Until furlough ends fully and we see the economic impact of any spending cuts and tax rises and the post Brexit trade deals we will not fully be able to see where the land lies.
Voters clearly felt the government locked down too late last year but the success of the vaccination programme this year has boosted its reputation on the handling of the Covid pandemic
As I have repeatedly said, the Government had a good start to the crisis, a very poor middle and an excellent end.
Which they would probably have settled for. A very poor end to a crisis is not the way you want to be remembered....
Gee. I don't wish to contemplate what a bad start would have looked like then.
Actually, I think it is fair. We know the initial contact tracing was actually very good and bought the UK time. Remember mainland Europe was being hit before us, despite this all seeding from mostly the same place.
The problem was we didn't use that breathing space, then too slow to lockdown (and didn't close the borders) and too slow to ramp up testing. We did the same at Christmas time, it was clear what needed to be done, and Boris waited a week too long.
The initial decision pushed by Witty and Valance to only test incoming hospital patients was madness.
This was based on the Divine Truth that testing couldn't be expanded. Because testing couldn't be expanded within the existing NHS labs (very much).
That would have required some flexible thinking.
And who wants flexible thinking when you already have a 'world leading' pandemic plan.
Given that the last election produced a result for Labour that was worse than any election since before they had the capacity to form majority government, I don't see any reason outside of Government Losing that would allow them to form majority government again. It would be good for them if the SNP would bugger off - if England and Wales smell even the slightest chance that they'd have to go into coalition with a party who's aim is to make sure Westminster cannot operate, they'll reject it, and it would be good for Labour if the middle-class student politics pisstake that likes to wave copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book around at budget debates, and buys into the more racist parts of the pro-palestine mob would piss off too.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Boris -- whether you call him a pragmatist or an opportunist -- occupies the centre ground and even some of the ground to the left of centre, leaving little or no room for his opponents.
Labour can move further left, but that does not really help them build a winning Coalition.
Boris wants to make his mark as a famous PM like Churchill & so I am sure he will do whatever it takes to remain popular and win the next election, irrespective of ideology.
In fact, Boris is almost completely free of ideology. If we need to spend more money for Boris to get elected again, then we'll spend it.
Sure, there will ultimately be an electoral reckoning, but I don't think it will be in 2024.
In fact, I don't think Boris will be leading the Tories when the bill is presented. Some other luckless individual will be.
Boris will have done a runner.
Yes. I feel this is like 1992-7 in reverse. People have made up their minds early who will win. And not a lot (from either side) will convince them otherwise.
Well, off to do another evening shift at Daughter's establishment. First long shift of season (for me) was yesterday. Very busy - despite an early table not bothering to show up. Fortunately others came.
But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.
Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....
Not schools. The idea of a circuit breaker would be to shut everything for 2-3 weeks.
However, it should be noted it was tried in Wales and didn’t work.
A caveat very rarely mentioned by its advocates....
One problem in Wales was that they had two weeks mostly off and then tried to relax restrictions very quickly.
Which unfortunately had the predictable side effect of spreading cases much faster.
However, that was before vaccines.
I still think that the biggest mistake all the way through has not been to temporarily reorganise the school year so that all holidays lasted at least two weeks, even if we’d had to reduce teaching days. After all, it would hardly have been worse than nine weeks of lockdown. And I think it could have been sold to the staff and their unions as a one-off.
Edit - although Wales’ circuit breaker wasn’t a complete disaster. It led them to make the early call on cancelling exams and moving to a sensible replacement, rather than England and especially Scotland, where the whole thing has been made up on the back of a fag packet. Again.
The sensible thing with schooling would have been to take the opportunity to throw away the existing school year and start again. With a structure that makes sense. So that teaching works, exams results (ha) arrive before they are needed etc etc. You could even stagger the school holidays in different areas so the country doesn't all go on holiday at the same time....
But what am I saying - too many vested interests in a band aid, plus a sticking plaster, plus something as a solution.....
Even easier to do that by moving the uni year to a January start. Which would also have made sense on many levels.
However, I am amused by the fact that the DfE’s proposed new school year assumes there are eighteen weeks between 1st September and 25th December instead of the sixteen and a half weeks there actually are.
I mean, all teachers knew that they were innumerate cretins who make Indie Sage look like models of ability and integrity but we never thought they would display it quite so blatantly.
I think I see the problem: you are assuming a seven day week.
Of course! Just legislate to change that and all our problems are solved!
When timetableing the first thing you have to do is decide how many days in a week: we use five but some schools use six, some ten and some use a week that means that each Monday is a different day in their timetable (it is supposed to get rid of the problem of noone wanting to teach Y11 for a double on a Friday afternoon, but I suspect it just leads to huge confusion amongst both pupils and staff).
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
Well, off to do another evening shift at Daughter's establishment. First long shift of season (for me) was yesterday. Very busy - despite an early table not bothering to show up. Fortunately others came.
But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.
Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....
I assume that plumbers have only a 50:50 chance of turning up on the day that they say, let alone the time, so it doesn't surprise me that diners might be no-shows.
Given that the last election produced a result for Labour that was worse than any election since before they had the capacity to form majority government, I don't see any reason outside of Government Losing that would allow them to form majority government again. It would be good for them if the SNP would bugger off - if England and Wales smell even the slightest chance that they'd have to go into coalition with a party who's aim is to make sure Westminster cannot operate, they'll reject it, and it would be good for Labour if the middle-class student politics pisstake that likes to wave copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book around at budget debates, and buys into the more racist parts of the pro-palestine mob would piss off too.
Without the support of Scottish SNP MPs there is literally zero chance of a Labour government in 2024.
The Tories won a comfortable UK majority of 80 in 2019 but a landslide majority of 157 in England
Given that the last election produced a result for Labour that was worse than any election since before they had the capacity to form majority government, I don't see any reason outside of Government Losing that would allow them to form majority government again. It would be good for them if the SNP would bugger off - if England and Wales smell even the slightest chance that they'd have to go into coalition with a party who's aim is to make sure Westminster cannot operate, they'll reject it, and it would be good for Labour if the middle-class student politics pisstake that likes to wave copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book around at budget debates, and buys into the more racist parts of the pro-palestine mob would piss off too.
Without the support of Scottish SNP MPs there is literally zero chance of a Labour government in 2024.
The Tories won a comfortable UK majority of 80 in 2019 but a landslide majority of 157 in England
The only route to victory is via a paradox I think.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Well, off to do another evening shift at Daughter's establishment. First long shift of season (for me) was yesterday. Very busy - despite an early table not bothering to show up. Fortunately others came.
But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.
Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....
I assume that plumbers have only a 50:50 chance of turning up on the day that they say, let alone the time, so it doesn't surprise me that diners might be no-shows.
Sadly this is a nearly universal phenomenon - it relates to how people use communication. So it is entirely standard in recruitment, for example, that not getting the job means that no-one will ever call/email you. Just silence.
One entertaining version of this is that when you hire people - and I mean at a serious job level, banks, high end iT etc - a certain percentage will simply not turn up on their designated first day. Or ever....
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
I was hoping people would recognise the lines as being from a song:
Conservative government gets wall-to-wall demolition job from someone inside the tent, pissing in - and wall-to-wall live media coverage of same. Consequence? Labour up 1%. LibDems no change.
Off a previous poll where all-your-seats-belong-me now.
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Trump Derangement Syndrome being more accurately described as having the smarts and intuition to appreciate the horror and danger of the man whilst tedious complacent farts were bandying round the term Trump Derangement Syndrome.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
Well, off to do another evening shift at Daughter's establishment. First long shift of season (for me) was yesterday. Very busy - despite an early table not bothering to show up. Fortunately others came.
But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.
Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....
I assume that plumbers have only a 50:50 chance of turning up on the day that they say, let alone the time, so it doesn't surprise me that diners might be no-shows.
Sadly this is a nearly universal phenomenon - it relates to how people use communication. So it is entirely standard in recruitment, for example, that not getting the job means that no-one will ever call/email you. Just silence.
One entertaining version of this is that when you hire people - and I mean at a serious job level, banks, high end iT etc - a certain percentage will simply not turn up on their designated first day. Or ever....
We have had that at school: teachers who are no-shows at the beginning of the year leaving a certain amount of scrambling to rearrange the timetable. I was at one school where it ended up with the then head having to take the roll of form tutor for a term until a replacement could be found.
Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups
Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.
I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens. But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.
Given that the last election produced a result for Labour that was worse than any election since before they had the capacity to form majority government, I don't see any reason outside of Government Losing that would allow them to form majority government again. It would be good for them if the SNP would bugger off - if England and Wales smell even the slightest chance that they'd have to go into coalition with a party who's aim is to make sure Westminster cannot operate, they'll reject it, and it would be good for Labour if the middle-class student politics pisstake that likes to wave copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book around at budget debates, and buys into the more racist parts of the pro-palestine mob would piss off too.
Without the support of Scottish SNP MPs there is literally zero chance of a Labour government in 2024.
The Tories won a comfortable UK majority of 80 in 2019 but a landslide majority of 157 in England
The only route to victory is via a paradox I think.
Well if it is that easy, just get your arse down to Brighton, Skyr:
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred. That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred. That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups
Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.
I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
Very generally, “rowt” is the preferred pronunciation west and south of New York City. “Root” is the preferred pronunciation in the NYC tri-state area and New England. But as always in these things you’ll find plenty of sub-regional variation.
Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups
Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.
I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens. But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.
The earliest reference to "normalcy" seems to be in the mid 19th centaury, used in mathematics to mean being normal (i.e. at righ-angles) to something: a synonym might be orthogonal. So not really Shakespeare or Dickens.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
What would be quite funny is if he gave her *really* detailed answers - 'the dining room walls were painted in a delicate shade of peach Melba with a candy Stripe in Cornish buttermilk. The cushion covers were crushed velour embroidered with Constable's 'The Haywane'...etc. I would find that funny.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Also, to paraphrase Portia, there are a lot of people who say they want justice but might be very disappointed if they actually got it.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred. That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
I wonder if this covid polling will have as devastating an effect on Boris's popularity as, well, everything else..
On my current family tree obsession; I've hit the mother lode!
I've found a direct line back to the Battle of Hastings, and beyond. Turns out I'm a descendant of Robert Bigod, William the Conqueror's chamberlain.
Since this leads me back into Norman nobility, it pretty much takes me everywhere. Including made up places.
According to work done by others I have blood links to the first Duke of Normandy, Kings and Queens of every medieval European country, lines back to Holy Roman Emperors and Roman Emprerors. And then even more fun with Uther Pendragon, Queen Viviene of Avallon (revered as Lady of the Lake and who it's claimed is descended from Mary Magdalene and JESUS ffs), to Kings of Greek states who claimed descendence from their Gods - I've found claimed blood links back to Zeus and Gaia..
I think my work there might be done.
I think there's a cheese called Baron Bigod, so you're sort of a big cheese in the world of cheese too.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred. That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
A most excellent post Mr FT
Can you tell what I do for a living?
I'd love to do that too. The world and maths come together in a spooky way. It's easy to forget that.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Trump Derangement Syndrome being more accurately described as having the smarts and intuition to appreciate the horror and danger of the man whilst tedious complacent farts were bandying round the term Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Usually after a good, old 'I'm no fan of Trump but..' I sense the two terms in tandem are going to make a comeback, like Dollar reforming except worse.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Also, to paraphrase Portia, there are a lot of people who say they want justice but might be very disappointed if they actually got it.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred. That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
A most excellent post Mr FT
Can you tell what I do for a living?
I hope most people on here are professional Piñata makers.
Given that when anyone posts something, other people - gleefully - set about whacking it viciously with sticks....
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred. That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
A most excellent post Mr FT
Can you tell what I do for a living?
I hope most people on here are professional Piñata makers.
Given that when anyone posts something, other people - gleefully - set about whacking it viciously with sticks....
Any teacher who can't respond to questions about what they are teaching isn't going to last long in class.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
I know, it's like those idiots that don't realise how Han was able to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parseces.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
Means testing is the mother of all evil in modern society.
It traps people in poverty. Or £5 above whatever "poverty" definition you use if you're Gordon Brown.
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
I know, it's like those idiots that don't realise how Han was able to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parseces.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
I will make it a point to study it... but if you believe you can brush antisemitism under the carpet because Corbyn has gone that's nonsense... it a de minimus to understand that that' changing the leader doesn't wipe the slate clean.. .Go away and think about why I am right.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Also, to paraphrase Portia, there are a lot of people who say they want justice but might be very disappointed if they actually got it.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups
Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.
I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens. But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.
I hate "normalcy" too. We don't say "realcy", or "formalcy" do we?
I wonder if this covid polling will have as devastating an effect on Boris's popularity as, well, everything else..
On my current family tree obsession; I've hit the mother lode!
I've found a direct line back to the Battle of Hastings, and beyond. Turns out I'm a descendant of Robert Bigod, William the Conqueror's chamberlain.
Since this leads me back into Norman nobility, it pretty much takes me everywhere. Including made up places.
According to work done by others I have blood links to the first Duke of Normandy, Kings and Queens of every medieval European country, lines back to Holy Roman Emperors and Roman Emprerors. And then even more fun with Uther Pendragon, Queen Viviene of Avallon (revered as Lady of the Lake and who it's claimed is descended from Mary Magdalene and JESUS ffs), to Kings of Greek states who claimed descendence from their Gods - I've found claimed blood links back to Zeus and Gaia..
I think my work there might be done.
I think there's a cheese called Baron Bigod, so you're sort of a big cheese in the world of cheese too.
Yeah, just a sort of Brie from Suffolk (where Bigod used to hang out).
Anti-lockdowners in the UK, eat your hearts out. Just received from my local county government - the most stringent of the lockdown counties in MD, which has been pretty much (as home of NIH, Navy and Johns Hopkins) the most stringent of states.
"Montgomery County is now fully reopened, with all local health orders and their restrictions lifted as of 6 a.m. this morning.
"There are no longer any county pandemic-related limits on capacity or distancing, though residents are still subject to certain requirements from the state. In addition, the county will still require masks in county-owned or -operated facilities."
I wonder if this covid polling will have as devastating an effect on Boris's popularity as, well, everything else..
On my current family tree obsession; I've hit the mother lode!
I've found a direct line back to the Battle of Hastings, and beyond. Turns out I'm a descendant of Robert Bigod, William the Conqueror's chamberlain.
Since this leads me back into Norman nobility, it pretty much takes me everywhere. Including made up places.
According to work done by others I have blood links to the first Duke of Normandy, Kings and Queens of every medieval European country, lines back to Holy Roman Emperors and Roman Emprerors. And then even more fun with Uther Pendragon, Queen Viviene of Avallon (revered as Lady of the Lake and who it's claimed is descended from Mary Magdalene and JESUS ffs), to Kings of Greek states who claimed descendence from their Gods - I've found claimed blood links back to Zeus and Gaia..
I think my work there might be done.
I think there's a cheese called Baron Bigod, so you're sort of a big cheese in the world of cheese too.
I will be buying that cheese!
I look forward to serving it to my father, explaining the provenance of the name, and how he's not linked to it but Mum and I are, while drinking his fine wine
Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups
Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.
I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens. But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.
I hate "normalcy" too. We don't say "realcy", or "formalcy" do we?
I hated 'normalcy' when I came across it in a Yemeni academic paper in the early 80s, but have grown to accept it - and even use it myself.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Edit: ironically there is normalcy between the two side in the above example...
I wonder if this covid polling will have as devastating an effect on Boris's popularity as, well, everything else..
On my current family tree obsession; I've hit the mother lode!
I've found a direct line back to the Battle of Hastings, and beyond. Turns out I'm a descendant of Robert Bigod, William the Conqueror's chamberlain.
Since this leads me back into Norman nobility, it pretty much takes me everywhere. Including made up places.
According to work done by others I have blood links to the first Duke of Normandy, Kings and Queens of every medieval European country, lines back to Holy Roman Emperors and Roman Emprerors. And then even more fun with Uther Pendragon, Queen Viviene of Avallon (revered as Lady of the Lake and who it's claimed is descended from Mary Magdalene and JESUS ffs), to Kings of Greek states who claimed descendence from their Gods - I've found claimed blood links back to Zeus and Gaia..
I think my work there might be done.
I think there's a cheese called Baron Bigod, so you're sort of a big cheese in the world of cheese too.
I will be buying that cheese!
I look forward to serving it to my father, explaining the provenance of the name, and how he's not linked to it but Mum and I are, while drinking his fine wine
British cheeses are great. British cheeses along the lines of those that the French make are really good too. British wines seem to work as well.
The only real market (tongue in cheek) for top quality food is London. That has to be scary for the French!
Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups
Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.
I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens. But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.
I hate "normalcy" too. We don't say "realcy", or "formalcy" do we?
Yes, it seems to have entered popular usage as a solecism by President Warren Harding, who promised a 'Return To Normalcy' while ironically departing from normal English.
On the other hand, we do say 'colonelcy', and 'colonelity' would be an abomination...
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.
For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.
Heat Cannot of itself Move From a cold body to a hotter.
You surely know better than I do.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?
No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)
The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred. That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
A most excellent post Mr FT
Can you tell what I do for a living?
I hope most people on here are professional Piñata makers.
Given that when anyone posts something, other people - gleefully - set about whacking it viciously with sticks....
Any teacher who can't respond to questions about what they are teaching isn't going to last long in class.
Do you mind if I use that analogy at school BTW?
That, Sir, is the least I can do to reward you!
(Well, I could pay more tax to give your salary a hike. But let's get real here....)
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
The escaped version is virulent as fuck, so why didn't it propagate from the non biosecure spot from which it was collected rather than the lab which at least made gestures towards biosecurity, if it wasn't altered by the lab? Isn't it more likely that it acquired extra virulence in a lab whose reason for existing was to make viruses more virulent?
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Until furlough ends fully and we see the economic impact of any spending cuts and tax rises and the post Brexit trade deals we will not fully be able to see where the land lies.
Voters clearly felt the government locked down too late last year but the success of the vaccination programme this year has boosted its reputation on the handling of the Covid pandemic
As I have repeatedly said, the Government had a good start to the crisis, a very poor middle and an excellent end.
Which they would probably have settled for. A very poor end to a crisis is not the way you want to be remembered....
Gee. I don't wish to contemplate what a bad start would have looked like then.
The government was initially very good at getting the public on board, recognising they had to wash hands, stay home, save the NHS.
And then Cummings fired the starting the pistol for the middle of the crisis, by travelling to Barnard Castle.
And then got his arse fired for being mean about Carrie. Which, coincidentally, fired the gun to set the Massive National Jab Machine in motion - and the route out of the clutches of this Bastard Bug
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
To answer your question, parsec is a contraction of parallax arcsecond.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
So - on the Isle of Man, the bikes race against the parallax angle?
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
To answer your question, parsec is a contraction of parallax arcsecond.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
White Stilton is an underrated classic.
I have a theory that White Stilton is actually what works best with port - nuking the taste buds with a heavy blue, then drinking a fine port seems ridiculous.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
Would add that most of my favourite cheeses seem to be French, unpastuerised ones (loads of them available at Waitrose).
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
Do you still teach the dimensional stuff? It's a really cheap sense check. I do maths (badly) but the best thing I've ever learned is that lesson.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
So - on the Isle of Man, the bikes race against the parallax angle?
Recently back from shopping trip to London (furthest we have been from home since last September.) Traffic on the train and the tube is nothing approaching what it was pre-Covid. A lot of vacant premises dotted along Oxford St; at a guess, maybe 50% or even a bit less of the usual amount of punters out and about. Not much good for the surviving retailers' profit margins, but a much more pleasant experience getting around.
There was also a substantial anti-vax/anti-lockdown protest going on. Something much bigger than Piers Corbyn and a couple of hundred loyal devotees this time: we could hear the racket start outside when we were having lunch (we at first assumed it was the London Friends of Hamas on the march) and the procession was still going along when we came back out about half-an-hour later. Union jacks, Polish and Hungarian flags all in evidence: we may infer that our central European communities aren't universally enamoured of the vaccination drive.
Bright sunshine since about noon, felt like the warmest day of the year by a stretch when we alighted from the train as we got home. Summer finally feels like it's on the way, thank goodness.
I wonder if this covid polling will have as devastating an effect on Boris's popularity as, well, everything else..
On my current family tree obsession; I've hit the mother lode!
I've found a direct line back to the Battle of Hastings, and beyond. Turns out I'm a descendant of Robert Bigod, William the Conqueror's chamberlain.
Since this leads me back into Norman nobility, it pretty much takes me everywhere. Including made up places.
According to work done by others I have blood links to the first Duke of Normandy, Kings and Queens of every medieval European country, lines back to Holy Roman Emperors and Roman Emprerors. And then even more fun with Uther Pendragon, Queen Viviene of Avallon (revered as Lady of the Lake and who it's claimed is descended from Mary Magdalene and JESUS ffs), to Kings of Greek states who claimed descendence from their Gods - I've found claimed blood links back to Zeus and Gaia..
I think my work there might be done.
I think there's a cheese called Baron Bigod, so you're sort of a big cheese in the world of cheese too.
I will be buying that cheese!
I look forward to serving it to my father, explaining the provenance of the name, and how he's not linked to it but Mum and I are, while drinking his fine wine
British cheeses are great. British cheeses along the lines of those that the French make are really good too. British wines seem to work as well.
The only real market (tongue in cheek) for top quality food is London. That has to be scary for the French!
It's going to depend on why. What could be correct is that the centre left vote has shifted slightly towards LD and Green for now; there is not much movement in the Tory vote. But, ignoring nationalists for a moment, this poll is Tories 43, centre left 45 and I should not be surprised if that's about right and very close to the 2019 election result. This poll may, within a point or two be OK.
I imagine Tory strategy will want to keep the three centre left parties both afloat and split. I think it would be wise to draw up a centre left deal soon, as if Tories win in 2024 you are looking at 5 in a row, and 18/19 years. At which point a centre left alliance is a forced choice I think.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
Do you still teach the dimensional stuff? It's a really cheap sense check. I do maths (badly) but the best thing I've ever learned is that lesson.
Yes. I use "show that 1FΩ is 1s" as a nice revision exercise.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
White Stilton is an underrated classic.
I have a theory that White Stilton is actually what works best with port - nuking the taste buds with a heavy blue, then drinking a fine port seems ridiculous.
I've had white Stilton, but not with port. I'll certainly give it a try!
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
Do you still teach the dimensional stuff? It's a really cheap sense check. I do maths (badly) but the best thing I've ever learned is that lesson.
Yes. I use "show that 1FΩ is 1s" as a nice revision exercise.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
The Tories can. Its called growing the pie.
Its why the party is the natural party of government.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?
As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.
Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.
There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.
Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.
Why?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Th point is that people (in general) will buy into policies that are universal. Applying policies through the Social Justice matrix is explicitly saying that some errr..... humans are more equal than others.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
White Stilton is an underrated classic.
I have a theory that White Stilton is actually what works best with port - nuking the taste buds with a heavy blue, then drinking a fine port seems ridiculous.
I've had white Stilton, but not with port. I'll certainly give it a try!
As a suggestion have both blue and white soliton on the cheese board. Try the white with port first. That way if you don't like the combination, you can go back to blue without missing a beat....
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
I will make it a point to study it... but if you believe you can brush antisemitism under the carpet because Corbyn has gone that's nonsense... it a de minimus to understand that that' changing the leader doesn't wipe the slate clean.. .Go away and think about why I am right.
You're wrong. The genuine antisemitism arose due to the climate he allowed to develop. The false charges of antisemitism were driven by the desire of opponents to get rid of him. Both have gone with the man. Hard lefters have departed in droves. People labelling Labour as hard left influenced or antisemitic now are either badly informed or nefariously motivated.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
Would add that most of my favourite cheeses seem to be French, unpastuerised ones (loads of them available at Waitrose).
Why can't I find British raw cheese?
In the Lenny Henry series Chef (a minor classic), there is an episode where he buys unpasteurised cheese. They quite carefully made it look like a drug deal, which upset some people....
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.
Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...
Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!
I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?
What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.
I think a few light years should sort it all out.
We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well... The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
They would if you wrote it in full
Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.
Go on. There's more needed.
Now you have me: please explain what I have missed? (Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.
One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.
Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
(a retired teacher)
Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.
So - on the Isle of Man, the bikes race against the parallax angle?
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
I think that's correct:
People I know who know things about viruses are very sceptical of the strong theory. They basically say "we don't know enough about how viruses work to be able to do that".
So, the choice between "made the jump in the wild" and "accidentally escaped from the lab" is a really difficult one. The reality is that diseases jump from animals to humans all the time (AIDS, SARS, MERS, Ebola, etc.). But against that, it seems an awfully big coincidence that the place that was the epicenter of the outbreak was also the place that collected and studied these kind of viruses.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
White Stilton is an underrated classic.
I have a theory that White Stilton is actually what works best with port - nuking the taste buds with a heavy blue, then drinking a fine port seems ridiculous.
I've had white Stilton, but not with port. I'll certainly give it a try!
As a suggestion have both blue and white soliton on the cheese board. Try the white with port first. That way if you don't like the combination, you can go back to blue without missing a beat....
'Blue and white soliton' looks like a brilliant typo to unite the cheese debate with the maths/physics discussion...
Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.
Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.
Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?
Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario? In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security. In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
The escaped version is virulent as fuck, so why didn't it propagate from the non biosecure spot from which it was collected rather than the lab which at least made gestures towards biosecurity, if it wasn't altered by the lab? Isn't it more likely that it acquired extra virulence in a lab whose reason for existing was to make viruses more virulent?
Hang on.
The R ratio for CV19 is not very different from SARS or MERS - the big difference with those diseases is that people got sick quicker with them, and therefore you were able to identify and quarantine carriers earlier.
British cheeses can be amazing, though unfortunatley for the makers the market (even in London) is utterly dominated by cheddar, the only cheese most Brits seem to eat.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
Would add that most of my favourite cheeses seem to be French, unpastuerised ones (loads of them available at Waitrose).
Why can't I find British raw cheese?
In the Lenny Henry series Chef (a minor classic), there is an episode where he buys unpasteurised cheese. They quite carefully made it look like a drug deal, which upset some people....
How strange. I was trying to recall that very episode yesterday when my partner was offered some unpasteurised milk. Thinking the show was called "Whites" didn't help.
Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups
Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.
I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens. But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.
I hate "normalcy" too. We don't say "realcy", or "formalcy" do we?
I hated 'normalcy' when I came across it in a Yemeni academic paper in the early 80s, but have grown to accept it - and even use it myself.
All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories
I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.
I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.
If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible
Inflation is the elephant in the room. In the US the consumer spending index reached a twenty five year high last week.
Owen Jones Rose @OwenJones84 · 7h The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?
Losing Hartlepool was a serious impediment to getting donations in.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"
Comments
And who wants flexible thinking when you already have a 'world leading' pandemic plan.
But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.
Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....
And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.
They got 32% in 2019 but have lost possibly more 'red wall' and student voters since while gaining I'm not sure who.
The Tories won a comfortable UK majority of 80 in 2019 but a landslide majority of 157 in England
I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.
There, I’ve said it.
And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.
Sorry.
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.
I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.
One entertaining version of this is that when you hire people - and I mean at a serious job level, banks, high end iT etc - a certain percentage will simply not turn up on their designated first day. Or ever....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw-brvKO-Z0
Off a previous poll where all-your-seats-belong-me now.
Hur-hur-hur. Point and laugh at Cummings.
But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.
https://paradoxplace.co.uk/
(I am joking).
That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).
So not really Shakespeare or Dickens.
(Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).
Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?
The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.
The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.
For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.
I sense the two terms in tandem are going to make a comeback, like Dollar reforming except worse.
Given that when anyone posts something, other people - gleefully - set about whacking it viciously with sticks....
Do you mind if I use that analogy at school BTW?
It traps people in poverty. Or £5 above whatever "poverty" definition you use if you're Gordon Brown.
In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security.
In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.
It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).
"Montgomery County is now fully reopened, with all local health orders and their restrictions lifted as of 6 a.m. this morning.
"There are no longer any county pandemic-related limits on capacity or distancing, though residents are still subject to certain requirements from the state. In addition, the county will still require masks in county-owned or -operated facilities."
I look forward to serving it to my father, explaining the provenance of the name, and how he's not linked to it but Mum and I are, while drinking his fine wine
Edit: ironically there is normalcy between the two side in the above example...
The only real market (tongue in cheek) for top quality food is London. That has to be scary for the French!
On the other hand, we do say 'colonelcy', and 'colonelity' would be an abomination...
(Well, I could pay more tax to give your salary a hike. But let's get real here....)
@OwenJones84
·
7h
The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.
I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.
(a retired teacher)
And then Cummings fired the starting the pistol for the middle of the crisis, by travelling to Barnard Castle.
And then got his arse fired for being mean about Carrie. Which, coincidentally, fired the gun to set the Massive National Jab Machine in motion - and the route out of the clutches of this Bastard Bug
To answer your question, parsec is a contraction of parallax arcsecond.
I love French, Italian and Spanish cheeses too, and love finding good pairings with wine. Especially when the best cheese with an expensive claret is a northern English cheese!
Ian Dunt
@IanDunt
·
3m
I don't even understand what they're protesting about. The lockdown is over. Go to the pub you bellends
I'd always wondered....
I have a theory that White Stilton is actually what works best with port - nuking the taste buds with a heavy blue, then drinking a fine port seems ridiculous.
Why can't I find British raw cheese?
OR (if you really mean it)
That is the Greek letter pi.
There was also a substantial anti-vax/anti-lockdown protest going on. Something much bigger than Piers Corbyn and a couple of hundred loyal devotees this time: we could hear the racket start outside when we were having lunch (we at first assumed it was the London Friends of Hamas on the march) and the procession was still going along when we came back out about half-an-hour later. Union jacks, Polish and Hungarian flags all in evidence: we may infer that our central European communities aren't universally enamoured of the vaccination drive.
Bright sunshine since about noon, felt like the warmest day of the year by a stretch when we alighted from the train as we got home. Summer finally feels like it's on the way, thank goodness.
And - somewhat surprisingly - it has cheese.
I imagine Tory strategy will want to keep the three centre left parties both afloat and split. I think it would be wise to draw up a centre left deal soon, as if Tories win in 2024 you are looking at 5 in a row, and 18/19 years. At which point a centre left alliance is a forced choice I think.
But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.
Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.
Its why the party is the natural party of government.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0539940/
People I know who know things about viruses are very sceptical of the strong theory. They basically say "we don't know enough about how viruses work to be able to do that".
So, the choice between "made the jump in the wild" and "accidentally escaped from the lab" is a really difficult one. The reality is that diseases jump from animals to humans all the time (AIDS, SARS, MERS, Ebola, etc.). But against that, it seems an awfully big coincidence that the place that was the epicenter of the outbreak was also the place that collected and studied these kind of viruses.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1398675520821342211?s=19
The R ratio for CV19 is not very different from SARS or MERS - the big difference with those diseases is that people got sick quicker with them, and therefore you were able to identify and quarantine carriers earlier.
Thinking the show was called "Whites" didn't help.
Losing B&S could be very bad indeed. You're a centre-left multi-millionaire. What is going to possibly persuade you to get your cheque book out this side of the next election?
You have to wonder at what point the Trade Unions start asking "Remind me - exactly what do we get for our millions (apart from our peerages, which we could just buy from the Tories)?"