. The winner will be around next time (or the Democrats, if Biden doesn’t run again). The loser won’t be. So the question of why the winner won more narrowly than expected has significant betting implications for the future.
Well, analysing the election certainly is worthwhile, but I was mainly referring to the sense that people were discussing what went wrong for the Biden campaign. And when you think that Biden was up against a man who is extremely skilled in hogging attention, was the incumbent, was campaigning in a weird environment where political rallies were not just a partisan affair but a public health one, whose base turned out in huge numbers, and whose party is good at extracting the most value out of the electoral system... the fact that Biden still won 306 EC votes, an outright majority of votes, and a lead of some six million votes, is really quite something.
I was struck by the comment about "reconnecting with the base". That seemed excessively strange to me, given this has been the highest turnout election since universal suffrage. For me, the question of "what went wrong for Biden?" is just weird.
Yes. Cue the old George Best joke.
This was a great achievement by Biden. Far as I'm concerned he had one job to do (remove this piece of vermin from office by beating him in the election) and he did it. It was the most important "win" in any political contest in my lifetime simply because the consequences of failure were so unspeakably dire. And Joe stepped up at the age of 78 and delivered. Delivered the win. Delivered us from evil. There'll be time enough to talk about whether he should have won bigger. How he's either a front for the left or he's sold out to centrism and corporate interests. I look forward to that. But right now I love him and it will last for some time. I feel such gratitude and affection for the guy.
I’d agree with that. Reconnecting with the base is really up to Stacey Abrams’ generation. And if Florida (for example) had someone like her then the outcome in 2024 would not be in doubt.
I'm feeling optimistic about this as just communicated to Sandy. Although I see Trump & clan fading once the trappings of the presidency are gone, the damage he's done to the Republican Party looks semi-permanent. Hence the opportunity for the Dems.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
And a very poor one because it invites the comparison and makes the point so much easier to dismiss. Patel is getting some stupid defences from various MPs (including suggesting she's done nothing wrong when she has apologised and said she's changed her ways apparently), but that doesn't make stupid attacks a good thing. IN fact it lets her off.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
I agree that Patel's behaviour - as unpleasant as it was - is not the same. The analogy is not related to her, it relates to those who seek to excuse it or look the other way because it is the easiest thing to do. They are enablers of such behaviour, just as those who looked the other way with Saville and in Rotherham, Rochdale etc were enablers. Saying or implying you didn't see it so it can't have happened, or that the person in question has always been good to you, is enablement.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
And a very poor one because it invites the comparison and makes the point so much easier to dismiss. Patel is getting some stupid defences from various MPs (including suggesting she's done nothing wrong when she has apologised and said she's changed her ways apparently), but that doesn't make stupid attacks a good thing. IN fact it lets her off.
Fair comment.
Exactly my point in the first place
No, it wasn't.
Yes it was. It drives people who might be sympathetic away by making the action of the enemy look trivial
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
I agree that Patel's behaviour - as unpleasant as it was - is not the same. The analogy is not related to her, it relates to those who seek to excuse it or look the other way because it is the easiest thing to do. They are enablers of such behaviour, just as those who looked the other way with Saville and in Rotherham, Rochdale etc were enablers. Saying or implying you didn't see it so it can't have happened, or that the person in question has always been good to you, is enablement.
There is also levels of enabling....I wouldn't compare Arsene Wengers blindness to his players fouling to those at places like the BBC who said they saw nothing when it came to Saville.
Same as those defending Patel, its not the same as those trying to enable Trump to stay in the White House by bogus means.
I see we are back on the popular PB pastime of conducting a post-mortem on the winning candidate. Strange behaviour, really.
Not really. The winner will be around next time (or the Democrats, if Biden doesn’t run again). The loser won’t be. So the question of why the winner won more narrowly than expected has significant betting implications for the future.
Well, analysing the election certainly is worthwhile, but I was mainly referring to the sense that people were discussing what went wrong for the Biden campaign. And when you think that Biden was up against a man who is extremely skilled in hogging attention, was the incumbent, was campaigning in a weird environment where political rallies were not just a partisan affair but a public health one, whose base turned out in huge numbers, and whose party is good at extracting the most value out of the electoral system... the fact that Biden still won 306 EC votes, an outright majority of votes, and a lead of some six million votes, is really quite something.
I was struck by the comment about "reconnecting with the base". That seemed excessively strange to me, given this has been the highest turnout election since universal suffrage. For me, the question of "what went wrong for Biden?" is just weird.
Yes. Cue the old George Best joke.
This was a great achievement by Biden. Far as I'm concerned he had one job to do (remove this piece of vermin from office by beating him in the election) and he did it. It was the most important "win" in any political contest in my lifetime simply because the consequences of failure were so unspeakably dire. And Joe stepped up at the age of 78 and delivered. Delivered the win. Delivered us from evil. There'll be time enough to talk about whether he should have won bigger. How he's either a front for the left or he's sold out to centrism and corporate interests. I look forward to that. But right now I love him and it will last for some time. I feel such gratitude and affection for the guy.
The Dems will fail to learn from Biden's success by putting up a woke hand-wringer obsessed with irrelevant bollocks in 2024 and then be totally baffled when they lose the votes of blue collar workers in the rust belt.
I hope I'm wrong.
And yet Biden did terribly in the rust belt compared to Obama (or Trump did well compared to Romney and Mccain), and no better than H Clinton relative to the national margin. So I'm not seeing any Biden "success" in the rust belt, despite being a local.
It depends on how you dice and slice the results. The key thing is that he was appealing enough to flip the states that Hillary lost.
The boy from Trenton image had the right appeal.
There ought to be a lot of deep thinking in the Dems over the next 3 years to figure out the sort of candidate they need to put up. There's no point defaulting to Kamala if they turn off voters in the battleground states.
I see a lot of parallels in the UK. I hope that there are enough voices from north of the Watford Gap being listened to in the Leader's office so that Labour can attract the voters we need in the right places. Gaining seats in Stoke and County Durham is what we need, not swelling our majority in Canterbury.
Go back a couple of years and New Labour was saying the opposite, that Labour needed to reach out beyond its safe working class seats and capture Tory citadels like Canterbury.
The idea that Trump will win it if it goes to the House requires that a few states with Democratic majorities among their congressmen "decide" by having Republican congressmen against the will of the majority of their fellows from that state enter the chamber so as to make up a quorum of two thirds of states. What if when they come in Pelosi says "I can't see you" or "I can't hear you"?
The answer is that presumably the House could vote on whether Pelosi was right, and there's nothing in the Constitution to say they'd have to vote by states, so they'd vote by members and Democrats would win the vote.
Cue pandemonium.
Yes. Is there a tennis court in the Capitol where the Congressmen can gather to swear a solemn oath, 1789-style, if Mad President Ludwig Trump turns their lights off or something?
But yes, the House with its Democratic majority won't be so easily stomped on by Trump if it has to decide the succession under the 12th because there's no decision from the Electoral College. The House can also appoint Joe Biden as Speaker. You don't have to be a member of the House to be its Speaker.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
I agree that Patel's behaviour - as unpleasant as it was - is not the same. The analogy is not related to her, it relates to those who seek to excuse it or look the other way because it is the easiest thing to do. They are enablers of such behaviour, just as those who looked the other way with Saville and in Rotherham, Rochdale etc were enablers. Saying or implying you didn't see it so it can't have happened, or that the person in question has always been good to you, is enablement.
There is also levels of enabling....I wouldn't compare Arsene Wengers blindness to his players fouling to those at places like the BBC who said they saw nothing when it came to Saville.
Neither would I.
But Wenger never said I did not see it so it could not have happened.
I see we are back on the popular PB pastime of conducting a post-mortem on the winning candidate. Strange behaviour, really.
Not really. The winner will be around next time (or the Democrats, if Biden doesn’t run again). The loser won’t be. So the question of why the winner won more narrowly than expected has significant betting implications for the future.
Well, analysing the election certainly is worthwhile, but I was mainly referring to the sense that people were discussing what went wrong for the Biden campaign. And when you think that Biden was up against a man who is extremely skilled in hogging attention, was the incumbent, was campaigning in a weird environment where political rallies were not just a partisan affair but a public health one, whose base turned out in huge numbers, and whose party is good at extracting the most value out of the electoral system... the fact that Biden still won 306 EC votes, an outright majority of votes, and a lead of some six million votes, is really quite something.
I was struck by the comment about "reconnecting with the base". That seemed excessively strange to me, given this has been the highest turnout election since universal suffrage. For me, the question of "what went wrong for Biden?" is just weird.
Yes. Cue the old George Best joke.
This was a great achievement by Biden. Far as I'm concerned he had one job to do (remove this piece of vermin from office by beating him in the election) and he did it. It was the most important "win" in any political contest in my lifetime simply because the consequences of failure were so unspeakably dire. And Joe stepped up at the age of 78 and delivered. Delivered the win. Delivered us from evil. There'll be time enough to talk about whether he should have won bigger. How he's either a front for the left or he's sold out to centrism and corporate interests. I look forward to that. But right now I love him and it will last for some time. I feel such gratitude and affection for the guy.
The Dems will fail to learn from Biden's success by putting up a woke hand-wringer obsessed with irrelevant bollocks in 2024 and then be totally baffled when they lose the votes of blue collar workers in the rust belt.
I hope I'm wrong.
And yet Biden did terribly in the rust belt compared to Obama (or Trump did well compared to Romney and Mccain), and no better than H Clinton relative to the national margin. So I'm not seeing any Biden "success" in the rust belt, despite being a local.
It depends on how you dice and slice the results. The key thing is that he was appealing enough to flip the states that Hillary lost.
The boy from Trenton image had the right appeal.
There ought to be a lot of deep thinking in the Dems over the next 3 years to figure out the sort of candidate they need to put up. There's no point defaulting to Kamala if they turn off voters in the battleground states.
I see a lot of parallels in the UK. I hope that there are enough voices from north of the Watford Gap being listened to in the Leader's office so that Labour can attract the voters we need in the right places. Gaining seats in Stoke and County Durham is what we need, not swelling our majority in Canterbury.
Go back a couple of years and New Labour was saying the opposite, that Labour needed to reach out beyond its safe working class seats and capture Tory citadels like Canterbury.
Give it 10 years and Tory “safe” seats like Epping Forest will be falling to Labour, or whoever, and we’ll be having a discussion about whether the Conservative Party needs to rediscover its roots.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
I agree that Patel's behaviour - as unpleasant as it was - is not the same. The analogy is not related to her, it relates to those who seek to excuse it or look the other way because it is the easiest thing to do. They are enablers of such behaviour, just as those who looked the other way with Saville and in Rotherham, Rochdale etc were enablers. Saying or implying you didn't see it so it can't have happened, or that the person in question has always been good to you, is enablement.
Who said it was related to her?! The analogy is of those who are prepared to talk well of someone who shouts and swears at work and those who talk well of a paedophile rapist, and it is a preposterous one to make.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
I agree that Patel's behaviour - as unpleasant as it was - is not the same. The analogy is not related to her, it relates to those who seek to excuse it or look the other way because it is the easiest thing to do. They are enablers of such behaviour, just as those who looked the other way with Saville and in Rotherham, Rochdale etc were enablers. Saying or implying you didn't see it so it can't have happened, or that the person in question has always been good to you, is enablement.
Who said it was related to her?! The analogy is of those who are prepared to talk well of someone who shouts and swears at work and those who talk well of a paedophile rapist, and it is a preposterous one to make.
Denying someone is a bully, when they have been found to be a bully, because they have been nice to you is preposterous. If people had not refused to believe Jimmy Saville was a monster because he did so much for charity he would not have got away with as much as he did. That does not make Priti Patel anything other than a bully, but it should make those who seek to excuse her question themselves. Clearly it won't, though.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Folk probably shouldn't have opened that particular Pandora's box by bellowing about Bercow, Brown and Abbott all day yesterday..
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
OK
I am proud... proud of my Keir!
Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank-you for your interest, though.
No, thank you. It is hilarious
Anything I can do to light up your little life is a pleasure x
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I don't think this is about turning a blind eye to evidence, because there is no reason a random Tory MP without Home Office connections should know what goes on there. It's about failing to see that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. "I met Dennis Nilsen on numerous occasions in connection with his Jobcentre work, and he never once murdered or dismembered me."
By analogy to Brown and bullying - it was stated that he did long term damage at the Treasury through his approach. That may not be universally shared but without wanting to seem callous, that is the far bigger danger than one or two people who were personally affected by bad treatment.
Using Saville as a comparison - it's perfectly reasonable. No-one has said they are equivalent as people but the defence of 'they were nice to me so it can't be true' is risible. Taking an extreme example can be an effective way to make a point sometimes. All we see are people trying to make excuses.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
OK
I am proud... proud of my Keir!
Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank-you for your interest, though.
No, thank you. It is hilarious
Anything I can do to light up your little life is a pleasure x
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
And a very poor one because it invites the comparison and makes the point so much easier to dismiss. Patel is getting some stupid defences from various MPs (including suggesting she's done nothing wrong when she has apologised and said she's changed her ways apparently), but that doesn't make stupid attacks a good thing. IN fact it lets her off.
Fair comment.
Exactly my point in the first place
No, it wasn't.
Yes it was. It drives people who might be sympathetic away by making the action of the enemy look trivial
No, that wasn't the point you made in your initial post. You claimed that he was "drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia". He wasn't. He was drawing an analogy with another situation in which someone who appeared pleasant to outsiders behaved terribly in private. This was indeed in rather poor taste, but it is not at all unusual for people to use analogies of extreme examples in order to make a point. I'm not saying it was a very well-judged analogy or that the author didn't have ulterior motives in drawing it, but as an analogy, it stands.
Please keep us informed of how much it is producing when we have a cold weather snap from a high pressure system sitting over us in January.....
Well, that's a common response.
Attempting civility, let me just say that in case you haven't noticed science and technology are broadly based, and many other contributions to solving global warming are possible and even under way. Some have been pointed out below. It would be useful, no essential probably, that there might be a cultural appreciation of numeracy and linked up thinking. I fear it is now very late, but let's cross our fingers.
I really like Mackay's philosophy and style - he does a terrific job there of making a dry issue very readable. But on a rapid read he doesn't actually address the main objection to tidal, which is that it's coloissally less cost-efficient in energy generaiton than almost anything else (when I last looked at the figures the ratio was something like 20:1). He's right that it would last for ages (though maintaining underwater equipment is non-trivial) and reasonable in suggesting that if we had lots then the cost would come down as technology progressed.
I'm not saying it's wrong, and I should read Mackay's piece more carefully, but that's why when I was PPS to the then Minister of Energy (Malcolm Wicks) we didn't push it. The bargain for renewable energy by a large margin is ONshore wind, and the main problem is that some people don't like to see it in the hilly places where it's most effective. I think they should get over it in the interests of the country and the planet, but that's a controversial view.
Might just be me, but I think wind turbines are a rather magnificent sight.
Are you a big fan?
Not especially, but I thought I could generate some discussion.
Yet this conversation is simply going round in circles.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
And a very poor one because it invites the comparison and makes the point so much easier to dismiss. Patel is getting some stupid defences from various MPs (including suggesting she's done nothing wrong when she has apologised and said she's changed her ways apparently), but that doesn't make stupid attacks a good thing. IN fact it lets her off.
Fair comment.
Exactly my point in the first place
No, it wasn't.
Yes it was. It drives people who might be sympathetic away by making the action of the enemy look trivial
No, that wasn't the point you made in your initial post. You claimed that he was "drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia". He wasn't. He was drawing an analogy with another situation in which someone who appeared pleasant to outsiders behaved terribly in private. This was indeed in rather poor taste, but it is not at all unusual for people to use analogies of extreme examples in order to make a point. I'm not saying it was a very well-judged analogy or that the author didn't have ulterior motives in drawing it, but as an analogy, it stands.
And what were the two behaviours of the people that appeared pleasant to outsiders?
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
OK
I am proud... proud of my Keir!
Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank-you for your interest, though.
No, thank you. It is hilarious
Anything I can do to light up your little life is a pleasure x
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I don't think this is about turning a blind eye to evidence, because there is no reason a random Tory MP without Home Office connections should know what goes on there. It's about failing to see that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. "I met Dennis Nilsen on numerous occasions in connection with his Jobcentre work, and he never once murdered or dismembered me."
Having been ordered by your boss to put the wagons round the Nilster.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
OK
I am proud... proud of my Keir!
Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank-you for your interest, though.
No, thank you. It is hilarious
Anything I can do to light up your little life is a pleasure x
You're going WAAAAY too far haha
Tiny life?
No no no, not that part!
I find you making yourself look like a parody of David Brent funny, but you don't need to churn out so much material!
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
Both are terrible answers. One says "I'm impossible to work with" and the other says "I'm an insufferable smartarse". Mind you, it's a bit of a daft question anyway. Perhaps you could say something along the lines of: "sometimes I get lost in the detail and have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture" -- it is a weakness but not a fatal one, and you take measures to guard against it.
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
Both are terrible answers. One says "I'm impossible to work with" and the other says "I'm an insufferable smartarse". Mind you, it's a bit of a daft question anyway. Perhaps you could say something along the lines of: "sometimes I get lost in the detail and have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture" -- it is a weakness but not a fatal one, and you take measures to guard against it.
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
I’m very wary of working for people who ask interview questions like this.
What does it tell you, other than “is this person good at job interviews”?
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
Throwing the Jimmy Savile smear is the new Hitler for some as the go to, I am pissed off with therefore I will compare to him.
Although there is one aspect where I've always thought Jimmy Savile to be a very apt comparison to Boris Johnson (over and above the superficial blond one). Which is that both are all persona as opposed to personality. By this I mean possession of a flamboyant and very "busy" and distracting front that charms and disarms people and at the same time disguises what is really there. In Savile's case that being a monster of course. And in Johnson's? I sense a void, a real emptiness, but we don't know. That's exactly the point.
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
Both are terrible answers. One says "I'm impossible to work with" and the other says "I'm an insufferable smartarse". Mind you, it's a bit of a daft question anyway. Perhaps you could say something along the lines of: "sometimes I get lost in the detail and have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture" -- it is a weakness but not a fatal one, and you take measures to guard against it.
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
I always liked "Sometimes I'm too honest." "I don't think that is necessarily a weakness." "I don't give a f**k what you think. "
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
Both are terrible answers. One says "I'm impossible to work with" and the other says "I'm an insufferable smartarse". Mind you, it's a bit of a daft question anyway. Perhaps you could say something along the lines of: "sometimes I get lost in the detail and have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture" -- it is a weakness but not a fatal one, and you take measures to guard against it.
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
I’m very wary of working for people who ask interview questions like this.
What does it tell you, other than “is this person good at job interviews”?
One of my favourites is "tell me about a time when you were in conflict with your work colleagues"
Some of the replies have been jawdroppingly bad...
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
OK
I am proud... proud of my Keir!
Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank-you for your interest, though.
No, thank you. It is hilarious
Anything I can do to light up your little life is a pleasure x
You're going WAAAAY too far haha
Tiny life?
No no no, not that part!
I find you making yourself look like a parody of David Brent funny, but you don't need to churn out so much material!
On the very rare occasions on which I think about you, Sam, what gives me the most pleasure - beyond you allowing me to be a part of your little life - is your complete absence of self-knowledge.
I see we are back on the popular PB pastime of conducting a post-mortem on the winning candidate. Strange behaviour, really.
Not really. The winner will be around next time (or the Democrats, if Biden doesn’t run again). The loser won’t be. So the question of why the winner won more narrowly than expected has significant betting implications for the future.
Well, analysing the election certainly is worthwhile, but I was mainly referring to the sense that people were discussing what went wrong for the Biden campaign. And when you think that Biden was up against a man who is extremely skilled in hogging attention, was the incumbent, was campaigning in a weird environment where political rallies were not just a partisan affair but a public health one, whose base turned out in huge numbers, and whose party is good at extracting the most value out of the electoral system... the fact that Biden still won 306 EC votes, an outright majority of votes, and a lead of some six million votes, is really quite something.
I was struck by the comment about "reconnecting with the base". That seemed excessively strange to me, given this has been the highest turnout election since universal suffrage. For me, the question of "what went wrong for Biden?" is just weird.
Yes. Cue the old George Best joke.
This was a great achievement by Biden. Far as I'm concerned he had one job to do (remove this piece of vermin from office by beating him in the election) and he did it. It was the most important "win" in any political contest in my lifetime simply because the consequences of failure were so unspeakably dire. And Joe stepped up at the age of 78 and delivered. Delivered the win. Delivered us from evil. There'll be time enough to talk about whether he should have won bigger. How he's either a front for the left or he's sold out to centrism and corporate interests. I look forward to that. But right now I love him and it will last for some time. I feel such gratitude and affection for the guy.
The Dems will fail to learn from Biden's success by putting up a woke hand-wringer obsessed with irrelevant bollocks in 2024 and then be totally baffled when they lose the votes of blue collar workers in the rust belt.
I hope I'm wrong.
And yet Biden did terribly in the rust belt compared to Obama (or Trump did well compared to Romney and Mccain), and no better than H Clinton relative to the national margin. So I'm not seeing any Biden "success" in the rust belt, despite being a local.
It depends on how you dice and slice the results. The key thing is that he was appealing enough to flip the states that Hillary lost.
The boy from Trenton image had the right appeal.
There ought to be a lot of deep thinking in the Dems over the next 3 years to figure out the sort of candidate they need to put up. There's no point defaulting to Kamala if they turn off voters in the battleground states.
I see a lot of parallels in the UK. I hope that there are enough voices from north of the Watford Gap being listened to in the Leader's office so that Labour can attract the voters we need in the right places. Gaining seats in Stoke and County Durham is what we need, not swelling our majority in Canterbury.
Go back a couple of years and New Labour was saying the opposite, that Labour needed to reach out beyond its safe working class seats and capture Tory citadels like Canterbury.
I really like Mackay's philosophy and style - he does a terrific job there of making a dry issue very readable. But on a rapid read he doesn't actually address the main objection to tidal, which is that it's coloissally less cost-efficient in energy generaiton than almost anything else (when I last looked at the figures the ratio was something like 20:1). He's right that it would last for ages (though maintaining underwater equipment is non-trivial) and reasonable in suggesting that if we had lots then the cost would come down as technology progressed.
I'm not saying it's wrong, and I should read Mackay's piece more carefully, but that's why when I was PPS to the then Minister of Energy (Malcolm Wicks) we didn't push it. The bargain for renewable energy by a large margin is ONshore wind, and the main problem is that some people don't like to see it in the hilly places where it's most effective. I think they should get over it in the interests of the country and the planet, but that's a controversial view.
I’m quite suspicious of cost comparisons given the way they have altered over the last decade, but it is fair to say that tidal is relatively expensive.
On the other hand, so is storage. And nuclear.
Also I guess at that time they didn't know what people would want to lend the government money for nothing, basically forever. It seems weird not to do things that have huge capital costs but then run for almost nothing when your country is having an even bigger problem storing money than it is storing energy.
They don’t have that excuse now, though. Particularly when they are talking about changing the costs of nuclear by assuming the funding will be done through government borrowing.
The difference is that tidal is a big fixed upfront cost, where interest rates can be fixed and are predictable, while nuclear has an enormous and unpredictable tail end cost for decommissioning.
And I’m guessing that a much larger proportion of tidal would be built by domestic companies rather than foreign contractors.
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
Both are terrible answers. One says "I'm impossible to work with" and the other says "I'm an insufferable smartarse". Mind you, it's a bit of a daft question anyway. Perhaps you could say something along the lines of: "sometimes I get lost in the detail and have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture" -- it is a weakness but not a fatal one, and you take measures to guard against it.
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
That is absolutely brilliant. If I were still in the game I would use it.
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
Both are terrible answers. One says "I'm impossible to work with" and the other says "I'm an insufferable smartarse". Mind you, it's a bit of a daft question anyway. Perhaps you could say something along the lines of: "sometimes I get lost in the detail and have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture" -- it is a weakness but not a fatal one, and you take measures to guard against it.
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
I always liked "Sometimes I'm too honest." "I don't think that is necessarily a weakness." "I don't give a f**k what you think. "
I have done a lot of interviewing over the years, from Medical Students right up to Senior managers and Consultants, and have heard every stereotyped and over rehearsed answer.
My advice to interview candidates is naive. Be honest and don't try to be someone else or second guess the panel. Few of us are convincing dissemblers, and honesty usually comes over well.
I also favour giving the candidates the questions in advance, an hour beforehand and getting them to write their answers. This rebalanced the process to thoughtful introverts from bullshitting extroverts. It also means the interviewer has a written copy in the candidates handwriting, so needs take few notes and unsuccessful candidates cannot dispute their answers afterwards.
I see we are back on the popular PB pastime of conducting a post-mortem on the winning candidate. Strange behaviour, really.
Not really. The winner will be around next time (or the Democrats, if Biden doesn’t run again). The loser won’t be. So the question of why the winner won more narrowly than expected has significant betting implications for the future.
Well, analysing the election certainly is worthwhile, but I was mainly referring to the sense that people were discussing what went wrong for the Biden campaign. And when you think that Biden was up against a man who is extremely skilled in hogging attention, was the incumbent, was campaigning in a weird environment where political rallies were not just a partisan affair but a public health one, whose base turned out in huge numbers, and whose party is good at extracting the most value out of the electoral system... the fact that Biden still won 306 EC votes, an outright majority of votes, and a lead of some six million votes, is really quite something.
I was struck by the comment about "reconnecting with the base". That seemed excessively strange to me, given this has been the highest turnout election since universal suffrage. For me, the question of "what went wrong for Biden?" is just weird.
Yes. Cue the old George Best joke.
This was a great achievement by Biden. Far as I'm concerned he had one job to do (remove this piece of vermin from office by beating him in the election) and he did it. It was the most important "win" in any political contest in my lifetime simply because the consequences of failure were so unspeakably dire. And Joe stepped up at the age of 78 and delivered. Delivered the win. Delivered us from evil. There'll be time enough to talk about whether he should have won bigger. How he's either a front for the left or he's sold out to centrism and corporate interests. I look forward to that. But right now I love him and it will last for some time. I feel such gratitude and affection for the guy.
The Dems will fail to learn from Biden's success by putting up a woke hand-wringer obsessed with irrelevant bollocks in 2024 and then be totally baffled when they lose the votes of blue collar workers in the rust belt.
I hope I'm wrong.
And yet Biden did terribly in the rust belt compared to Obama (or Trump did well compared to Romney and Mccain), and no better than H Clinton relative to the national margin. So I'm not seeing any Biden "success" in the rust belt, despite being a local.
It depends on how you dice and slice the results. The key thing is that he was appealing enough to flip the states that Hillary lost.
The boy from Trenton image had the right appeal.
There ought to be a lot of deep thinking in the Dems over the next 3 years to figure out the sort of candidate they need to put up. There's no point defaulting to Kamala if they turn off voters in the battleground states.
I see a lot of parallels in the UK. I hope that there are enough voices from north of the Watford Gap being listened to in the Leader's office so that Labour can attract the voters we need in the right places. Gaining seats in Stoke and County Durham is what we need, not swelling our majority in Canterbury.
Go back a couple of years and New Labour was saying the opposite, that Labour needed to reach out beyond its safe working class seats and capture Tory citadels like Canterbury.
Reaching out beyond the base is one thing.
Turning your back on them is quite another.
Just had this pop up on fb from my nhs surgery
WE HAVE FLU VACCINES IN STOCK!! 💉💉 We are able to provide FREE NHS flu vaccines for anyone over the age of 50 from 1st December. Please call the pharmacy on xxxxxxxx to book your appointment.
Anyway, George Galloway has been sticking it to the man through the medium of wallpaper stripping and colour charts. No word if the Lenin of laminate is now a political prisoner.
The most "interesting" interview I ever had, I was interviewed by the owner and his opening line was basically, I think you are a f##king moron, convince me you aren't. 2hrs of "discussion" and he offered me the job.
Anyway, George Galloway has been sticking it to the man through the medium of wallpaper stripping and colour charts. No word if the Lenin of laminate is now a political prisoner.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
Throwing the Jimmy Savile smear is the new Hitler for some as the go to, I am pissed off with therefore I will compare to him.
Although there is one aspect where I've always thought Jimmy Savile to be a very apt comparison to Boris Johnson (over and above the superficial blond one). Which is that both are all persona as opposed to personality. By this I mean possession of a flamboyant and very "busy" and distracting front that charms and disarms people and at the same time disguises what is really there. In Savile's case that being a monster of course. And in Johnson's? I sense a void, a real emptiness, but we don't know. That's exactly the point.
Many in Scarborough seemed to know about Saville and his friendship with the ice cream parlour owner Jaconelli. Well before it became public knowledge.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
OK
I am proud... proud of my Keir!
Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank-you for your interest, though.
No, thank you. It is hilarious
Anything I can do to light up your little life is a pleasure x
You're going WAAAAY too far haha
Tiny life?
No no no, not that part!
I find you making yourself look like a parody of David Brent funny, but you don't need to churn out so much material!
On the very rare occasions on which I think about you, Sam, what gives me the most pleasure - beyond you allowing me to be a part of your little life - is your complete absence of self-knowledge.
Oh Joffers, I apologise for being so petty. I have been totally self indulgent, thanks for putting up with me SK x
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
This is completely missing the point of the tweet, which is not to opine on Patel's behaviour/actions, but on the "defence" of her by the MP.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
Oh well if it is an analogy I suppose that makes all the difference!
Don’t be silly. It’s a reductio ad absurdam - pointing out that even the most terrible offender can hide in plain sight. It is not an attempt to associate Patel with Saville.
It’s not an analogy I’d have used myself (not least as it will be misunderstood, either deliberately or not), but it makes an entirely reasonable point - a large number of workplace bullies are not recognised as such by those outside of the immediate workplace environment.
I see we are back on the popular PB pastime of conducting a post-mortem on the winning candidate. Strange behaviour, really.
Not really. The winner will be around next time (or the Democrats, if Biden doesn’t run again). The loser won’t be. So the question of why the winner won more narrowly than expected has significant betting implications for the future.
Well, analysing the election certainly is worthwhile, but I was mainly referring to the sense that people were discussing what went wrong for the Biden campaign. And when you think that Biden was up against a man who is extremely skilled in hogging attention, was the incumbent, was campaigning in a weird environment where political rallies were not just a partisan affair but a public health one, whose base turned out in huge numbers, and whose party is good at extracting the most value out of the electoral system... the fact that Biden still won 306 EC votes, an outright majority of votes, and a lead of some six million votes, is really quite something.
I was struck by the comment about "reconnecting with the base". That seemed excessively strange to me, given this has been the highest turnout election since universal suffrage. For me, the question of "what went wrong for Biden?" is just weird.
Yes. Cue the old George Best joke.
This was a great achievement by Biden. Far as I'm concerned he had one job to do (remove this piece of vermin from office by beating him in the election) and he did it. It was the most important "win" in any political contest in my lifetime simply because the consequences of failure were so unspeakably dire. And Joe stepped up at the age of 78 and delivered. Delivered the win. Delivered us from evil. There'll be time enough to talk about whether he should have won bigger. How he's either a front for the left or he's sold out to centrism and corporate interests. I look forward to that. But right now I love him and it will last for some time. I feel such gratitude and affection for the guy.
The Dems will fail to learn from Biden's success by putting up a woke hand-wringer obsessed with irrelevant bollocks in 2024 and then be totally baffled when they lose the votes of blue collar workers in the rust belt.
I hope I'm wrong.
And yet Biden did terribly in the rust belt compared to Obama (or Trump did well compared to Romney and Mccain), and no better than H Clinton relative to the national margin. So I'm not seeing any Biden "success" in the rust belt, despite being a local.
It depends on how you dice and slice the results. The key thing is that he was appealing enough to flip the states that Hillary lost.
The boy from Trenton image had the right appeal.
There ought to be a lot of deep thinking in the Dems over the next 3 years to figure out the sort of candidate they need to put up. There's no point defaulting to Kamala if they turn off voters in the battleground states.
I see a lot of parallels in the UK. I hope that there are enough voices from north of the Watford Gap being listened to in the Leader's office so that Labour can attract the voters we need in the right places. Gaining seats in Stoke and County Durham is what we need, not swelling our majority in Canterbury.
Go back a couple of years and New Labour was saying the opposite, that Labour needed to reach out beyond its safe working class seats and capture Tory citadels like Canterbury.
Reaching out beyond the base is one thing.
Turning your back on them is quite another.
Just had this pop up on fb from my nhs surgery
WE HAVE FLU VACCINES IN STOCK!! 💉💉 We are able to provide FREE NHS flu vaccines for anyone over the age of 50 from 1st December. Please call the pharmacy on xxxxxxxx to book your appointment.
Thanks.
Hancock must have been reading PB, as in the briefing yesterday evening he did say that GPs would get in touch with the over 50s.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
Oh well if it is an analogy I suppose that makes all the difference!
Don’t be silly. It’s a reductio ad absurdam - pointing out that even the most terrible offender can hide in plain sight. It is not an attempt to associate Patel with Saville.
It’s not an analogy I’d have used myself (not least as it will be misunderstood, either deliberately or not), but it makes an entirely reasonable point - a large number of workplace bullies are not recognised as such by those outside of the immediate workplace environment.
"It is not an attempt to associate Patel with Saville."
Anyway, George Galloway has been sticking it to the man through the medium of wallpaper stripping and colour charts. No word if the Lenin of laminate is now a political prisoner.
I'm going to need a very long long shower after saying this, but I think George Galloway has a point.
I'm not sure the Scotland Act gives Holyrood the competence on who many enter Scotland, it violates a few international treaties I think as well as it restricts travel inside the Common Travel Area and FoM for EU citizens.
On the latter point, I've always said Nats and Brexiteers are two cheeks of the same arse, this again proves it.
Anyway, George Galloway has been sticking it to the man through the medium of wallpaper stripping and colour charts. No word if the Lenin of laminate is now a political prisoner.
The most "interesting" interview I ever had, I was interviewed by the owner and his opening line was basically, I think you are a f##king moron, convince me you aren't. 2hrs of "discussion" and he offered me the job.
My weirdest one was as a junior doctor applying for a Teaching Hospital job. There were two interviewers. One really genial, who remained smiling and seated, and one who was like a bear with a sore head*. He paced up and down behind my back, asking questions such as "I see you are working in XXX hospital. Is it as bad as they say?" A tricky one! Obviously I wanted to move, but didn't want to rubbish my existing experience and training.
I got the job.
*I later found out that he had terrible sciatica, hence bizarre behaviour and manner.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
I totally disagree. There are levels. And we should be careful about things, as iSam says, you rachet everything up to 11 and you turn people to the extremes.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
This is completely missing the point of the tweet, which is not to opine on Patel's behaviour/actions, but on the "defence" of her by the MP.
Yes, the point of the tweet was to make people supporting Patel look like they were the type of person who would support a paedophile rapist. To be fair, a lot of people, several on here, seem to think that they are.
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
It is totally unacceptable comparison or analogy. By all means criticize Patel behaviour and those that are defending her actions, that that is way out of line.
Looking the other way because it is the easiest, most convenient, thing to do and the victims may not be easy to like is exactly what happened not only with Jimmy Saville but also in Rochdale, Rotherham and countless other places. It is an uncomfortable analogy, but it is an entirely appropriate one.
Like making an analogy of treading on an ant to bombing Dresden?
Nope.
If it were a Tory making the analogy you'd be tweeting all day and night in Tholidawity with the victims
OK
I am proud... proud of my Keir!
Yaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank-you for your interest, though.
No, thank you. It is hilarious
Anything I can do to light up your little life is a pleasure x
You're going WAAAAY too far haha
Tiny life?
No no no, not that part!
I find you making yourself look like a parody of David Brent funny, but you don't need to churn out so much material!
On the very rare occasions on which I think about you, Sam, what gives me the most pleasure - beyond you allowing me to be a part of your little life - is your complete absence of self-knowledge.
Oh Joffers, I apologise for being so petty. I have been totally self indulgent, thanks for putting up with me SK x
"The German city of Dusseldorf was forced Monday to lift an order for residents to wear masks against the coronavirus, after a citizen successfully sued against the blanket rule."
I clicked on this tweet by the ex-Change UK candidate and ex-BBC News man Gavin Esler, a supposed moderate who has been driven mad by Brexit, expecting people to be outraged by his drawing a parallel between workplace shouting and swearing, & rape and paedophilia - but no! The majority seem to be agreeing with him and happy to accept the comparison
That's because it's not a comparison; it's an analogy.
Oh well if it is an analogy I suppose that makes all the difference!
Don’t be silly. It’s a reductio ad absurdam - pointing out that even the most terrible offender can hide in plain sight. It is not an attempt to associate Patel with Saville.
It’s not an analogy I’d have used myself (not least as it will be misunderstood, either deliberately or not), but it makes an entirely reasonable point - a large number of workplace bullies are not recognised as such by those outside of the immediate workplace environment.
Quite. Unfortunately people don't understand the concept of Reductio ad absurdam.
Basically ask yourself what the response would be if somebody used to equivalent defence for Jimmy Savile. They would say "that's a ridiculous defence" and shames the person who makes it. Since this is a identical defence (just for a far lower level of "crime") it therefore follows that this defence is ridiculous as well.
Reductio ad absurdam! The conclusion leads to absurdity!
All that positive PR that his handlers have been getting for Lewis Hamilton over the past week...he is trending on twitter, never a good sign...for his failed legal action against a watch company that has been in business forever.
These 'Patsies for Priti' are becoming tiresome. Its so obviously a PR offensive. They're all female and the line is that sometimes (as a woman) you have to be tough. They're all saying being tough isn't bullying.
What none of them are addressing is that she has not been accused of being tough but of bullying and they aren't the same. She only picks on juniors and the same behaviour has been exposed in three different departments.
As someone texted me this morning 'What do you expect from a hanger and flogger'.
Ah, the Alistair Campbell defence: ‘I’m robust but I’m not a bully.’
I'll raise you "She doesn't suffer fools gladly."
That's one of the small number of classic answers you can give - along with stuff like "I'm too much of a perfectionist" - to the dreaded interview question, "what is your biggest weakness?".
Both are terrible answers. One says "I'm impossible to work with" and the other says "I'm an insufferable smartarse". Mind you, it's a bit of a daft question anyway. Perhaps you could say something along the lines of: "sometimes I get lost in the detail and have to remind myself to step back and look at the big picture" -- it is a weakness but not a fatal one, and you take measures to guard against it.
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
I always liked "Sometimes I'm too honest." "I don't think that is necessarily a weakness." "I don't give a f**k what you think. "
I have done a lot of interviewing over the years, from Medical Students right up to Senior managers and Consultants, and have heard every stereotyped and over rehearsed answer.
My advice to interview candidates is naive. Be honest and don't try to be someone else or second guess the panel. Few of us are convincing dissemblers, and honesty usually comes over well.
I also favour giving the candidates the questions in advance, an hour beforehand and getting them to write their answers. This rebalanced the process to thoughtful introverts from bullshitting extroverts. It also means the interviewer has a written copy in the candidates handwriting, so needs take few notes and unsuccessful candidates cannot dispute their answers afterwards.
That's a great idea. Wish I'd come across it. I did come across an extreme of the opposite approach once - a determined attempt to test that much overrated thing unless you're in professional sport, standup comedy, or armed combat, the ability to "think on one's feet".
Sitting there being interviewed by a panel for a Management Consultancy position and they suddenly asked me to think of a subject and go and present to them on it for 15 minutes using that White Board in the corner. Now. No prep.
"Really?" I said.
"Well, only if you're comfortable," they said.
"I'm not," I said.
So I didn't do it, they were flabbergasted, and there followed a very awkward final 20 mins or so of the interview.
World of work. I stopped pre 50 and I don't miss it.
All that positive PR that his handlers have been getting for Lewis Hamilton over the past week...he is trending on twitter, never a good sign...for his failed legal action against a watch company that has been in business forever.
Comments
"Twitter is preparing to hand control of the presidential @POTUS account - currently being used by Mr Trump - to Joe Biden on inauguration day even if Mr Trump has not conceded his loss by then, a spokesman for the company is quoted as saying by Politico"
Are any still involved in politics.
Patel screaming and shouting at employees is unacceptable. If she was a man, no way she would still be in position even with Boris interference. She is clearly a very bad boss and not capable of the role she is in.
But is not even comparable to for instance Brown physically shoving people out the way, throwing phones at them, and where a good day was "just" some screaming / shouting, and that shouldn't be compared to anything like the evils of grooming gangs
But over many years I encountered a lot of people making similar such pronouncements, and not seen many of them succeed in changing very much. In my own extremely biased opinion, I achieved a lot more change by playing the game in a determined and persistent manner.
The comparison I would draw is with Cummings, who entered government with what he thought was a clear and damning critique of where everybody before him had been going wrong, and left....well, you be the judge.
Instead, referring to the Daily Mail - the Standard's sister paper - and its support for the Nazis in the 1930s, Mr Livingstone is said to have baited the reporter, asking if he was "a German war criminal".
On learning that Mr Finegold is Jewish, the mayor apparently said: "You are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?"
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/feb/12/pressandpublishing.londonpolitics
Thank-you for your interest, though.
Same as those defending Patel, its not the same as those trying to enable Trump to stay in the White House by bogus means.
But yes, the House with its Democratic majority won't be so easily stomped on by Trump if it has to decide the succession under the 12th because there's no decision from the Electoral College. The House can also appoint Joe Biden as Speaker. You don't have to be a member of the House to be its Speaker.
But Wenger never said I did not see it so it could not have happened.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/priti-patel-gas-contract-corruption-nigeria-process-industrial-development-b1759441.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/independent-sage-scientists-to-join-climate-crisis-battle
Proper SAGE need to get trademark lawyers on the case, perhaps not the ones Lewis Hamilton used though.
Using Saville as a comparison - it's perfectly reasonable. No-one has said they are equivalent as people but the defence of 'they were nice to me so it can't be true' is risible. Taking an extreme example can be an effective way to make a point sometimes. All we see are people trying to make excuses.
Attempting civility, let me just say that in case you haven't noticed science and technology are broadly based, and many other contributions to solving global warming are possible and even under way. Some have been pointed out below. It would be useful, no essential probably, that there might be a cultural appreciation of numeracy and linked up thinking. I fear it is now very late, but let's cross our fingers.
I find you making yourself look like a parody of David Brent funny, but you don't need to churn out so much material!
Otoh, I'm unemployed after being made redundant so what do I know?
What does it tell you, other than “is this person good at job interviews”?
"I don't think that is necessarily a weakness."
"I don't give a f**k what you think. "
Some of the replies have been jawdroppingly bad...
Turning your back on them is quite another.
Particularly when they are talking about changing the costs of nuclear by assuming the funding will be done through government borrowing.
The difference is that tidal is a big fixed upfront cost, where interest rates can be fixed and are predictable, while nuclear has an enormous and unpredictable tail end cost for decommissioning.
And I’m guessing that a much larger proportion of tidal would be built by domestic companies rather than foreign contractors.
Hope you get a job soon if you want one.
My advice to interview candidates is naive. Be honest and don't try to be someone else or second guess the panel. Few of us are convincing dissemblers, and honesty usually comes over well.
I also favour giving the candidates the questions in advance, an hour beforehand and getting them to write their answers. This rebalanced the process to thoughtful introverts from bullshitting extroverts. It also means the interviewer has a written copy in the candidates handwriting, so needs take few notes and unsuccessful candidates cannot dispute their answers afterwards.
WE HAVE FLU VACCINES IN STOCK!! 💉💉
We are able to provide FREE NHS flu vaccines for anyone over the age of 50 from 1st December. Please call the pharmacy on xxxxxxxx to book your appointment.
https://twitter.com/MhairiHunter/status/1330117100657119244?s=20
Not read details yet.
EDIT - here it is...
https://news.sky.com/story/19bn-crossrail-faces-mothballing-over-state-funding-row-tfl-chief-warns-12138012
Well before it became public knowledge.
https://twitter.com/hackneylad/status/1329463934320058370
Very useful thread.
It’s a reductio ad absurdam - pointing out that even the most terrible offender can hide in plain sight.
It is not an attempt to associate Patel with Saville.
It’s not an analogy I’d have used myself (not least as it will be misunderstood, either deliberately or not), but it makes an entirely reasonable point - a large number of workplace bullies are not recognised as such by those outside of the immediate workplace environment.
Hancock must have been reading PB, as in the briefing yesterday evening he did say that GPs would get in touch with the over 50s.
Oh no, heaven forbid!
I'm not sure the Scotland Act gives Holyrood the competence on who many enter Scotland, it violates a few international treaties I think as well as it restricts travel inside the Common Travel Area and FoM for EU citizens.
On the latter point, I've always said Nats and Brexiteers are two cheeks of the same arse, this again proves it.
Now off for a very long shower.
I got the job.
*I later found out that he had terrible sciatica, hence bizarre behaviour and manner.
https://www.courthousenews.com/court-tears-up-mask-rule-in-germanys-dusseldorf/
Basically ask yourself what the response would be if somebody used to equivalent defence for Jimmy Savile. They would say "that's a ridiculous defence" and shames the person who makes it. Since this is a identical defence (just for a far lower level of "crime") it therefore follows that this defence is ridiculous as well.
Reductio ad absurdam! The conclusion leads to absurdity!
"Aunchentennach fine pies make me feel human again"
One could not hope for better ....
Sitting there being interviewed by a panel for a Management Consultancy position and they suddenly asked me to think of a subject and go and present to them on it for 15 minutes using that White Board in the corner. Now. No prep.
"Really?" I said.
"Well, only if you're comfortable," they said.
"I'm not," I said.
So I didn't do it, they were flabbergasted, and there followed a very awkward final 20 mins or so of the interview.
World of work. I stopped pre 50 and I don't miss it.