Not true, UK farmers would get tariff free access to the Australian market too, that is the whole point of trade deals
A lot of good that's going to do, most of the food we would export would be stinking by the time it reaches Australia by boat
Vacuum-packed meat lasts about three months in the fridge. We get Aussie beef here in the sandpit, usually arrives with 6 weeks or so left on it.
Food imports from NZ & Australia kick started international frozen food transport. In the 19th cent...
I think it's a lot of fuss about nothing.
Talking of which, a friend who works for a US owned law firm in London told me that she's just been through a racial unconscious bias course at work, and the company is now telling employees that as part of their annual appraisals they'll be asked to give examples of how they have understood and empathised with marginalised demographic groups in the workplace during the year.
I imagine the three of the 250-odd workforce there who are non-white are going to be getting a lot of empathy during the coming year.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
I beg to differ about passing. The Formula E race proved that you absolutely can pass at Monaco. OK there are only a couple of real passing places but the same was true about Barcelona, and I know where I'd rather be.
The only problem with Monaco this year is that the Eurovision Song Contest is the night before so I am likely to be nursing a slight* hangover.
Obviously FE passing is very different from F1 passing, in terms of energy management, braking distances, their tyres, the relative sizes of the cars and just the general bumping-and-boring nature that series has anyway. In comparison to most venues for them Monaco is actually one of the most open races they will experience over a season, the Valencia double header excepted.
But I like Monaco. Given that most passing at most F1 venues now consists mainly of DRS drive-by overtakes, there is a certain novelty in actually watching cars stuck trying to pass someone. And there's very little margin for error, which sets it apart from nearly all other F1 venues.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Yes, we've had other PMs who seemed impregnably popular until the moment they weren't - Thatcher and Blair. But policy decisions made them mortal: the Poll Tax and Iraq. Boris seems imbued with a different kind of magic entirely. His policy decisions have been - at the very best - mediocre, yet the man himself and what he does appear to exist in different dimensions. Neither has any effect on the other.
"at best mediocre" 😂
The UK got a revised exit deal you lot said was impossible to get. The UK got a trade deal in eleven months you lot said was impossible to get. The UK exited the EU transition on schedule and without any of the disruption you lot were screaming about. The UK has gone through a global pandemic and come out the other side before any other major developed nation. The UK has a better vaccine procurement and rollout than any other major developed nation in the entire planet.
"at best mediocre" 🥳
You do have a bad case of Cult of Boris. The only reason that we haven't had the disruption that *industry* and *ports* and *customs* were screaming about is because we largely binned off the plan and didn't bother to implement the inbound checks. We're still planning to do so so its only pain deferred.
Oh excuses, excuses, excuses.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
The Truss makes me nervous. She's an Ayn Rand-ite zealot with one eye on the Tory membership approval ratings. That's a recipe for trouble.
Hugo Rifkind commented on Oliver Dowden the other day
@GuidoFawkes I guess I expect them not to say things that they know are ridiculous, unreasonable and untrue, merely because it's briefly advantageous for them politically.
But BoZo has shown "say things that they know are ridiculous, unreasonable and untrue, merely because it's briefly advantageous for them politically" is the path to Glory
Nobody can blame Liz for following a "winning" formula...
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The behaviour of the media during the pandemic, definitely needs to be in scope for the enquiry. The name “Independent Sage” is deliberately confusing, and the people actually advising the government should be subject to the SpAd code and silent except for formal briefings.
Should the government cut funding to businesses that have been impacted, like VAT cuts, furlough, grants, loans, rates relief and much more - put VAT on hospitality back up and give that money to the NHS? 🤔
yes
So devastate even more the businesses like pubs and restaurants etc that are on their knees in order to give more money to those in secure jobs? 🤔
Pubs and restaurants will start making their usual vast amounts of profits etc as everyone rushes back to them, desperate for their alcoholic meals. Meanwhile NHS workers will continue to eek out their salaries between their vast childcare costs and their full tax and NI contributions Class 1. There will always be Pubs and restaurants, but will there always be nurses and doctors now that we are jailing EU visitors at the border.
You make it sound as if working in the hospitality industry is a risk-free route to big bucks. Which is not my understanding.
Fastest way to become a millionaire in the hospitality sector, start with £2 million and buy a pub / restaurant...
As long as it's Matt Hancock's local and you get in on the Covid grift, you're minted.
The behaviour of the media during the pandemic, definitely needs to be in scope for the enquiry. The name “Independent Sage” is deliberately confusing, and the people actually advising the government should be subject to the SpAd code and silent except for formal briefings.
As soon as they gave themselves the name "Independent SAGE" you knew they must be cranks.
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Unlike others my second Astra vaccination has made my arm rather sore .. and still is 4 days later...
There’s a lot of it about. Seems everyone wants to grass on everyone else. Having said that, the Deliveroo riders on the pedestrianised areas of Liverpool city centre deserve a smack. Ignorant fuckers.
The moped riders with the L plates are universally a danger to themselves and others. Near where I live, they regularly cut through a petrol station and across a pavement, at high speed, via a pedestrian access. They've managed to knock down a number of people. It's only a matter of time until someone is killed.
Learner drivers shouldn’t be allowed to work driving, it’s nonsensical.
13/ Exactly how much additional pressure Australian competition will apply on struggling farmers is a matter for study, using firm-level data and actual market prices.
I'm hoping the UK has actually done some.
Hoping... hoping...
As you just know we won't have done that.
And the most likely one is this
8/ First and most obviously, performative divergence from the EU is a stupid basis on which to make any kind of policy.
Offer Australia tariff and quota free access if you want to, but only if it makes sense for the UK, not to prove you're nothing like your father.
Public sector workers - and I am one - still tend to have an outdated view of what cost-of-living increases tend to look like - so 1% is views as 'insulting' or 'derisory'. There seems to be a view that in the private sector people are getting 3% and 4% as a matter of course. That sort of level went out the window 15-20 years ago - 1% is now a pretty good deal. This isn't a comment on the level nurses or anyone else deserves, just a comment on the slightly skewed view the public sector have of what people in the private sector get.
One thing that is common in the public sector is automatic progression (also in universities, where I work). So, eahc year you get not only the pay rise for your job, but you automatically (at least wthin bands) move up a point and get a pay rise that way. So our pay settlements are often 1% or so, but I get a pay rise each year of more like 3% overall. Now, it's still a problem if I, in five years, earn less in real terms than someone five points above me does today, but it does mean that most of us get real terms increases every year (the one thing that might break that is the USS contributions fiasco, but we'll see).
In competitive, professional private sector, there's often similar, although less define progression - my wife's annual pay increases in the same role often outstripped min. But in other roles, supermarkets etc, you're in hte role you're in and all you get is the national pay increase. If it's 1% pay rise it's really 1% pay rise.
I can only comment on my own department and say we get no automatic rise within the pay band. I don't know about people on older contracts.
I should clarify that my experience is national government civil service (automatic annual increments within band, plus national pay settlement), private sector (no automatic increments, but in practice there was competition for staff, so I got a pay rise every year within the same role - athough the size of that did vary) and university (annual increments within bands, move up one point each year, plus the national pay rise).
It may well vary in other areas of the public sector. What's yours, if you don't mind me asking?
I did 5 yrs in civil service central govt dept. Think there were automatic increments but don't remember them being as high as 3%. Never understood the fuss about 1% or 3% or whatever. The difference always seemed to be negligible at the end of the day.
The pay travesty I remember was that some jobs were misgraded which led to huge salary differences largely inexplicable by the level of responsibility/skills/whatever required.
I saw a reflection of the salary difference issue - I worked for an oil company that hired alot of ex-civil servants.
Who found the idea that specialists could be paid more than their managers.... EVILLLLLL
Which led to the introduction of contracting in a big way - for the SAP boom, for example.
Yes this makes it difficult for civil service to hire people with specialist skills. This is of course what all these agencies & consultancies want.
Paying someone X was "insulting to their managers" but paying their personal service company 800 a day wasn't.
Humans are weird.
Yes they are, these sort of blind spots are cost the government a fortune in consultants - and often end up with the consultants themselves having to be switched out because IR35 - so for example your infosec lead changes every six months, which is somewhat sub-optimal from an infosec point of view!
Indeed.
But, to this day, if you suggested the Civil Service hire programmers at £90,000... that would be Fascism or something.
Honestly I think it's just that the HR rules don't really allow it.
A decent govt might have looked at civil service reform (indeed even the current one might have stumbled into it if they'd listened to some of Dom Cummings' rants).
But the drive is to reduce the number of civil servants, reduce pay, reduce benefits -> leads to hiring consultants.
Yesterday, the former president of the USA reversed his earlier statements, and confirmed that American military has encountered advanced technology it cannot explain. Among the most plausible explanations is surveillance of humanity by extra-terrestrial life forms, which makes this, potentially, the biggest story in the history of planet earth
So the UK media runs with a tiny, boring story about a disgruntled nurse and ‘Brits book up the Algarve’
Should the government cut funding to businesses that have been impacted, like VAT cuts, furlough, grants, loans, rates relief and much more - put VAT on hospitality back up and give that money to the NHS? 🤔
yes
So devastate even more the businesses like pubs and restaurants etc that are on their knees in order to give more money to those in secure jobs? 🤔
Pubs and restaurants will start making their usual vast amounts of profits etc as everyone rushes back to them, desperate for their alcoholic meals. Meanwhile NHS workers will continue to eek out their salaries between their vast childcare costs and their full tax and NI contributions Class 1. There will always be Pubs and restaurants, but will there always be nurses and doctors now that we are jailing EU visitors at the border.
Ah right pubs and restaurnats all make "vast amounts of profits" etc - that's why 15% of them close down every year. 🤦♂️
I wonder who earns more, an NHS worker paying childcare costs, or a hospitality worker paying childcare costs?
The owners of these businesses do very well thank you very much, or they wouldn't do it. It's also very easy to close down branches if they aren't making "enough" profit. The people who do the work in them are usually minimum waged and have to rely on the Minimum wage increase anyway. I am not deriding their jobs, but they have chosen to work in them by virtue of it's ease or straightforwardness.
Straw man, as has been pointed out. It's just another dent in the shiny fat carapace.
It's a social experiment.
Just how much shit will the fanbois eat?
Does BoZo literally have to shoot someone on the Mall?
Would they still vote for him?
So long as his opponent is a woke culture warrior, who reads the Guardian, hates his country and conspires with those who wish to break it up - quite a lot will keep voting for the incumbent.
Should the government cut funding to businesses that have been impacted, like VAT cuts, furlough, grants, loans, rates relief and much more - put VAT on hospitality back up and give that money to the NHS? 🤔
yes
So devastate even more the businesses like pubs and restaurants etc that are on their knees in order to give more money to those in secure jobs? 🤔
Pubs and restaurants will start making their usual vast amounts of profits etc as everyone rushes back to them, desperate for their alcoholic meals. Meanwhile NHS workers will continue to eek out their salaries between their vast childcare costs and their full tax and NI contributions Class 1. There will always be Pubs and restaurants, but will there always be nurses and doctors now that we are jailing EU visitors at the border.
Ah right pubs and restaurnats all make "vast amounts of profits" etc - that's why 15% of them close down every year. 🤦♂️
I wonder who earns more, an NHS worker paying childcare costs, or a hospitality worker paying childcare costs?
The owners of these businesses do very well thank you very much, or they wouldn't do it. It's also very easy to close down branches if they aren't making "enough" profit. The people who do the work in them are usually minimum waged and have to rely on the Minimum wage increase anyway.
I'm sure Miss @Cyclefree Jr and everyone else in the industry will be reassured for your knowledge that they do "very well thank you very much" and make "usual vast amounts of profits". 😕
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
You’re literally an anti-vaxxer. You actively endanger the life of everyone else on the planet because you believe in some mad, sad, grassy knoll conspiracy theory bullshit. That’s what you DO
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Unlike others my second Astra vaccination has made my arm rather sore .. and still is 4 days later...
Mine is still sore almost a week later
My wife had a sore arm for about a week after her first. Went away after that. She was fine with her second.
As somebody who is always on the lookout for attack lines that will destroy Boris and the government, even I think the Jenny McGee story is a complete non-story.
Indeed. The rather comical desperation to find The Thing That Will Bring Boris Down This Week is proof of the lamentable political impotence of his opponents; politcal strength means creating your own opportunities if they don't exist already, a talent of which they seem completely devoid. But no, they keep hoping against hope as if they were listening to a 1960s Adam West cliffhanger:
'Is this the zero hour for the Dynamic Duo? Are the sands of time really running out for Batman and Robin? At long last have they met a gritty, granulated, inglorious end?'
'Can it be? The Dynamic Duo crushed to death by an eight ton meteorite??'
'Are our eyes deceiving us?? Has the giant clam really swallowed Robin??'
'Tune in next week – same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!'
Straw man, as has been pointed out. It's just another dent in the shiny fat carapace.
It's not even a dent - it's less than nothing. That's what the people pushing these petty things don't understand: by making a mountain out of every molehill, and trumpeting every peccadillo as The End Of Boris, what have they conditioned the public to expect when he effortlessly sails through them again and again and again?
In a delicious irony, the people who hate him most have helped to create and sustain the public expectation of his invulnerability. And they don't even realize they're doing it...
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Personally I credit the NHS and the researchers and the nurses jabbing you for a pay cut, not the PM. Like I said, the Cult is strong in you.
Not true, UK farmers would get tariff free access to the Australian market too, that is the whole point of trade deals
A lot of good that's going to do, most of the food we would export would be stinking by the time it reaches Australia by boat
Vacuum-packed meat lasts about three months in the fridge. We get Aussie beef here in the sandpit, usually arrives with 6 weeks or so left on it.
Food imports from NZ & Australia kick started international frozen food transport. In the 19th cent...
I think it's a lot of fuss about nothing.
Talking of which, a friend who works for a US owned law firm in London told me that she's just been through a racial unconscious bias course at work, and the company is now telling employees that as part of their annual appraisals they'll be asked to give examples of how they have understood and empathised with marginalised demographic groups in the workplace during the year.
I imagine the three of the 250-odd workforce there who are non-white are going to be getting a lot of empathy during the coming year.
It won't drive the behaviours they think it will - people will simply learn the right things to say.
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Personally I credit the NHS and the researchers and the nurses jabbing you for a pay cut, not the PM. Like I said, the Cult is strong in you.
You're the one in the Cult. Why aren't other European nation's nurses vaccinating healthy 38 year olds without pre-existing health conditions?
Is it because other European nation's nurses are lazy bastards who are letting vaccines sit idle in the fridge rather than vaccinating people?
Or is it because they don't have the vaccine supplies that our government procured and theirs didn't?
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Unlike others my second Astra vaccination has made my arm rather sore .. and still is 4 days later...
Public sector workers - and I am one - still tend to have an outdated view of what cost-of-living increases tend to look like - so 1% is views as 'insulting' or 'derisory'. There seems to be a view that in the private sector people are getting 3% and 4% as a matter of course. That sort of level went out the window 15-20 years ago - 1% is now a pretty good deal. This isn't a comment on the level nurses or anyone else deserves, just a comment on the slightly skewed view the public sector have of what people in the private sector get.
One thing that is common in the public sector is automatic progression (also in universities, where I work). So, eahc year you get not only the pay rise for your job, but you automatically (at least wthin bands) move up a point and get a pay rise that way. So our pay settlements are often 1% or so, but I get a pay rise each year of more like 3% overall. Now, it's still a problem if I, in five years, earn less in real terms than someone five points above me does today, but it does mean that most of us get real terms increases every year (the one thing that might break that is the USS contributions fiasco, but we'll see).
In competitive, professional private sector, there's often similar, although less define progression - my wife's annual pay increases in the same role often outstripped min. But in other roles, supermarkets etc, you're in hte role you're in and all you get is the national pay increase. If it's 1% pay rise it's really 1% pay rise.
I can only comment on my own department and say we get no automatic rise within the pay band. I don't know about people on older contracts.
I should clarify that my experience is national government civil service (automatic annual increments within band, plus national pay settlement), private sector (no automatic increments, but in practice there was competition for staff, so I got a pay rise every year within the same role - athough the size of that did vary) and university (annual increments within bands, move up one point each year, plus the national pay rise).
It may well vary in other areas of the public sector. What's yours, if you don't mind me asking?
I did 5 yrs in civil service central govt dept. Think there were automatic increments but don't remember them being as high as 3%. Never understood the fuss about 1% or 3% or whatever. The difference always seemed to be negligible at the end of the day.
The pay travesty I remember was that some jobs were misgraded which led to huge salary differences largely inexplicable by the level of responsibility/skills/whatever required.
I saw a reflection of the salary difference issue - I worked for an oil company that hired alot of ex-civil servants.
Who found the idea that specialists could be paid more than their managers.... EVILLLLLL
Which led to the introduction of contracting in a big way - for the SAP boom, for example.
Yes this makes it difficult for civil service to hire people with specialist skills. This is of course what all these agencies & consultancies want.
Paying someone X was "insulting to their managers" but paying their personal service company 800 a day wasn't.
Humans are weird.
Yes they are, these sort of blind spots are cost the government a fortune in consultants - and often end up with the consultants themselves having to be switched out because IR35 - so for example your infosec lead changes every six months, which is somewhat sub-optimal from an infosec point of view!
Indeed.
But, to this day, if you suggested the Civil Service hire programmers at £90,000... that would be Fascism or something.
Honestly I think it's just that the HR rules don't really allow it.
A decent govt might have looked at civil service reform (indeed even the current one might have stumbled into it if they'd listened to some of Dom Cummings' rants).
But the drive is to reduce the number of civil servants, reduce pay, reduce benefits -> leads to hiring consultants.
Who do you think writes the HR rules? Ministers?
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
I beg to differ about passing. The Formula E race proved that you absolutely can pass at Monaco. OK there are only a couple of real passing places but the same was true about Barcelona, and I know where I'd rather be...
It didn't show anything about how easy that might be in one of the fatter and faster F1 cars.
F1 has a desperate need to regulate things like aero packages as they do in Indycar. Street circuits have a completely different need to a speedway like Monza or a classic mixed circuit like Spa. Getting the cars able to follow each other when top speed is irrelevant would be a help.
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Personally I credit the NHS and the researchers and the nurses jabbing you for a pay cut, not the PM. Like I said, the Cult is strong in you.
You're the one in the Cult. Why aren't other European nation's nurses vaccinating healthy 38 year olds without pre-existing health conditions?
Is it because other European nation's nurses are lazy bastards who are letting vaccines sit idle in the fridge rather than vaccinating people?
Or is it because they don't have the vaccine supplies that our government procured and theirs didn't?
Worthwhile thread 1/ Since no one asked, here's a thread on the UK-Australia FTA.
Biases on the table: - I was an Australian trade negotiator - I have trained many of DIT's negotiators, likely including some of the ones working on this FTA - I'm neoliberal scum who generally thinks tariffs = bad https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1394942626424623104
This bit's interesting
14/ Eustice and Gove are correct to flag the potential precedent here.
Australia holds very few cards in this negotiation. The UK can barely even articulate what it wants from Australia, and so giving it full market access does not bode well for future negotiations with others.
The Truss makes me nervous. She's an Ayn Rand-ite zealot with one eye on the Tory membership approval ratings. That's a recipe for trouble.
Truss is a libertarian Orange Book ex LD though more than she is a Tory, I expect most Tory members will sympathise more with Gove and Eustice.
Remember the Tories were the party of the Corn Laws and Joseph Chamberlain and Baldwin tariffs, there is a long history of protectionism within the party and of course it was Ted Heath who took the UK into the Common Agricultural Policy.
Tory members will not necessarily want zero tariffs on all imports to the UK, even if that comes with the carrot of zero tariffs on UK exports as a result of the trade deals agreed, especially if imports to the UK end up cheaper than exports from the UK
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
I read a fascinating piece on Medium which speculates in exactly this way - that ET is actually AI and is taking a greater interest in us now because we are on the cusp of achieving AI with GPT3. It would be so emotionally satisfying if I could just work in a weather angle, as well
I am forced to conclude that anyone who thinks the British public will have much sympathy for nurses wanting more than the 2-3% pay deal they’ll end up with can’t possibly work for any kind of normal employer themselves.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Yes, we've had other PMs who seemed impregnably popular until the moment they weren't - Thatcher and Blair. But policy decisions made them mortal: the Poll Tax and Iraq. Boris seems imbued with a different kind of magic entirely. His policy decisions have been - at the very best - mediocre, yet the man himself and what he does appear to exist in different dimensions. Neither has any effect on the other.
"at best mediocre" 😂
The UK got a revised exit deal you lot said was impossible to get. The UK got a trade deal in eleven months you lot said was impossible to get. The UK exited the EU transition on schedule and without any of the disruption you lot were screaming about. The UK has gone through a global pandemic and come out the other side before any other major developed nation. The UK has a better vaccine procurement and rollout than any other major developed nation in the entire planet.
"at best mediocre" 🥳
You do have a bad case of Cult of Boris. The only reason that we haven't had the disruption that *industry* and *ports* and *customs* were screaming about is because we largely binned off the plan and didn't bother to implement the inbound checks. We're still planning to do so so its only pain deferred.
Oh excuses, excuses, excuses.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
So we're never going to fulfil our WTO obligations?
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Personally I credit the NHS and the researchers and the nurses jabbing you for a pay cut, not the PM. Like I said, the Cult is strong in you.
You're the one in the Cult. Why aren't other European nation's nurses vaccinating healthy 38 year olds without pre-existing health conditions?
Is it because other European nation's nurses are lazy bastards who are letting vaccines sit idle in the fridge rather than vaccinating people?
Or is it because they don't have the vaccine supplies that our government procured and theirs didn't?
Kate Bingham's daughter deserves our thanks and credit....for shouting at her mother to practice what she preaches to her and talk the bloody role.
Worthwhile thread 1/ Since no one asked, here's a thread on the UK-Australia FTA.
Biases on the table: - I was an Australian trade negotiator - I have trained many of DIT's negotiators, likely including some of the ones working on this FTA - I'm neoliberal scum who generally thinks tariffs = bad https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1394942626424623104
This bit's interesting
14/ Eustice and Gove are correct to flag the potential precedent here.
Australia holds very few cards in this negotiation. The UK can barely even articulate what it wants from Australia, and so giving it full market access does not bode well for future negotiations with others.
The Truss makes me nervous. She's an Ayn Rand-ite zealot with one eye on the Tory membership approval ratings. That's a recipe for trouble.
That Britain does not know what it wants rings true. You could say the same about David Cameron's initial negotiations and much of the subsequent Brexit process. Boris and Truss vs Eustice and Gove. Place your bets.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Well it's all relative in that if the alternatives are unpopular it makes him look a better proposition. So I agree with that. And it's not that he's wildly and widely popular. He's disliked by many and I'm sure there are plenty who can just take him or leave him.
But he's a very unusual politician. He's a brand rather than a real person to an extent that's quite rare in politics. And what a powerful brand it is. People cut him slack. They are indulgent of him because they feel like they know him. Just observe how he's talked about if you doubt this.
So when you add to that brand power him being the man who (for real) Got Brexit Done, and the man who (for real) Saw Us Through The Pandemic, regardless of Brexit not making anybody's life better, and regardless of our Covid response other than vaccines being objectively pisspoor, you get something that is pretty formidable and will take a lot of shifting.
I note that you've resolved the dilemma of whether to call him 'Johnson' or 'Boris' by refusing to name xxxxx, and just referring to 'he' or 'him'. Neat.
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
I read a fascinating piece on Medium which speculates in exactly this way - that ET is actually AI and is taking a greater interest in us now because we are on the cusp of achieving AI with GPT3. It would be so emotionally satisfying if I could just work in a weather angle, as well
The forecasts. Omg
Don't forget to work in that these AI-controlled aliens were the original source of covid.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
I beg to differ about passing. The Formula E race proved that you absolutely can pass at Monaco. OK there are only a couple of real passing places but the same was true about Barcelona, and I know where I'd rather be...
It didn't show anything about how easy that might be in one of the fatter and faster F1 cars.
F1 has a desperate need to regulate things like aero packages as they do in Indycar. Street circuits have a completely different need to a speedway like Monza or a classic mixed circuit like Spa. Getting the cars able to follow each other when top speed is irrelevant would be a help.
If F1 has a long term future, which I doubt, they need to get rid of the manufacturers, restrict them to being powertrain suppliers and go to a control chassis inevitably supplied by Dallara.
The cars are curious relicts in a lot of ways; much more primitive than the road cars they are supposed to be selling. They have torsion bar suspension like a Morris Marina (or M1 Abrams tank).
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
Dom got swept up in his own mythology and started to believe that he upturned history and brought about Brexit. (I blame that Benedict Cumberbatch film). Of course, from what we now know, if anyone is to be given that 'credit' it's Boris: unlike slippery Dave, people trusted him to make an honest assessment and recommend the sensible course of action.
What a pity he was dishonest (about the Irish Sea border) and didn't take a sensible course of action.
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
I read a fascinating piece on Medium which speculates in exactly this way - that ET is actually AI and is taking a greater interest in us now because we are on the cusp of achieving AI with GPT3. It would be so emotionally satisfying if I could just work in a weather angle, as well
The forecasts. Omg
Don't forget to work in that these AI-controlled aliens were the original source of covid.
Samaritan did that. "The Machine" tried to stop him/her/it.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Well it's all relative in that if the alternatives are unpopular it makes him look a better proposition. So I agree with that. And it's not that he's wildly and widely popular. He's disliked by many and I'm sure there are plenty who can just take him or leave him.
But he's a very unusual politician. He's a brand rather than a real person to an extent that's quite rare in politics. And what a powerful brand it is. People cut him slack. They are indulgent of him because they feel like they know him. Just observe how he's talked about if you doubt this.
So when you add to that brand power him being the man who (for real) Got Brexit Done, and the man who (for real) Saw Us Through The Pandemic, regardless of Brexit not making anybody's life better, and regardless of our Covid response other than vaccines being objectively pisspoor, you get something that is pretty formidable and will take a lot of shifting.
I note that you've resolved the dilemma of whether to call him 'Johnson' or 'Boris' by refusing to name xxxxx, and just referring to 'he' or 'him'. Neat.
Either that or his brand is so powerful that the masculine pronoun alone is sufficient for anyone to instantly identify him...
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Personally I credit the NHS and the researchers and the nurses jabbing you for a pay cut, not the PM. Like I said, the Cult is strong in you.
You're the one in the Cult. Why aren't other European nation's nurses vaccinating healthy 38 year olds without pre-existing health conditions?
Is it because other European nation's nurses are lazy bastards who are letting vaccines sit idle in the fridge rather than vaccinating people?
Or is it because they don't have the vaccine supplies that our government procured and theirs didn't?
So lets talk about project management. Lets assume a company CEO has his head of department come to him early in a crisis and say "we will need x and we need to start now". CEO green lights the project and allocates the resources including someone to project manage. He then stands aside whilst the actual work gets done.
Does the credit sit with the department head who realised the problem? The CEO who commissioned the work, or the people who did the work? The answer of course is all of them, but to different percentages.
The bulk of the credit for our vaccination triumph is with the scientists who did the research, with the medical professionals and managers who firstly signed off the vaccine and now manage the roll-out, and with the superb nurses and doctors who face an endless line of people to do the same repetitive task every day for months with a smile.
The cult want to ignore all the people who did all the actual work and instead praise the CEO who said "get on with it". I can guarantee you this - had the medics screwed up the research, had NHS logistics screwed up the procurement and distribribution it wouldn't be Boris Johnson taking responsibility. Yet you want to grant him all the credit for other people's success.
Its A Cult. And you're deep in it drinking the kool-aid.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Yes, we've had other PMs who seemed impregnably popular until the moment they weren't - Thatcher and Blair. But policy decisions made them mortal: the Poll Tax and Iraq. Boris seems imbued with a different kind of magic entirely. His policy decisions have been - at the very best - mediocre, yet the man himself and what he does appear to exist in different dimensions. Neither has any effect on the other.
"at best mediocre" 😂
The UK got a revised exit deal you lot said was impossible to get. The UK got a trade deal in eleven months you lot said was impossible to get. The UK exited the EU transition on schedule and without any of the disruption you lot were screaming about. The UK has gone through a global pandemic and come out the other side before any other major developed nation. The UK has a better vaccine procurement and rollout than any other major developed nation in the entire planet.
"at best mediocre" 🥳
You do have a bad case of Cult of Boris. The only reason that we haven't had the disruption that *industry* and *ports* and *customs* were screaming about is because we largely binned off the plan and didn't bother to implement the inbound checks. We're still planning to do so so its only pain deferred.
Oh excuses, excuses, excuses.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
So we're never going to fulfil our WTO obligations?
Yeah, that will be accepted...
Yeah it will. WTO disputes take decades to resolve.
We will transition in checks at a timeline that suits us. Exactly as I said because that's what sane governments do, and that's what ours is doing.
We are an independent sovereign country now so we get to pick and choose what we want to do that suits us best. If anyone in the WTO has an issue with that they're able to lodge a dispute that will take years or decades to resolve anyway.
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
But the Olympics are officially still happening nine weeks from now.
Great start to today, anyway, hearing that Trump's legal problems are doing the opposite of going away. I think him in a jumpsuit doing a stretch is a stretch, but I have reasonable hopes of it being enough to neuter him. Donald Trump being neutered is, for me, a good outcome and a suitable alternative to prison. If he's neutered - and such is properly verified - he can roam free but not do any damage.
You should worry a bit about a properly neutered Trump. A properly neutered Trump clears the way for someone a bit Trumpish but without so many negatives to lead the Republicans in 2024. At the moment, I can't see a way back for Trump. But I can see a way back for the Republicans with such a candidate. Perhaps after 2016-2020 though you'd take that in the same way that I was relieved to see Jeremy Corbyn ousted from the Labour Party, even though it made Labour more electable.
I'm fine with America electing a president on a Trumpian platform. I'd be disappointed but that's all. I never gave much of a shit about Trump's policies. It's their country. Up to them what direction they go in. My problem with Donald Trump was (is) the man. A piece of vermin like that should not be president of anything let alone of the United States. He's a crook, a conman, a racist, a misogynist, a wannabe fascist with no respect for democracy or the law, a cruel and shallow person with not a single redeeming feature.
His presence in the White House was the most toxic of things. A gigantic global role model for all that is worst in human nature, validating what should be condemned, suppressing what should be encouraged. He caused every small-minded bigot on the planet to feel a little bit better about themselves. This, for me, is the essence of Trump. Take that away and (with the GOP) you just have politics I dislike and disagree with in a country not my own. I'm not going to lose sleep over that.
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
I read a fascinating piece on Medium which speculates in exactly this way - that ET is actually AI and is taking a greater interest in us now because we are on the cusp of achieving AI with GPT3. It would be so emotionally satisfying if I could just work in a weather angle, as well
The forecasts. Omg
Obviously these space craft can only perform the manoeuvres we see when the air temperature is below twenty degrees. A network of weather satellites ensures the right conditions over the area they are looking at. They are taking a particular interest in England because it is the start of the cricket season and they need to establish if the current performance levels of Gloucestershire are the work of a rival species.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
I read a fascinating piece on Medium which speculates in exactly this way - that ET is actually AI and is taking a greater interest in us now because we are on the cusp of achieving AI with GPT3. It would be so emotionally satisfying if I could just work in a weather angle, as well
The forecasts. Omg
Don't forget to work in that these AI-controlled aliens were the original source of covid.
Why was the lab leak hypothesis dismissed so airily, for so long?
‘I think this is one of the more important things I’ve written. Not only are more scientists taking seriously the possibility that the pandemic began at a research lab, but the US itself MAY have been funding dangerous coronavirus research there.’
No, the departure isn't a tricky one for Boris. It will go away. End. The toe curling bit is the invitation to the nice nurse to join in some sort of applause alongside her beloved and supreme leader so that the Pyongyang Daily can print a photo.
We must be grateful that her refusal merely means she can return to NZ or wherever rather than her whole family being sent to a labour camp for life.
On another topic, does anyone think the LDs are in with a chance at C and A?
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
I've seen some quite absurd things posted by doctors - leaping to conclusions to fit their personal opinions, quite clearly.
Public sector workers - and I am one - still tend to have an outdated view of what cost-of-living increases tend to look like - so 1% is views as 'insulting' or 'derisory'. There seems to be a view that in the private sector people are getting 3% and 4% as a matter of course. That sort of level went out the window 15-20 years ago - 1% is now a pretty good deal. This isn't a comment on the level nurses or anyone else deserves, just a comment on the slightly skewed view the public sector have of what people in the private sector get.
One thing that is common in the public sector is automatic progression (also in universities, where I work). So, eahc year you get not only the pay rise for your job, but you automatically (at least wthin bands) move up a point and get a pay rise that way. So our pay settlements are often 1% or so, but I get a pay rise each year of more like 3% overall. Now, it's still a problem if I, in five years, earn less in real terms than someone five points above me does today, but it does mean that most of us get real terms increases every year (the one thing that might break that is the USS contributions fiasco, but we'll see).
In competitive, professional private sector, there's often similar, although less define progression - my wife's annual pay increases in the same role often outstripped min. But in other roles, supermarkets etc, you're in hte role you're in and all you get is the national pay increase. If it's 1% pay rise it's really 1% pay rise.
I can only comment on my own department and say we get no automatic rise within the pay band. I don't know about people on older contracts.
I should clarify that my experience is national government civil service (automatic annual increments within band, plus national pay settlement), private sector (no automatic increments, but in practice there was competition for staff, so I got a pay rise every year within the same role - athough the size of that did vary) and university (annual increments within bands, move up one point each year, plus the national pay rise).
It may well vary in other areas of the public sector. What's yours, if you don't mind me asking?
I did 5 yrs in civil service central govt dept. Think there were automatic increments but don't remember them being as high as 3%. Never understood the fuss about 1% or 3% or whatever. The difference always seemed to be negligible at the end of the day.
The pay travesty I remember was that some jobs were misgraded which led to huge salary differences largely inexplicable by the level of responsibility/skills/whatever required.
I saw a reflection of the salary difference issue - I worked for an oil company that hired alot of ex-civil servants.
Who found the idea that specialists could be paid more than their managers.... EVILLLLLL
Which led to the introduction of contracting in a big way - for the SAP boom, for example.
Yes this makes it difficult for civil service to hire people with specialist skills. This is of course what all these agencies & consultancies want.
Paying someone X was "insulting to their managers" but paying their personal service company 800 a day wasn't.
Humans are weird.
Yes they are, these sort of blind spots are cost the government a fortune in consultants - and often end up with the consultants themselves having to be switched out because IR35 - so for example your infosec lead changes every six months, which is somewhat sub-optimal from an infosec point of view!
IR35 - either the person is outside or they are inside. time spent at a site really shouldn't make much difference.
Indeed. And if the consultant concerned is on payroll for a company (not just umbrella) then it doesn't matter either way. Which is why a lot of contractors are looking for permanent roles at the moment. Though in any case its fairly straightforward to stay outside IR35 if the client is sensible and the contract written appropriately.
Public sector workers - and I am one - still tend to have an outdated view of what cost-of-living increases tend to look like - so 1% is views as 'insulting' or 'derisory'. There seems to be a view that in the private sector people are getting 3% and 4% as a matter of course. That sort of level went out the window 15-20 years ago - 1% is now a pretty good deal. This isn't a comment on the level nurses or anyone else deserves, just a comment on the slightly skewed view the public sector have of what people in the private sector get.
One thing that is common in the public sector is automatic progression (also in universities, where I work). So, eahc year you get not only the pay rise for your job, but you automatically (at least wthin bands) move up a point and get a pay rise that way. So our pay settlements are often 1% or so, but I get a pay rise each year of more like 3% overall. Now, it's still a problem if I, in five years, earn less in real terms than someone five points above me does today, but it does mean that most of us get real terms increases every year (the one thing that might break that is the USS contributions fiasco, but we'll see).
In competitive, professional private sector, there's often similar, although less define progression - my wife's annual pay increases in the same role often outstripped min. But in other roles, supermarkets etc, you're in hte role you're in and all you get is the national pay increase. If it's 1% pay rise it's really 1% pay rise.
I can only comment on my own department and say we get no automatic rise within the pay band. I don't know about people on older contracts.
I should clarify that my experience is national government civil service (automatic annual increments within band, plus national pay settlement), private sector (no automatic increments, but in practice there was competition for staff, so I got a pay rise every year within the same role - athough the size of that did vary) and university (annual increments within bands, move up one point each year, plus the national pay rise).
It may well vary in other areas of the public sector. What's yours, if you don't mind me asking?
I did 5 yrs in civil service central govt dept. Think there were automatic increments but don't remember them being as high as 3%. Never understood the fuss about 1% or 3% or whatever. The difference always seemed to be negligible at the end of the day.
The pay travesty I remember was that some jobs were misgraded which led to huge salary differences largely inexplicable by the level of responsibility/skills/whatever required.
One is reminded of the Dominic Cummings Benedict Cumberbatch film about Bletchley Park where the mathematician love interest Joan Clarke was falsely graded as a linguist to give her a salary boost. Skip over the fact that women were naturally paid less than men, and reflect that the boffins doing hard sums were paid less than the chaps who spoke German and knew which knife and fork to use.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Yes, we've had other PMs who seemed impregnably popular until the moment they weren't - Thatcher and Blair. But policy decisions made them mortal: the Poll Tax and Iraq. Boris seems imbued with a different kind of magic entirely. His policy decisions have been - at the very best - mediocre, yet the man himself and what he does appear to exist in different dimensions. Neither has any effect on the other.
"at best mediocre" 😂
The UK got a revised exit deal you lot said was impossible to get. The UK got a trade deal in eleven months you lot said was impossible to get. The UK exited the EU transition on schedule and without any of the disruption you lot were screaming about. The UK has gone through a global pandemic and come out the other side before any other major developed nation. The UK has a better vaccine procurement and rollout than any other major developed nation in the entire planet.
"at best mediocre" 🥳
You do have a bad case of Cult of Boris. The only reason that we haven't had the disruption that *industry* and *ports* and *customs* were screaming about is because we largely binned off the plan and didn't bother to implement the inbound checks. We're still planning to do so so its only pain deferred.
Oh excuses, excuses, excuses.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
So we're never going to fulfil our WTO obligations?
Yeah, that will be accepted...
Yeah it will. WTO disputes take decades to resolve.
We will transition in checks at a timeline that suits us. Exactly as I said because that's what sane governments do, and that's what ours is doing.
We are an independent sovereign country now so we get to pick and choose what we want to do that suits us best. If anyone in the WTO has an issue with that they're able to lodge a dispute that will take years or decades to resolve anyway.
Quite mad. Not that you are an English exceptionalist who thinks the rules don't apply to us. Oh no.
As for "years" or "decades" its pretty each for trade sanctions to be slapped down almost immediately.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The behaviour of the media during the pandemic, definitely needs to be in scope for the enquiry. The name “Independent Sage” is deliberately confusing, and the people actually advising the government should be subject to the SpAd code and silent except for formal briefings.
We spent a lot of time last year dealing with staff who'd read Independent Sage material and thought it came from the government.
Not true, UK farmers would get tariff free access to the Australian market too, that is the whole point of trade deals
A lot of good that's going to do, most of the food we would export would be stinking by the time it reaches Australia by boat
Vacuum-packed meat lasts about three months in the fridge. We get Aussie beef here in the sandpit, usually arrives with 6 weeks or so left on it.
Food imports from NZ & Australia kick started international frozen food transport. In the 19th cent...
I think it's a lot of fuss about nothing.
Talking of which, a friend who works for a US owned law firm in London told me that she's just been through a racial unconscious bias course at work, and the company is now telling employees that as part of their annual appraisals they'll be asked to give examples of how they have understood and empathised with marginalised demographic groups in the workplace during the year.
I imagine the three of the 250-odd workforce there who are non-white are going to be getting a lot of empathy during the coming year.
It won't drive the behaviours they think it will - people will simply learn the right things to say.
A Russian friend said about this stuff, that it reminded him quite strongly of the Marxism theory study groups he got pushed into in military service, in the old Soviet Union. Led by the political officers.
You could tell the ambitious ones - they could recite like parrots. Everyone else was asleep or mumbling assent when the right answer was shouted out.
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Personally I credit the NHS and the researchers and the nurses jabbing you for a pay cut, not the PM. Like I said, the Cult is strong in you.
You're the one in the Cult. Why aren't other European nation's nurses vaccinating healthy 38 year olds without pre-existing health conditions?
Is it because other European nation's nurses are lazy bastards who are letting vaccines sit idle in the fridge rather than vaccinating people?
Or is it because they don't have the vaccine supplies that our government procured and theirs didn't?
So lets talk about project management. Lets assume a company CEO has his head of department come to him early in a crisis and say "we will need x and we need to start now". CEO green lights the project and allocates the resources including someone to project manage. He then stands aside whilst the actual work gets done.
Does the credit sit with the department head who realised the problem? The CEO who commissioned the work, or the people who did the work? The answer of course is all of them, but to different percentages.
The bulk of the credit for our vaccination triumph is with the scientists who did the research, with the medical professionals and managers who firstly signed off the vaccine and now manage the roll-out, and with the superb nurses and doctors who face an endless line of people to do the same repetitive task every day for months with a smile.
The cult want to ignore all the people who did all the actual work and instead praise the CEO who said "get on with it". I can guarantee you this - had the medics screwed up the research, had NHS logistics screwed up the procurement and distribribution it wouldn't be Boris Johnson taking responsibility. Yet you want to grant him all the credit for other people's success.
Its A Cult. And you're deep in it drinking the kool-aid.
You're the one in a Cult. The difference between the nation's is not the willingness of nurses to do vaccinations, it is almost entirely down to procurement. And procurement was a national responsibility.
This government hired Kate Bingham, gave her responsibilities and told her to spend whatever she needed to get what we need.
Other governments gave responsibility to Commissioner Kyriakides with a target set of haggling to get best value for money and limited liability.
For much of last year the Government was getting ridiculed for the "sleaze" of hiring Bingham and slated for not deferring to Kyriakides.
The Liberal Democrats were outraged we didn't wind up Bingham's scheme and join Kyriakides scheme instead.
Now you have the barefaced cheek to say it's not political. You are drinking Kool Aid and don't have the credibility to acknowledge the Liberal Democrats called this wrong and the Government called this right. For shame on you.
PS NHS logistics didn't do the procurement. The Government created Bingham's taskforce which did.
Every single person of an LGBTQ+ inclination on my FB feed thinks Belgium have the best Eurovision entry. That has to mean something.
Two things: (1) people tend to forget that 50% of the points are decided by professional juries, not the public - and those jurors tend to think similar to a typical luvvie "arts" person, and, (2) I've learned through bitter experience that it's rarely the best song that wins but the one that sends the best message of the day.
So, look at the most outrageously camp and woke songs before filtering out the best. And always bet against the UK.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
It's always been unfortunate that the same title is given to people who have studied a subject to the nth degree and people with a first degree in medicine. On occasion it causes confusion, sometimes anger.
When I was practising pharmacy, colleagues who had PhD's in a pharmaceutical subject were only allowed to use them in industry and perhaps in hospital, lest patients become confused. And no, I haven't.
Worthwhile thread 1/ Since no one asked, here's a thread on the UK-Australia FTA.
Biases on the table: - I was an Australian trade negotiator - I have trained many of DIT's negotiators, likely including some of the ones working on this FTA - I'm neoliberal scum who generally thinks tariffs = bad https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1394942626424623104
This bit's interesting
14/ Eustice and Gove are correct to flag the potential precedent here.
Australia holds very few cards in this negotiation. The UK can barely even articulate what it wants from Australia, and so giving it full market access does not bode well for future negotiations with others.
The Truss makes me nervous. She's an Ayn Rand-ite zealot with one eye on the Tory membership approval ratings. That's a recipe for trouble.
The main card that Australia has is the sense that the UK will sign any old guff put in front of it, because of the political pressure to have a real independent trade deal to trumpet.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
Yes, that's a good point. However, this individual specialises in racial equality. This strikes me as being even less relevant to epidemiology than medicine (or indeed transport, or engineering, or manufacturing of highly specialised artisan flint products, or whatever else it is that people on here do.)
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
Yes, that's a good point. However, this individual specialises in racial equality. This strikes me as being even less relevant to epidemiology than medicine (or indeed transport, or engineering, or manufacturing of highly specialised artisan flint products, or whatever else it is that people on here do.)
Given we are (or were) worried about differential take up (or refusal) in different ethnic groups, it does not seem odd that specialists in this area should be consulted. Whether this guy is any good is another question. The important point is this is not just a medical matter.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Yes, we've had other PMs who seemed impregnably popular until the moment they weren't - Thatcher and Blair. But policy decisions made them mortal: the Poll Tax and Iraq. Boris seems imbued with a different kind of magic entirely. His policy decisions have been - at the very best - mediocre, yet the man himself and what he does appear to exist in different dimensions. Neither has any effect on the other.
"at best mediocre" 😂
The UK got a revised exit deal you lot said was impossible to get. The UK got a trade deal in eleven months you lot said was impossible to get. The UK exited the EU transition on schedule and without any of the disruption you lot were screaming about. The UK has gone through a global pandemic and come out the other side before any other major developed nation. The UK has a better vaccine procurement and rollout than any other major developed nation in the entire planet.
"at best mediocre" 🥳
You do have a bad case of Cult of Boris. The only reason that we haven't had the disruption that *industry* and *ports* and *customs* were screaming about is because we largely binned off the plan and didn't bother to implement the inbound checks. We're still planning to do so so its only pain deferred.
Oh excuses, excuses, excuses.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
So we're never going to fulfil our WTO obligations?
Yeah, that will be accepted...
Yeah it will. WTO disputes take decades to resolve.
We will transition in checks at a timeline that suits us. Exactly as I said because that's what sane governments do, and that's what ours is doing.
We are an independent sovereign country now so we get to pick and choose what we want to do that suits us best. If anyone in the WTO has an issue with that they're able to lodge a dispute that will take years or decades to resolve anyway.
Quite mad. Not that you are an English exceptionalist who thinks the rules don't apply to us. Oh no.
As for "years" or "decades" its pretty each for trade sanctions to be slapped down almost immediately.
No exceptionalism. Every nation applies rules to suit it's interests as it chooses. Far from being mad or exceptional it's quite bog standard. Welcome to the UK being a sovereign country, we now have the freedom to act as every other unexceptional sovereign country can.
As for trade sanctions being applied, where are they? Go on, who is doing it, considering we are acting the way I advocated. Who has put trade sanctions on us?
Actually we unilaterally acted and helped get America to drop sanctions on Scotch. And ... Ummm ... Nope, no sanctions.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
I've seen some quite absurd things posted by doctors - leaping to conclusions to fit their personal opinions, quite clearly.
To be fair, also some absurd things posted/stated by epidemiologists, for the same reasons.
But the media should start with "does this person have qualifications/experience that suggest they should know what they're talking about" and then, ideally (asking too much?) follow up with a bit of critical appraisal of what thet actually say, including looking for other people who should know what they're talking about who may have differing opinions.
See, e.g., masks and the whole airbourne or not debate.
So it appears from Neil Ferguson’s comments today that pretty much the only criteria determining lockdown easing is transmissibility of variants and therefore impact on case numbers. The impact on severe disease and therefore overall real impact on public health almost an afterthought. High cases = high levels of serious illness/deaths just taken as axiomatic.
Should the government cut funding to businesses that have been impacted, like VAT cuts, furlough, grants, loans, rates relief and much more - put VAT on hospitality back up and give that money to the NHS? 🤔
yes
So devastate even more the businesses like pubs and restaurants etc that are on their knees in order to give more money to those in secure jobs? 🤔
Pubs and restaurants will start making their usual vast amounts of profits etc as everyone rushes back to them, desperate for their alcoholic meals. Meanwhile NHS workers will continue to eek out their salaries between their vast childcare costs and their full tax and NI contributions Class 1. There will always be Pubs and restaurants, but will there always be nurses and doctors now that we are jailing EU visitors at the border.
This is just so deeply delusional. Pubs and restaurants do not make "usual vast amounts of profits". Indeed, as we discussed only yesterday significant percentages of them go bust every normal year losing their life savings and all too often their homes put up as collateral. Those who work in the sector have little to no job security and are doing better than most if they even get the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, those working for the NHS are paid on average well above the national average, receive full pay for very extended periods if they are sick, get a full year's worth of full pay when they have kids and have pensions that are simply unobtainable to most in the private sector. I am not saying they don't deserve it but those who work with that incredible job security and confidence really need to acquire some understanding of how the majority of their fellow citizens paying their taxes to pay their wages live.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
I've seen some quite absurd things posted by doctors - leaping to conclusions to fit their personal opinions, quite clearly.
To be fair, also some absurd things posted/stated by epidemiologists, for the same reasons.
But the media should start with "does this person have qualifications/experience that suggest they should know what they're talking about" and then, ideally (asking too much?) follow up with a bit of critical appraisal of what thet actually say, including looking for other people who should know what they're talking about who may have differing opinions.
See, e.g., masks and the whole airbourne or not debate.
The 'media' is, largely I believe staffed by journalists. How does one become one? The truly 'investigative' reporter, who makes themselves informed about what they are investigating is, in my experience, rare.
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
HR Rules come from Cabinet office/dept HR -> both of whom are accountable to Ministers. Obviously Ministers could change these rules if they wanted civil service reform & prioritized it as an issue.
Simple solution: hire some new people on a track called 'specialized skills' and give them better terms and conditions. Anyone joining new goes onto different terms and conditions anyway -> most of which are less generous than old-timers get.
The idea that civil servants could block such a change is for the birds. They didn't manage to block an unlawful attempt to gut their pensions, a decade long pay freeze -> they are hardly going to be able to block a move to pay some other civil servants more money.
But it won't happen because Tories want to reduce size of public sector.
So it appears from Neil Ferguson’s comments today that pretty much the only criteria determining lockdown easing is transmissibility of variants and therefore impact on case numbers. The impact on severe disease and therefore overall real impact on public health almost an afterthought. High cases = high levels of serious illness/deaths just taken as axiomatic.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
I've seen some quite absurd things posted by doctors - leaping to conclusions to fit their personal opinions, quite clearly.
To be fair, also some absurd things posted/stated by epidemiologists, for the same reasons.
But the media should start with "does this person have qualifications/experience that suggest they should know what they're talking about" and then, ideally (asking too much?) follow up with a bit of critical appraisal of what thet actually say, including looking for other people who should know what they're talking about who may have differing opinions.
See, e.g., masks and the whole airbourne or not debate.
Indeed. And outside expertise is very useful - when the skill are relevant. Feynman and the Challenger investigation was a classic.
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Yes, we've had other PMs who seemed impregnably popular until the moment they weren't - Thatcher and Blair. But policy decisions made them mortal: the Poll Tax and Iraq. Boris seems imbued with a different kind of magic entirely. His policy decisions have been - at the very best - mediocre, yet the man himself and what he does appear to exist in different dimensions. Neither has any effect on the other.
"at best mediocre" 😂
The UK got a revised exit deal you lot said was impossible to get. The UK got a trade deal in eleven months you lot said was impossible to get. The UK exited the EU transition on schedule and without any of the disruption you lot were screaming about. The UK has gone through a global pandemic and come out the other side before any other major developed nation. The UK has a better vaccine procurement and rollout than any other major developed nation in the entire planet.
"at best mediocre" 🥳
You do have a bad case of Cult of Boris. The only reason that we haven't had the disruption that *industry* and *ports* and *customs* were screaming about is because we largely binned off the plan and didn't bother to implement the inbound checks. We're still planning to do so so its only pain deferred.
Oh excuses, excuses, excuses.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
So we're never going to fulfil our WTO obligations?
Yeah, that will be accepted...
Yeah it will. WTO disputes take decades to resolve.
We will transition in checks at a timeline that suits us. Exactly as I said because that's what sane governments do, and that's what ours is doing.
We are an independent sovereign country now so we get to pick and choose what we want to do that suits us best. If anyone in the WTO has an issue with that they're able to lodge a dispute that will take years or decades to resolve anyway.
Quite mad. Not that you are an English exceptionalist who thinks the rules don't apply to us. Oh no.
As for "years" or "decades" its pretty each for trade sanctions to be slapped down almost immediately.
No exceptionalism. Every nation applies rules to suit it's interests as it chooses. Far from being mad or exceptional it's quite bog standard. Welcome to the UK being a sovereign country, we now have the freedom to act as every other unexceptional sovereign country can.
As for trade sanctions being applied, where are they? Go on, who is doing it, considering we are acting the way I advocated. Who has put trade sanctions on us?
Actually we unilaterally acted and helped get America to drop sanctions on Scotch. And ... Ummm ... Nope, no sanctions.
I would imagine sanctions, making good Scotch whisky more difficult to obtain in the US, would have been deeply unpopular in important political circles.
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
It really is as well that they don't have a major international sporting event with tens of thousands of people supposedly coming from all around the world to participate and see it any time soon, isn't it?
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
I read a fascinating piece on Medium which speculates in exactly this way - that ET is actually AI and is taking a greater interest in us now because we are on the cusp of achieving AI with GPT3. It would be so emotionally satisfying if I could just work in a weather angle, as well
The forecasts. Omg
GPT-3 is a Markov chain with a very large dictionary.
It is entertaining but it is so far from what you think it is it isn't even funny.
So it appears from Neil Ferguson’s comments today that pretty much the only criteria determining lockdown easing is transmissibility of variants and therefore impact on case numbers. The impact on severe disease and therefore overall real impact on public health almost an afterthought. High cases = high levels of serious illness/deaths just taken as axiomatic.
Yes, it's almost as though the government is going out of its way to ignore the effect of vaccines on hospitalisations. First we had Boris crediting lockdown with the rapid reduction in deaths and hospitalisations, then we had JVT saying much the same and since then we've had a whole bunch of SAGE scientists saying that cases > *. That runs completely counter to what we were told the vaccines we're for - to stop people going to hospital for COVID.
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
HR Rules come from Cabinet office/dept HR -> both of whom are accountable to Ministers. Obviously Ministers could change these rules if they wanted civil service reform & prioritized it as an issue.
Simple solution: hire some new people on a track called 'specialized skills' and give them better terms and conditions. Anyone joining new goes onto different terms and conditions anyway -> most of which are less generous than old-timers get.
The idea that civil servants could block such a change is for the birds. They didn't manage to block an unlawful attempt to gut their pensions, a decade long pay freeze -> they are hardly going to be able to block a move to pay some other civil servants more money.
But it won't happen because Tories want to reduce size of public sector.
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
HR Rules come from Cabinet office/dept HR -> both of whom are accountable to Ministers. Obviously Ministers could change these rules if they wanted civil service reform & prioritized it as an issue.
Simple solution: hire some new people on a track called 'specialized skills' and give them better terms and conditions. Anyone joining new goes onto different terms and conditions anyway -> most of which are less generous than old-timers get.
The idea that civil servants could block such a change is for the birds. They didn't manage to block an unlawful attempt to gut their pensions, a decade long pay freeze -> they are hardly going to be able to block a move to pay some other civil servants more money.
But it won't happen because Tories want to reduce size of public sector.
Maybe - but given the visceral defence of pay grades etc that I've seen, the opposition to such a change in the Civil Service itself would be massive.
What you are suggesting is the kind of change that a certain ex-Spad would like. And that made him ever so popular.....
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
I've seen some quite absurd things posted by doctors - leaping to conclusions to fit their personal opinions, quite clearly.
To be fair, also some absurd things posted/stated by epidemiologists, for the same reasons.
But the media should start with "does this person have qualifications/experience that suggest they should know what they're talking about" and then, ideally (asking too much?) follow up with a bit of critical appraisal of what thet actually say, including looking for other people who should know what they're talking about who may have differing opinions.
See, e.g., masks and the whole airbourne or not debate.
Indeed. And outside expertise is very useful - when the skill are relevant. Feynman and the Challenger investigation was a classic.
Yep, absolutely. Anyone at the sharp end in dealing with SARS 1, for example or in any other epidemic response - doctors, managers. Aerosol experts. People who run clinical trials (when talking about vaccines). IT experts on the NHS tracking app (we had some on here pointing out how the original iteration would not work).
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
HR Rules come from Cabinet office/dept HR -> both of whom are accountable to Ministers. Obviously Ministers could change these rules if they wanted civil service reform & prioritized it as an issue.
Simple solution: hire some new people on a track called 'specialized skills' and give them better terms and conditions. Anyone joining new goes onto different terms and conditions anyway -> most of which are less generous than old-timers get.
The idea that civil servants could block such a change is for the birds. They didn't manage to block an unlawful attempt to gut their pensions, a decade long pay freeze -> they are hardly going to be able to block a move to pay some other civil servants more money.
But it won't happen because Tories want to reduce size of public sector.
It won’t happen because of the Civil Service Union, they want people to be paid mostly on time served, to constantly move people around between departments, and for it to be almost impossible to fire anyone for poor performance.
Cummings was right, the whole edifice is simply unfit for purpose in the 21st century and needs turning upside down.
Should the government cut funding to businesses that have been impacted, like VAT cuts, furlough, grants, loans, rates relief and much more - put VAT on hospitality back up and give that money to the NHS? 🤔
yes
So devastate even more the businesses like pubs and restaurants etc that are on their knees in order to give more money to those in secure jobs? 🤔
Pubs and restaurants will start making their usual vast amounts of profits etc as everyone rushes back to them, desperate for their alcoholic meals. Meanwhile NHS workers will continue to eek out their salaries between their vast childcare costs and their full tax and NI contributions Class 1. There will always be Pubs and restaurants, but will there always be nurses and doctors now that we are jailing EU visitors at the border.
This is just so deeply delusional. Pubs and restaurants do not make "usual vast amounts of profits". Indeed, as we discussed only yesterday significant percentages of them go bust every normal year losing their life savings and all too often their homes put up as collateral. Those who work in the sector have little to no job security and are doing better than most if they even get the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, those working for the NHS are paid on average well above the national average, receive full pay for very extended periods if they are sick, get a full year's worth of full pay when they have kids and have pensions that are simply unobtainable to most in the private sector. I am not saying they don't deserve it but those who work with that incredible job security and confidence really need to acquire some understanding of how the majority of their fellow citizens paying their taxes to pay their wages live.
Someone posted on here yesterday - 1 in 6 hospitality businesses fail within their first year, even without a pandemic. It's a hugely risky field and I applaud anyone willing to take it, I wouldn't!
Even Domski is going to struggle to actually destroy Boris, though I imagine he's relentless in support of a cause (geniuses like Domski directing the ant colony).
The Dom is reputed to be a genius campaigner.
If his next campaign is the downfall of King BoZo, why would you bet against that?
Because he destroyed his own reputation last year and made himself a punchline.
Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair used to be genius campaigners. Campbell has been pissing into the wind for years now on Brexit and Blair's exortations on it were ignored too.
Although you probably find CampbellClaret's Tweets to be the best thing since sliced bread and can't understand why he's not being listened to.
The *only* thing that will give Dom any credibility on this is when he produces the evidence. I am uninterested in his opinion. I am interested in his facts.
Even then, with proof on the table that the PM ignored the science and was happy to let the bodies pile high, the Cult will just shrug. Yeah ok he killed granny but he's a lad isn't he and I'd still have a pint with him.
Alternatively thanks to Boris's government granny has been vaccinated.
My grandparents have had both vaccines and I'll be going to see them (having had one myself already too) this weekend. 👍
Personally I credit the NHS and the researchers and the nurses jabbing you for a pay cut, not the PM. Like I said, the Cult is strong in you.
You're the one in the Cult. Why aren't other European nation's nurses vaccinating healthy 38 year olds without pre-existing health conditions?
Is it because other European nation's nurses are lazy bastards who are letting vaccines sit idle in the fridge rather than vaccinating people?
Or is it because they don't have the vaccine supplies that our government procured and theirs didn't?
So lets talk about project management. Lets assume a company CEO has his head of department come to him early in a crisis and say "we will need x and we need to start now". CEO green lights the project and allocates the resources including someone to project manage. He then stands aside whilst the actual work gets done.
Does the credit sit with the department head who realised the problem? The CEO who commissioned the work, or the people who did the work? The answer of course is all of them, but to different percentages.
The bulk of the credit for our vaccination triumph is with the scientists who did the research, with the medical professionals and managers who firstly signed off the vaccine and now manage the roll-out, and with the superb nurses and doctors who face an endless line of people to do the same repetitive task every day for months with a smile.
The cult want to ignore all the people who did all the actual work and instead praise the CEO who said "get on with it". I can guarantee you this - had the medics screwed up the research, had NHS logistics screwed up the procurement and distribribution it wouldn't be Boris Johnson taking responsibility. Yet you want to grant him all the credit for other people's success.
Its A Cult. And you're deep in it drinking the kool-aid.
You're the one in a Cult. The difference between the nation's is not the willingness of nurses to do vaccinations, it is almost entirely down to procurement. And procurement was a national responsibility.
This government hired Kate Bingham, gave her responsibilities and told her to spend whatever she needed to get what we need.
Other governments gave responsibility to Commissioner Kyriakides with a target set of haggling to get best value for money and limited liability.
For much of last year the Government was getting ridiculed for the "sleaze" of hiring Bingham and slated for not deferring to Kyriakides.
The Liberal Democrats were outraged we didn't wind up Bingham's scheme and join Kyriakides scheme instead.
Now you have the barefaced cheek to say it's not political. You are drinking Kool Aid and don't have the credibility to acknowledge the Liberal Democrats called this wrong and the Government called this right. For shame on you.
PS NHS logistics didn't do the procurement. The Government created Bingham's taskforce which did.
I know that you seem fixated on "no, your mum" as a response this morning, a pity as you're better than that. Especially when you have luterally agreed with my argument about having commissioned the work that all the work was done not by the government.
Whatever. If you want to think He was actually doing something with those multichannel pippettes he posed with, feel free.
One of the weirdest things about the UAP UFO story - one of the things that makes me wonder if we are actually living in a tragicomic simulation on GPT-74 - is the fact that much of the narrative has been driven by... the guitarist from Blink 182
‘I remember too, ha. But I also was hanging around some very important people from US GOV, and I was aware that all this was coming- so I happily took the bullets. Now, I get elite investigative journalists like @ScottMStedman giving me a welcomed “👍🏼” - thanks brother’
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
It really is as well that they don't have a major international sporting event with tens of thousands of people supposedly coming from all around the world to participate and see it any time soon, isn't it?
And yet they insist it is going ahead because face.
So it appears from Neil Ferguson’s comments today that pretty much the only criteria determining lockdown easing is transmissibility of variants and therefore impact on case numbers. The impact on severe disease and therefore overall real impact on public health almost an afterthought. High cases = high levels of serious illness/deaths just taken as axiomatic.
What makes you say that?
I thought he'd said the opposite.
Maybe taking too much from second hand report with Guardian slant...
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
It really is as well that they don't have a major international sporting event with tens of thousands of people supposedly coming from all around the world to participate and see it any time soon, isn't it?
Can anyone explain to me why the wealthy Pacific Rim nations – Japan, Australia, NZ and Singapore – have been so utterly useless at actually vaccinating anyone?
One of the weirdest things about the UAP UFO story - one of the things that makes me wonder if we are actually living in a tragicomic simulation on GPT-74 - is the fact that much of the narrative has been driven by... the guitarist from Blink 182
‘I remember too, ha. But I also was hanging around some very important people from US GOV, and I was aware that all this was coming- so I happily took the bullets. Now, I get elite investigative journalists like @ScottMStedman giving me a welcomed “👍🏼” - thanks brother’
Sad as it is, I can't see how this story damages the PM. If the revelation was that she was quitting because he'd been shagging her then even then I doubt it would do him much damage.
People know he lies, betrays, cocks up and cocks about. They don't care. If he was ANY other politician they would care. But Brand Boris is the political sensation of this century so far - an entirely fictional concoction that seems to mesmerise by the million.
Yep. And when it ends - as it will - the number of folk saying they never did buy into it will vastly exceed the number who never bought into it.
I don't think Boris is as wildly popular as you think. He doesn't have to have fans. He just has to have more people who prefer him to the alternative than the other way around. Hartlepool man (as an archetype) doesn't believe Boris is on his side. Not really. Hartlepool man votes for Boris because Boris doesn't appear to be actively hostile to him.
Yes, we've had other PMs who seemed impregnably popular until the moment they weren't - Thatcher and Blair. But policy decisions made them mortal: the Poll Tax and Iraq. Boris seems imbued with a different kind of magic entirely. His policy decisions have been - at the very best - mediocre, yet the man himself and what he does appear to exist in different dimensions. Neither has any effect on the other.
"at best mediocre" 😂
The UK got a revised exit deal you lot said was impossible to get. The UK got a trade deal in eleven months you lot said was impossible to get. The UK exited the EU transition on schedule and without any of the disruption you lot were screaming about. The UK has gone through a global pandemic and come out the other side before any other major developed nation. The UK has a better vaccine procurement and rollout than any other major developed nation in the entire planet.
"at best mediocre" 🥳
You do have a bad case of Cult of Boris. The only reason that we haven't had the disruption that *industry* and *ports* and *customs* were screaming about is because we largely binned off the plan and didn't bother to implement the inbound checks. We're still planning to do so so its only pain deferred.
Oh excuses, excuses, excuses.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
So we're never going to fulfil our WTO obligations?
Yeah, that will be accepted...
Yeah it will. WTO disputes take decades to resolve.
We will transition in checks at a timeline that suits us. Exactly as I said because that's what sane governments do, and that's what ours is doing.
We are an independent sovereign country now so we get to pick and choose what we want to do that suits us best. If anyone in the WTO has an issue with that they're able to lodge a dispute that will take years or decades to resolve anyway.
Quite mad. Not that you are an English exceptionalist who thinks the rules don't apply to us. Oh no.
As for "years" or "decades" its pretty each for trade sanctions to be slapped down almost immediately.
No exceptionalism. Every nation applies rules to suit it's interests as it chooses. Far from being mad or exceptional it's quite bog standard. Welcome to the UK being a sovereign country, we now have the freedom to act as every other unexceptional sovereign country can.
As for trade sanctions being applied, where are they? Go on, who is doing it, considering we are acting the way I advocated. Who has put trade sanctions on us?
Actually we unilaterally acted and helped get America to drop sanctions on Scotch. And ... Ummm ... Nope, no sanctions.
Oh dear, the UK always has been a "sovereign country". Sigh! The remaining 27 nations of the EU are all "sovereign" countries. You are either being deliberately disingenuous on this, as it has been mentioned not just by me, but many others, or you are supremely gullible and have fallen for the sovereignty lie that was purveyed by Farage et al.
I posted this last night, but at midnight no one really replied. Trying again this morning:
"Question for the PB Brains Trusts this late night morning.
Every week I keep seeing the discussion drift off into aliens. By some reasonably respected posters too.
Why can I only find this stuff here? Is there any news items anywhere else? I haven't looked hard but I just can't obviously see what is going on."
It's just the drunken bollocks du jour from LeadricT. He'll be on to something else soon enough. His Islam-as-an-existential-threat-to-everything material is overdue for another airing.
Mr. B, interesting, I did note Leclerc had slightly shorter odds than Perez when I checked.
I think their problem is they're still likely to be behind the top two and McLaren might get in the way too.
Passing's nigh on impossible so good luck with a safety car or rain (last I checked it's forecast to be dry) would almost certainly be necessary. What odds did you get on Leclerc?
What are the chances of a Williams in the points? If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
I read a fascinating piece on Medium which speculates in exactly this way - that ET is actually AI and is taking a greater interest in us now because we are on the cusp of achieving AI with GPT3. It would be so emotionally satisfying if I could just work in a weather angle, as well
The forecasts. Omg
GPT-3 is a Markov chain with a very large dictionary.
It is entertaining but it is so far from what you think it is it isn't even funny.
I know exactly what it is. An enormous auto-complete machine. But maybe that’s all intelligence is. Auto-complete. We do not have Free Will. We just auto-complete in response to stimuli
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
It really is as well that they don't have a major international sporting event with tens of thousands of people supposedly coming from all around the world to participate and see it any time soon, isn't it?
Can anyone explain to me why the wealthy Pacific Rim nations – Japan, Australia, NZ and Singapore – have been so utterly useless at actually vaccinating anyone?
80% of Japanese don’t want the Olympics. Maybe they’re just doing what it takes to make sure...
Yesterday, the former president of the USA reversed his earlier statements, and confirmed that American military has encountered advanced technology it cannot explain. Among the most plausible explanations is surveillance of humanity by extra-terrestrial life forms, which makes this, potentially, the biggest story in the history of planet earth
So the UK media runs with a tiny, boring story about a disgruntled nurse and ‘Brits book up the Algarve’
Last night was a turning on point on Pb on this topic. The “is it really happening” question has been positively answered by a decent subset here now. The next question is “what happens next?”.
My own view is “bugger all”. The President can give a speech a year hence that says “we’ve uncovered a great mystery, something we don’t understand that is of Intelligence but is not human. We invite countries around the world and the scientific community to help us understand it, on the basis of peace, transparency and friendship”.
And by the end of the week, the stock market will be back to where it was and most people will be going on their lives as before.
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
HR Rules come from Cabinet office/dept HR -> both of whom are accountable to Ministers. Obviously Ministers could change these rules if they wanted civil service reform & prioritized it as an issue.
Simple solution: hire some new people on a track called 'specialized skills' and give them better terms and conditions. Anyone joining new goes onto different terms and conditions anyway -> most of which are less generous than old-timers get.
The idea that civil servants could block such a change is for the birds. They didn't manage to block an unlawful attempt to gut their pensions, a decade long pay freeze -> they are hardly going to be able to block a move to pay some other civil servants more money.
But it won't happen because Tories want to reduce size of public sector.
It won’t happen because of the Civil Service Union, they want people to be paid mostly on time served, to constantly move people around between departments, and for it to be almost impossible to fire anyone for poor performance.
Cummings was right, the whole edifice is simply unfit for purpose in the 21st century and needs turning upside down.
I think your view of the Civil Service is outdated. I retired a few years ago, but while I was still working poor performance was dealt with ruthlessly, and people 'disappeared' very quickly if they were not competent, including at quite senior levels. Time served has become much less of an advantage than it used to be in securing advancement.
"A member of Independent Sage who berated the Government on Tuesday for not delaying the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain is a social scientist turned race adviser who has no medical qualifications.
Dr Zubaida Haque, a founding member of the group, specialises in racial equality and has been involved with various government-commissioned reports on welfare issues."
The only issue I'd have with that quote is that "medical qualifications" are not that relevant to how to handle a pandemic. Most epidemiologists haven't been to med school and most medics are not qualified on how to handle a pandemic.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
I've seen some quite absurd things posted by doctors - leaping to conclusions to fit their personal opinions, quite clearly.
To be fair, also some absurd things posted/stated by epidemiologists, for the same reasons.
But the media should start with "does this person have qualifications/experience that suggest they should know what they're talking about" and then, ideally (asking too much?) follow up with a bit of critical appraisal of what thet actually say, including looking for other people who should know what they're talking about who may have differing opinions.
See, e.g., masks and the whole airbourne or not debate.
The 'media' is, largely I believe staffed by journalists. How does one become one? The truly 'investigative' reporter, who makes themselves informed about what they are investigating is, in my experience, rare.
I have a niece who wants to become a journalist. She's attending a college course to learn how to do it and will soon transition into 3rd year at University to get her "degree". I have asked what she wants to be a journalist of. There is no clear answer. I ask what area she has researched and thinks she has something to say on. Ditto.
She's a lovely girl but she frankly has zero chance of ever being paid to be a professional journalist and I fear the same will apply to the vast majority of those studying such a course.
In contrast the son of a friend of mine wrote a series of pieces for the Big Issue on homelessness, drug dependency and the interaction between the 2. Compelling pieces about something he clearly cared deeply about and had researched carefully. He also wrote endless pieces for fanzines of his favourite football team to practise his skill. After several years he now has a full time job as a journalist. It's a tough gig but he loves it.
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
It really is as well that they don't have a major international sporting event with tens of thousands of people supposedly coming from all around the world to participate and see it any time soon, isn't it?
Can anyone explain to me why the wealthy Pacific Rim nations – Japan, Australia, NZ and Singapore – have been so utterly useless at actually vaccinating anyone?
For wealthy countries the trend is the fewer deaths in 2020, the less fussed they were about being front of the queue for vaccines. Hardly surprising.
So it appears from Neil Ferguson’s comments today that pretty much the only criteria determining lockdown easing is transmissibility of variants and therefore impact on case numbers. The impact on severe disease and therefore overall real impact on public health almost an afterthought. High cases = high levels of serious illness/deaths just taken as axiomatic.
Yes, it's almost as though the government is going out of its way to ignore the effect of vaccines on hospitalisations. First we had Boris crediting lockdown with the rapid reduction in deaths and hospitalisations, then we had JVT saying much the same and since then we've had a whole bunch of SAGE scientists saying that cases > *. That runs completely counter to what we were told the vaccines we're for - to stop people going to hospital for COVID.
Easy explanation: it's behavioural science gone bad. The Nudgers hate messaging that vaccinations keep you safe as it stops the vaxxed following the rules.
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
It really is as well that they don't have a major international sporting event with tens of thousands of people supposedly coming from all around the world to participate and see it any time soon, isn't it?
And yet they insist it is going ahead because face.
I don't think I've seen anything more pathetic from a rich nation this pandemic than Japan's feeble vaccination effort. They are sub 4% with a first dose right now.
It really is as well that they don't have a major international sporting event with tens of thousands of people supposedly coming from all around the world to participate and see it any time soon, isn't it?
Can anyone explain to me why the wealthy Pacific Rim nations – Japan, Australia, NZ and Singapore – have been so utterly useless at actually vaccinating anyone?
Possibly that they were so successful at controlling the disease by other measures, that they took the view that the long shot on the vaccines was not worth emergency procurement.
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
HR Rules come from Cabinet office/dept HR -> both of whom are accountable to Ministers. Obviously Ministers could change these rules if they wanted civil service reform & prioritized it as an issue.
Simple solution: hire some new people on a track called 'specialized skills' and give them better terms and conditions. Anyone joining new goes onto different terms and conditions anyway -> most of which are less generous than old-timers get.
The idea that civil servants could block such a change is for the birds. They didn't manage to block an unlawful attempt to gut their pensions, a decade long pay freeze -> they are hardly going to be able to block a move to pay some other civil servants more money.
But it won't happen because Tories want to reduce size of public sector.
It won’t happen because of the Civil Service Union, they want people to be paid mostly on time served, to constantly move people around between departments, and for it to be almost impossible to fire anyone for poor performance.
Cummings was right, the whole edifice is simply unfit for purpose in the 21st century and needs turning upside down.
Civil service unions lose every fight they get into - if they even bother to try. David Cameron in a coalition govt managed to cut some govt departments headcounts by 40%! Alongside pay freeze, pensions changes etc. Honestly I don't know where you get the idea that unions could block these changes if Ministers wanted them.
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I imagine the three of the 250-odd workforce there who are non-white are going to be getting a lot of empathy during the coming year.
But I like Monaco. Given that most passing at most F1 venues now consists mainly of DRS drive-by overtakes, there is a certain novelty in actually watching cars stuck trying to pass someone. And there's very little margin for error, which sets it apart from nearly all other F1 venues.
I said to you last year that we would defer any checks that were self-harming, long before it was announced. I was ridiculed for that suggestion, now you're saying the only reason I was right to mock your disruption claims is . . . that the government did exactly what I said they would. 😕
Why would we start self-harming checks until we're able to do them without disruption? We won't. These checks will be phased in and we're never going to get the collapse that you feared, because we're not led by imbeciles. The "pain deferred" isn't coming, get over it.
If downforce is less of an issue, their more skittish car might be better suited to this track. And with the difficulty of passing, Mr Saturday could get a good starting position, and then a couple of DNFs above...
@GuidoFawkes I guess I expect them not to say things that they know are ridiculous, unreasonable and untrue, merely because it's briefly advantageous for them politically.
But BoZo has shown "say things that they know are ridiculous, unreasonable and untrue, merely because it's briefly advantageous for them politically" is the path to Glory
Nobody can blame Liz for following a "winning" formula...
A decent govt might have looked at civil service reform (indeed even the current one might have stumbled into it if they'd listened to some of Dom Cummings' rants).
But the drive is to reduce the number of civil servants, reduce pay, reduce benefits -> leads to hiring consultants.
So the UK media runs with a tiny, boring story about a disgruntled nurse and ‘Brits book up the Algarve’
In a delicious irony, the people who hate him most have helped to create and sustain the public expectation of his invulnerability. And they don't even realize they're doing it...
Is it because other European nation's nurses are lazy bastards who are letting vaccines sit idle in the fridge rather than vaccinating people?
Or is it because they don't have the vaccine supplies that our government procured and theirs didn't?
If you tried to change the rules linking job grades to wages, there would be a mass revolt. If you tried to give programmers the job grade to get them the pay, there would be a mass revolt.
Remember the Tories were the party of the Corn Laws and Joseph Chamberlain and Baldwin tariffs, there is a long history of protectionism within the party and of course it was Ted Heath who took the UK into the Common Agricultural Policy.
Tory members will not necessarily want zero tariffs on all imports to the UK, even if that comes with the carrot of zero tariffs on UK exports as a result of the trade deals agreed, especially if imports to the UK end up cheaper than exports from the UK
The forecasts. Omg
Yeah, that will be accepted...
The cars are curious relicts in a lot of ways; much more primitive than the road cars they are supposed to be selling. They have torsion bar suspension like a Morris Marina (or M1 Abrams tank).
Does the credit sit with the department head who realised the problem? The CEO who commissioned the work, or the people who did the work? The answer of course is all of them, but to different percentages.
The bulk of the credit for our vaccination triumph is with the scientists who did the research, with the medical professionals and managers who firstly signed off the vaccine and now manage the roll-out, and with the superb nurses and doctors who face an endless line of people to do the same repetitive task every day for months with a smile.
The cult want to ignore all the people who did all the actual work and instead praise the CEO who said "get on with it". I can guarantee you this - had the medics screwed up the research, had NHS logistics screwed up the procurement and distribribution it wouldn't be Boris Johnson taking responsibility. Yet you want to grant him all the credit for other people's success.
Its A Cult. And you're deep in it drinking the kool-aid.
We will transition in checks at a timeline that suits us. Exactly as I said because that's what sane governments do, and that's what ours is doing.
We are an independent sovereign country now so we get to pick and choose what we want to do that suits us best. If anyone in the WTO has an issue with that they're able to lodge a dispute that will take years or decades to resolve anyway.
His presence in the White House was the most toxic of things. A gigantic global role model for all that is worst in human nature, validating what should be condemned, suppressing what should be encouraged. He caused every small-minded bigot on the planet to feel a little bit better about themselves. This, for me, is the essence of Trump. Take that away and (with the GOP) you just have politics I dislike and disagree with in a country not my own. I'm not going to lose sleep over that.
See, e.g. Dr Sarah Jarvis who, unless her MA is in something relevant, is qualified to talk about symptoms and treatment of Covid, but not about how best to tackle it on a public-health basis. She can of course have an opinion on the phone ins, but so can Dave from Watford.
‘I think this is one of the more important things I’ve written. Not only are more scientists taking seriously the possibility that the pandemic began at a research lab, but the US itself MAY have been funding dangerous coronavirus research there.’
https://twitter.com/nathanjrobinson/status/1393227633933103107?s=21
The toe curling bit is the invitation to the nice nurse to join in some sort of applause alongside her beloved and supreme leader so that the Pyongyang Daily can print a photo.
We must be grateful that her refusal merely means she can return to NZ or wherever rather than her whole family being sent to a labour camp for life.
On another topic, does anyone think the LDs are in with a chance at C and A?
As for "years" or "decades" its pretty each for trade sanctions to be slapped down almost immediately.
You could tell the ambitious ones - they could recite like parrots. Everyone else was asleep or mumbling assent when the right answer was shouted out.
This government hired Kate Bingham, gave her responsibilities and told her to spend whatever she needed to get what we need.
Other governments gave responsibility to Commissioner Kyriakides with a target set of haggling to get best value for money and limited liability.
For much of last year the Government was getting ridiculed for the "sleaze" of hiring Bingham and slated for not deferring to Kyriakides.
The Liberal Democrats were outraged we didn't wind up Bingham's scheme and join Kyriakides scheme instead.
Now you have the barefaced cheek to say it's not political. You are drinking Kool Aid and don't have the credibility to acknowledge the Liberal Democrats called this wrong and the Government called this right. For shame on you.
PS NHS logistics didn't do the procurement. The Government created Bingham's taskforce which did.
So, look at the most outrageously camp and woke songs before filtering out the best. And always bet against the UK.
When I was practising pharmacy, colleagues who had PhD's in a pharmaceutical subject were only allowed to use them in industry and perhaps in hospital, lest patients become confused.
And no, I haven't.
However, this individual specialises in racial equality. This strikes me as being even less relevant to epidemiology than medicine (or indeed transport, or engineering, or manufacturing of highly specialised artisan flint products, or whatever else it is that people on here do.)
As for trade sanctions being applied, where are they? Go on, who is doing it, considering we are acting the way I advocated. Who has put trade sanctions on us?
Actually we unilaterally acted and helped get America to drop sanctions on Scotch. And ... Ummm ... Nope, no sanctions.
But the media should start with "does this person have qualifications/experience that suggest they should know what they're talking about" and then, ideally (asking too much?) follow up with a bit of critical appraisal of what thet actually say, including looking for other people who should know what they're talking about who may have differing opinions.
See, e.g., masks and the whole airbourne or not debate.
Meanwhile, those working for the NHS are paid on average well above the national average, receive full pay for very extended periods if they are sick, get a full year's worth of full pay when they have kids and have pensions that are simply unobtainable to most in the private sector. I am not saying they don't deserve it but those who work with that incredible job security and confidence really need to acquire some understanding of how the majority of their fellow citizens paying their taxes to pay their wages live.
Obviously Ministers could change these rules if they wanted civil service reform & prioritized it as an issue.
Simple solution: hire some new people on a track called 'specialized skills' and give them better terms and conditions. Anyone joining new goes onto different terms and conditions anyway -> most of which are less generous than old-timers get.
The idea that civil servants could block such a change is for the birds. They didn't manage to block an unlawful attempt to gut their pensions, a decade long pay freeze -> they are hardly going to be able to block a move to pay some other civil servants more money.
But it won't happen because Tories want to reduce size of public sector.
I thought he'd said the opposite.
It is entertaining but it is so far from what you think it is it isn't even funny.
What you are suggesting is the kind of change that a certain ex-Spad would like. And that made him ever so popular.....
Cummings was right, the whole edifice is simply unfit for purpose in the 21st century and needs turning upside down.
Whatever. If you want to think He was actually doing something with those multichannel pippettes he posed with, feel free.
‘I remember too, ha. But I also was hanging around some very important people from US GOV, and I was aware that all this was coming- so I happily took the bullets. Now, I get elite investigative journalists like @ScottMStedman giving me a welcomed “👍🏼” - thanks brother’
https://twitter.com/tomdelonge/status/1394821403975700482?s=21
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/19/england-lockdown-end-date-very-much-in-balance-expert-neil-ferguson
Apologies if that’s very much not what he said.
My own view is “bugger all”. The President can give a speech a year hence that says “we’ve uncovered a great mystery, something we don’t understand that is of Intelligence but is not human. We invite countries around the world and the scientific community to help us understand it, on the basis of peace, transparency and friendship”.
And by the end of the week, the stock market will be back to where it was and most people will be going on their lives as before.
She's a lovely girl but she frankly has zero chance of ever being paid to be a professional journalist and I fear the same will apply to the vast majority of those studying such a course.
In contrast the son of a friend of mine wrote a series of pieces for the Big Issue on homelessness, drug dependency and the interaction between the 2. Compelling pieces about something he clearly cared deeply about and had researched carefully. He also wrote endless pieces for fanzines of his favourite football team to practise his skill. After several years he now has a full time job as a journalist. It's a tough gig but he loves it.
David Cameron in a coalition govt managed to cut some govt departments headcounts by 40%! Alongside pay freeze, pensions changes etc. Honestly I don't know where you get the idea that unions could block these changes if Ministers wanted them.