Can Labour capitalise on this cut to UC? This is the sort of thing they should be scoring hits on a government over and yet I don't think they are being effective at all over it.
I do not support the loss of the temporary £20 UC uplift but the country is divided 38/39 on support/ oppose
Not an easy one, but was clearly part of the pandemic emergency funding, and they’ll need to find £6bn per year in taxes or borrowing to keep it running.
Ditto the furlough scheme, there’s several hundred thousand about to go from 80% of their salary to the dole. It still has to be done though.
In the last few days I have come to the conclusion that Boris is determined that wages have to rise hence why he is not permitting work visas
He seems to be developing a narrative that the conservative party are a high wage controlled immigration party, while labour will hold down wages through their support for unrestricted immigration
There is evidence wages are rising quite quickly and of course the electorate will see this in their pay packets, and it raises more tax and reduces the need for benefits
This is the brexit divided if it comes about
Not just that, but the pay rises are coming from the bottom.
For many years, the minimum wage was a maximum for many jobs - but now we are seeing genuine increases for the poorest workers, as firms compete to hire people, rather than people competing to be hired by firms.
Yes - during the Blair years there was a constant rising of average wages, which didn't seem to ring true - took a while to cotton on that while mean wages were going up, median wages were static: it was all driven by wage growth at the top.
But measures of income inequality were fairly static over that period, so I'm not sure that is right.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
Ah, so based on the false geography of the tube, or possibly the bend in the Thames. This will keep me awake all night. When I used to commute all the way across London, there were huge numbers of tourists going the wrong way on the Picaddily Line, perhaps because the map-makers confused east-west with north-south.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
Ah - I see! Is it Euston-KCSP?
Yes northbound Euston - KC Victoria line, then northbound KC-Euston northern line. Or vice versa starting in KC.
The BBC has mentioned a few times now that Liz Truss is the first female Foreign Secretary, which will be news to Margaret Beckett who held the role under Tony Blair.
It's such a typical and revealing establishment take.
They every see every single news story through the prism of identity politics.
Why the hell should it matter? Let's comment on the experience, capability and agendas of the people appointed - not "celebrate" what tackle they do or don't have between their legs, or what their skin colour is.
I think there is still something in celebrating a milestone, but you can take that too far and if you then get too specific or its not really a new bar being reached then it is not really worth talking about.
A first female Foreign Secretary, if it had been the case, would be worth noting, but as we've had two female PMs and other female holders of Great Offices (still waiting on Chancellor) it wouldn't have been that big a deal.
I vaguely recall an example of it going wrong with the lead from Star Trek Discovery, since there had already been a black female member of a main cast in Star Trek, and a black captain and a female captain, so being the first black female lead character was a thing, but not that big a thing.
Same with Doctor Who, where the water was extensively tested with a female master and whatever River Song turned out to be, and when we did get a lady doctor, she was surrounded by men just in case.
There were the cringe inducing promos prior to her first season with a glass ceiling breaking. Subtle.
The Whitaker years have been poor, really poor. The show has not really recovered from the loss of Tennant and RTD. There have been some highlights along the way but the decline under Whitaker has been marked. Very few highlights and what a load of old shite the Timeless child arc was.
Chibnalls comments to Pip and Jane Baker have certainly come back to haunt him.
RTD should come back and save it, otherwise time to put it on ice for a few years.
RTD has nothing to prove and why would he. He’s moved onwards and upwards and would he recreate the magic a second time.
Rumour is it is going on hiatus. It needs to. The show can, and will, reinvent itself but it is devoid of ideas. It’s disjointed. It needlessly brings back old monsters and foes for no good reason. The stories are unmemorable. The interest in the show has declined. Merchandise sales are through the floor. The magazine sells to a dwindling audience.
The show was said to be actor proof, it is not Showrunner proof.
The problem is the show has been run by fans for far too long.
Doctor Who is sci-fi for people who don't get sci-fi.
(Runs for cover)
Seriously though, it's cr@p scifi. It always has been, always will be. It's lazy, and its world - even in the modern iteration - is laughably inconsistent.
Take the Angels. They create a brilliant enemy. A really horrific one. So Doctor Who defeats them, and they bring them back. Do they make the angels more intelligent, having learnt from their mistakes? No. They just bring back more of them.
It's lazy and stupid writing.
The whole reboot was too clever, camp and knowing for its own good. The original was, I imagine, groundbreaking and brilliant for its time. I'm 60 so watched it unironically from behind the sofa, and it was heaps better than most stuff on the telly back then.
The first run had some peaks and troughs though. The end of the Hartnell run had some cracking stories but the ratings were poor. The end of Troughton had some mediocre stories and the ratings were poor. Tom Bakers last season was destroyed in the ratings by Buck Rogers.
I thought the Family of Blood was pretty good.
Sublime. It was adapted from a Virgin New Adventure written by a long time fan. For me, over the whole run it is very much up there with the best from any era.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Interesting - a Brexiter in charge of the laws to replace GDPR, also.
The current proposals are to gut GDPR and to seriously reduce data privacy safeguards, under the guise of some gentle streamlining of the regulation. I can't see the UK keeping its EU data adequacy agreement if they go ahead with the proposals.
If this stops people doing stupid stuff everywhere for fear of GDPR (e.g. My church used to email round a copy of the membership address book, now they will only give it out in hardcopy, lest it somehow get forwarded to someone who shouldn't have it in breach of our GDPR policy), then they should get on an do it. There may be some good in GDPR somewhere, but it's mostly just been an excuse for petty bureaucracy and stupid cookie popups.
Actually I disagree with that assessment. I would say GDPR is a serious attempt, maybe the only one in the world, to deal with an issue that exercises people about what happens to their data. I would also say it partially succeeds in its goal. It is an onerous piece of legislation - arguably too much so - although I think your church is possibly overcautious here - but it does have teeth. The main thing is that you can sue companies and institutions if they do it wrong, which is a big incentive for them to do it right.
The proposed changes is a weakening of safeguards across the piece, but with a multiplicative effect because the safeguards support each other. An example is that most data breaches will no longer need to be reported. The proposed "risk-based" data adequacy agreements will likely result in those that are minimally inconvenienced by the remaining safeguards can just ship the data abroad to do what they like with it.
Can Labour capitalise on this cut to UC? This is the sort of thing they should be scoring hits on a government over and yet I don't think they are being effective at all over it.
I do not support the loss of the temporary £20 UC uplift but the country is divided 38/39 on support/ oppose
Not an easy one, but was clearly part of the pandemic emergency funding, and they’ll need to find £6bn per year in taxes or borrowing to keep it running.
Ditto the furlough scheme, there’s several hundred thousand about to go from 80% of their salary to the dole. It still has to be done though.
In the last few days I have come to the conclusion that Boris is determined that wages have to rise hence why he is not permitting work visas
He seems to be developing a narrative that the conservative party are a high wage controlled immigration party, while labour will hold down wages through their support for unrestricted immigration
There is evidence wages are rising quite quickly and of course the electorate will see this in their pay packets, and it raises more tax and reduces the need for benefits
This is the brexit divided if it comes about
Not just that, but the pay rises are coming from the bottom.
For many years, the minimum wage was a maximum for many jobs - but now we are seeing genuine increases for the poorest workers, as firms compete to hire people, rather than people competing to be hired by firms.
Yes - during the Blair years there was a constant rising of average wages, which didn't seem to ring true - took a while to cotton on that while mean wages were going up, median wages were static: it was all driven by wage growth at the top.
That's not true: median income rose during the Blair years quite significantly.
The BBC has mentioned a few times now that Liz Truss is the first female Foreign Secretary, which will be news to Margaret Beckett who held the role under Tony Blair.
It's such a typical and revealing establishment take.
They every see every single news story through the prism of identity politics.
Why the hell should it matter? Let's comment on the experience, capability and agendas of the people appointed - not "celebrate" what tackle they do or don't have between their legs, or what their skin colour is.
I think there is still something in celebrating a milestone, but you can take that too far and if you then get too specific or its not really a new bar being reached then it is not really worth talking about.
A first female Foreign Secretary, if it had been the case, would be worth noting, but as we've had two female PMs and other female holders of Great Offices (still waiting on Chancellor) it wouldn't have been that big a deal.
I vaguely recall an example of it going wrong with the lead from Star Trek Discovery, since there had already been a black female member of a main cast in Star Trek, and a black captain and a female captain, so being the first black female lead character was a thing, but not that big a thing.
Same with Doctor Who, where the water was extensively tested with a female master and whatever River Song turned out to be, and when we did get a lady doctor, she was surrounded by men just in case.
There were the cringe inducing promos prior to her first season with a glass ceiling breaking. Subtle.
The Whitaker years have been poor, really poor. The show has not really recovered from the loss of Tennant and RTD. There have been some highlights along the way but the decline under Whitaker has been marked. Very few highlights and what a load of old shite the Timeless child arc was.
Chibnalls comments to Pip and Jane Baker have certainly come back to haunt him.
RTD should come back and save it, otherwise time to put it on ice for a few years.
RTD has nothing to prove and why would he. He’s moved onwards and upwards and would he recreate the magic a second time.
Rumour is it is going on hiatus. It needs to. The show can, and will, reinvent itself but it is devoid of ideas. It’s disjointed. It needlessly brings back old monsters and foes for no good reason. The stories are unmemorable. The interest in the show has declined. Merchandise sales are through the floor. The magazine sells to a dwindling audience.
The show was said to be actor proof, it is not Showrunner proof.
The problem is the show has been run by fans for far too long.
Doctor Who is sci-fi for people who don't get sci-fi.
(Runs for cover)
Seriously though, it's cr@p scifi. It always has been, always will be. It's lazy, and its world - even in the modern iteration - is laughably inconsistent.
Take the Angels. They create a brilliant enemy. A really horrific one. So Doctor Who defeats them, and they bring them back. Do they make the angels more intelligent, having learnt from their mistakes? No. They just bring back more of them.
It's lazy and stupid writing.
It’s fans writing for fans. It’s the old Alan Partridge line. ‘People like them, lets make some more’.
We have them always bringing back old villains with little purpose. The Zygons came back a few years ago. Why? One story in the seventies and a small cameo or two aside but it was pointless. Putting an ice warrior on a submarine. Why ?
Reliving the old days. Like the JNT era it becomes a disappointment and the show is made for fans who don’t like it.
Too many fans are continuity obsessed.
It's like Star Wars episodes 7 to 9. They should have asked Lucas for a three-story plot arc and create the world vision and character arcs, then bound and gagged him from writing any dialogue. They should then have employed brilliant writers sans vision to envision that plot arc and the character progression.
Instead they listened to fans after every episode, and produced inconsistent dross.
Saw the first film, found it underwhelming. I think my expectation was too high. Never seen another one.
None of them, even the originals, are as good as die hard fans think. That's why they are die hard.
As long as people dont take it too seriously they are all watchable, and some better.
Interesting - a Brexiter in charge of the laws to replace GDPR, also.
The current proposals are to gut GDPR and to seriously reduce data privacy safeguards, under the guise of some gentle streamlining of the regulation. I can't see the UK keeping its EU data adequacy agreement if they go ahead with the proposals.
If this stops people doing stupid stuff everywhere for fear of GDPR (e.g. My church used to email round a copy of the membership address book, now they will only give it out in hardcopy, lest it somehow get forwarded to someone who shouldn't have it in breach of our GDPR policy), then they should get on an do it. There may be some good in GDPR somewhere, but it's mostly just been an excuse for petty bureaucracy and stupid cookie popups.
Actually I disagree with that assessment. I would say GDPR is a serious attempt, maybe the only one in the world, to deal with an issue that exercises people about what happens to their data. I would also say it partially succeeds in its goal. It is an onerous piece of legislation - arguably too much so - although I think your church is possibly overcautious here - but it does have teeth. The main thing is that you can sue companies and institutions if they do it wrong, which is a big incentive for them to do it right.
The proposed changes is a weakening of safeguards across the piece, but with a multiplicative effect because the safeguards support each other. An example is that most data breaches will no longer need to be reported. The proposed "risk-based" data adequacy agreements will likely result in those that are minimally inconvenienced by the remaining safeguards can just ship the data abroad to do what they like with it.
Can you imagine that once upon a time they actually published and distributed "phone books" with everyone's name, address and phone number in it. Unless you asked to be ex-directory.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Interesting - a Brexiter in charge of the laws to replace GDPR, also.
The current proposals are to gut GDPR and to seriously reduce data privacy safeguards, under the guise of some gentle streamlining of the regulation. I can't see the UK keeping its EU data adequacy agreement if they go ahead with the proposals.
If this stops people doing stupid stuff everywhere for fear of GDPR (e.g. My church used to email round a copy of the membership address book, now they will only give it out in hardcopy, lest it somehow get forwarded to someone who shouldn't have it in breach of our GDPR policy), then they should get on an do it. There may be some good in GDPR somewhere, but it's mostly just been an excuse for petty bureaucracy and stupid cookie popups.
Actually I disagree with that assessment. I would say GDPR is a serious attempt, maybe the only one in the world, to deal with an issue that exercises people about what happens to their data. I would also say it partially succeeds in its goal. It is an onerous piece of legislation - arguably too much so - although I think your church is possibly overcautious here - but it does have teeth. The main thing is that you can sue companies and institutions if they do it wrong, which is a big incentive for them to do it right.
The proposed changes is a weakening of safeguards across the piece, but with a multiplicative effect because the safeguards support each other. An example is that most data breaches will no longer need to be reported. The proposed "risk-based" data adequacy agreements will likely result in those that are minimally inconvenienced by the remaining safeguards can just ship the data abroad to do what they like with it.
Can you imagine that once upon a time they actually published and distributed "phone books" with everyone's name, address and phone number in it. Unless you asked to be ex-directory.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
The BBC has mentioned a few times now that Liz Truss is the first female Foreign Secretary, which will be news to Margaret Beckett who held the role under Tony Blair.
It's such a typical and revealing establishment take.
They every see every single news story through the prism of identity politics.
Why the hell should it matter? Let's comment on the experience, capability and agendas of the people appointed - not "celebrate" what tackle they do or don't have between their legs, or what their skin colour is.
I think there is still something in celebrating a milestone, but you can take that too far and if you then get too specific or its not really a new bar being reached then it is not really worth talking about.
A first female Foreign Secretary, if it had been the case, would be worth noting, but as we've had two female PMs and other female holders of Great Offices (still waiting on Chancellor) it wouldn't have been that big a deal.
I vaguely recall an example of it going wrong with the lead from Star Trek Discovery, since there had already been a black female member of a main cast in Star Trek, and a black captain and a female captain, so being the first black female lead character was a thing, but not that big a thing.
Same with Doctor Who, where the water was extensively tested with a female master and whatever River Song turned out to be, and when we did get a lady doctor, she was surrounded by men just in case.
There were the cringe inducing promos prior to her first season with a glass ceiling breaking. Subtle.
The Whitaker years have been poor, really poor. The show has not really recovered from the loss of Tennant and RTD. There have been some highlights along the way but the decline under Whitaker has been marked. Very few highlights and what a load of old shite the Timeless child arc was.
Chibnalls comments to Pip and Jane Baker have certainly come back to haunt him.
RTD should come back and save it, otherwise time to put it on ice for a few years.
RTD has nothing to prove and why would he. He’s moved onwards and upwards and would he recreate the magic a second time.
Rumour is it is going on hiatus. It needs to. The show can, and will, reinvent itself but it is devoid of ideas. It’s disjointed. It needlessly brings back old monsters and foes for no good reason. The stories are unmemorable. The interest in the show has declined. Merchandise sales are through the floor. The magazine sells to a dwindling audience.
The show was said to be actor proof, it is not Showrunner proof.
The problem is the show has been run by fans for far too long.
Doctor Who is sci-fi for people who don't get sci-fi.
(Runs for cover)
Seriously though, it's cr@p scifi. It always has been, always will be. It's lazy, and its world - even in the modern iteration - is laughably inconsistent.
Take the Angels. They create a brilliant enemy. A really horrific one. So Doctor Who defeats them, and they bring them back. Do they make the angels more intelligent, having learnt from their mistakes? No. They just bring back more of them.
It's lazy and stupid writing.
It’s fans writing for fans. It’s the old Alan Partridge line. ‘People like them, lets make some more’.
We have them always bringing back old villains with little purpose. The Zygons came back a few years ago. Why? One story in the seventies and a small cameo or two aside but it was pointless. Putting an ice warrior on a submarine. Why ?
Reliving the old days. Like the JNT era it becomes a disappointment and the show is made for fans who don’t like it.
Too many fans are continuity obsessed.
It's like Star Wars episodes 7 to 9. They should have asked Lucas for a three-story plot arc and create the world vision and character arcs, then bound and gagged him from writing any dialogue. They should then have employed brilliant writers sans vision to envision that plot arc and the character progression.
Instead they listened to fans after every episode, and produced inconsistent dross.
Saw the first film, found it underwhelming. I think my expectation was too high. Never seen another one.
None of them, even the originals, are as good as die hard fans think. That's why they are die hard.
As long as people dont take it too seriously they are all watchable, and some better.
4 - Live Free or Die Hard - was excellent. And didn't take itself too seriously.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
It's a good question. I'm determined not to Google
One is existing pension commitments. That is, the promise to pay that everyone in the UK already has from the Westminster government. The answer to this one is easy to provide. Just as anyone who leaves the UK is still due their accumulated pension entitlement from the UK Government, so too will everyone in Scotland be entitled to the pensions they have earned to date from that government, which has benefitted from their tax contributions to date. Admittedly those pensions will be paid in English pounds, and they may be worth less than Scottish pounds, but that is the only risk I foresee.
He then goes on to write:
When considering this issue it has to be remembered that state pensions are not paid out of a pension fund. There are no savings or investments that back them up. The taxes and national insurance that we pay now are used to pay the pensions of those already retired
Interesting - a Brexiter in charge of the laws to replace GDPR, also.
The current proposals are to gut GDPR and to seriously reduce data privacy safeguards, under the guise of some gentle streamlining of the regulation. I can't see the UK keeping its EU data adequacy agreement if they go ahead with the proposals.
If this stops people doing stupid stuff everywhere for fear of GDPR (e.g. My church used to email round a copy of the membership address book, now they will only give it out in hardcopy, lest it somehow get forwarded to someone who shouldn't have it in breach of our GDPR policy), then they should get on an do it. There may be some good in GDPR somewhere, but it's mostly just been an excuse for petty bureaucracy and stupid cookie popups.
Actually I disagree with that assessment. I would say GDPR is a serious attempt, maybe the only one in the world, to deal with an issue that exercises people about what happens to their data. I would also say it partially succeeds in its goal. It is an onerous piece of legislation - arguably too much so - although I think your church is possibly overcautious here - but it does have teeth. The main thing is that you can sue companies and institutions if they do it wrong, which is a big incentive for them to do it right.
The proposed changes is a weakening of safeguards across the piece, but with a multiplicative effect because the safeguards support each other. An example is that most data breaches will no longer need to be reported. The proposed "risk-based" data adequacy agreements will likely result in those that are minimally inconvenienced by the remaining safeguards can just ship the data abroad to do what they like with it.
Can you imagine that once upon a time they actually published and distributed "phone books" with everyone's name, address and phone number in it. Unless you asked to be ex-directory.
Soubry: The appointment of Nadine Dorries as Culture Secretary is final confirmation (if you needed it) that we do indeed have the worst Prime Minister and Govt ever. Ever.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Soubry: The appointment of Nadine Dorries as Culture Secretary is final confirmation (if you needed it) that we do indeed have the worst Prime Minister and Govt ever. Ever.
At least Detritus the Troll had visited the Ankh Morpork opera house when made Cultural Attaché to the Uberwald Embassy.
The BBC has mentioned a few times now that Liz Truss is the first female Foreign Secretary, which will be news to Margaret Beckett who held the role under Tony Blair.
It's such a typical and revealing establishment take.
They every see every single news story through the prism of identity politics.
Why the hell should it matter? Let's comment on the experience, capability and agendas of the people appointed - not "celebrate" what tackle they do or don't have between their legs, or what their skin colour is.
I think there is still something in celebrating a milestone, but you can take that too far and if you then get too specific or its not really a new bar being reached then it is not really worth talking about.
A first female Foreign Secretary, if it had been the case, would be worth noting, but as we've had two female PMs and other female holders of Great Offices (still waiting on Chancellor) it wouldn't have been that big a deal.
I vaguely recall an example of it going wrong with the lead from Star Trek Discovery, since there had already been a black female member of a main cast in Star Trek, and a black captain and a female captain, so being the first black female lead character was a thing, but not that big a thing.
Same with Doctor Who, where the water was extensively tested with a female master and whatever River Song turned out to be, and when we did get a lady doctor, she was surrounded by men just in case.
There were the cringe inducing promos prior to her first season with a glass ceiling breaking. Subtle.
The Whitaker years have been poor, really poor. The show has not really recovered from the loss of Tennant and RTD. There have been some highlights along the way but the decline under Whitaker has been marked. Very few highlights and what a load of old shite the Timeless child arc was.
Chibnalls comments to Pip and Jane Baker have certainly come back to haunt him.
RTD should come back and save it, otherwise time to put it on ice for a few years.
RTD has nothing to prove and why would he. He’s moved onwards and upwards and would he recreate the magic a second time.
Rumour is it is going on hiatus. It needs to. The show can, and will, reinvent itself but it is devoid of ideas. It’s disjointed. It needlessly brings back old monsters and foes for no good reason. The stories are unmemorable. The interest in the show has declined. Merchandise sales are through the floor. The magazine sells to a dwindling audience.
The show was said to be actor proof, it is not Showrunner proof.
The problem is the show has been run by fans for far too long.
Doctor Who is sci-fi for people who don't get sci-fi.
(Runs for cover)
Seriously though, it's cr@p scifi. It always has been, always will be. It's lazy, and its world - even in the modern iteration - is laughably inconsistent.
Take the Angels. They create a brilliant enemy. A really horrific one. So Doctor Who defeats them, and they bring them back. Do they make the angels more intelligent, having learnt from their mistakes? No. They just bring back more of them.
It's lazy and stupid writing.
You might be right. I do not like sci fi (or fantasy) – not even when they get their kit off.
I see literary genres like music. There are types of music I love: electronic being an example. There are some I don't like: rock and country being two. But even in the ones I dislike, there are gems. Several of Queen's output are superlative in the rock genre. Anything by Dusty in the country genre.
It's the same with sci-fi. Here are two shorts I love: "Travel with my cats", and "Friction"
I'd like to think of Ethan now as a SeanT lookalike: travelling the world, experiencing everything it has to offer, looking for something he may never find.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
The BBC has mentioned a few times now that Liz Truss is the first female Foreign Secretary, which will be news to Margaret Beckett who held the role under Tony Blair.
It's such a typical and revealing establishment take.
They every see every single news story through the prism of identity politics.
Why the hell should it matter? Let's comment on the experience, capability and agendas of the people appointed - not "celebrate" what tackle they do or don't have between their legs, or what their skin colour is.
I think there is still something in celebrating a milestone, but you can take that too far and if you then get too specific or its not really a new bar being reached then it is not really worth talking about.
A first female Foreign Secretary, if it had been the case, would be worth noting, but as we've had two female PMs and other female holders of Great Offices (still waiting on Chancellor) it wouldn't have been that big a deal.
I vaguely recall an example of it going wrong with the lead from Star Trek Discovery, since there had already been a black female member of a main cast in Star Trek, and a black captain and a female captain, so being the first black female lead character was a thing, but not that big a thing.
Same with Doctor Who, where the water was extensively tested with a female master and whatever River Song turned out to be, and when we did get a lady doctor, she was surrounded by men just in case.
There were the cringe inducing promos prior to her first season with a glass ceiling breaking. Subtle.
The Whitaker years have been poor, really poor. The show has not really recovered from the loss of Tennant and RTD. There have been some highlights along the way but the decline under Whitaker has been marked. Very few highlights and what a load of old shite the Timeless child arc was.
Chibnalls comments to Pip and Jane Baker have certainly come back to haunt him.
RTD should come back and save it, otherwise time to put it on ice for a few years.
RTD has nothing to prove and why would he. He’s moved onwards and upwards and would he recreate the magic a second time.
Rumour is it is going on hiatus. It needs to. The show can, and will, reinvent itself but it is devoid of ideas. It’s disjointed. It needlessly brings back old monsters and foes for no good reason. The stories are unmemorable. The interest in the show has declined. Merchandise sales are through the floor. The magazine sells to a dwindling audience.
The show was said to be actor proof, it is not Showrunner proof.
The problem is the show has been run by fans for far too long.
Doctor Who is sci-fi for people who don't get sci-fi.
(Runs for cover)
Seriously though, it's cr@p scifi. It always has been, always will be. It's lazy, and its world - even in the modern iteration - is laughably inconsistent.
Take the Angels. They create a brilliant enemy. A really horrific one. So Doctor Who defeats them, and they bring them back. Do they make the angels more intelligent, having learnt from their mistakes? No. They just bring back more of them.
It's lazy and stupid writing.
It’s fans writing for fans. It’s the old Alan Partridge line. ‘People like them, lets make some more’.
We have them always bringing back old villains with little purpose. The Zygons came back a few years ago. Why? One story in the seventies and a small cameo or two aside but it was pointless. Putting an ice warrior on a submarine. Why ?
Reliving the old days. Like the JNT era it becomes a disappointment and the show is made for fans who don’t like it.
Too many fans are continuity obsessed.
It's like Star Wars episodes 7 to 9. They should have asked Lucas for a three-story plot arc and create the world vision and character arcs, then bound and gagged him from writing any dialogue. They should then have employed brilliant writers sans vision to envision that plot arc and the character progression.
Instead they listened to fans after every episode, and produced inconsistent dross.
Saw the first film, found it underwhelming. I think my expectation was too high. Never seen another one.
None of them, even the originals, are as good as die hard fans think. That's why they are die hard.
As long as people dont take it too seriously they are all watchable, and some better.
4 - Live Free or Die Hard - was excellent. And didn't take itself too seriously.
Die Hard 2 has this weird feature: in 1990 Holly can make air-to ground phone calls from standard class in an aeroplane, but Bruce receives them on a pager and has to call her back from a payphone. wtf is that all about? Is it meant to be set in the future?
Can Labour capitalise on this cut to UC? This is the sort of thing they should be scoring hits on a government over and yet I don't think they are being effective at all over it.
I do not support the loss of the temporary £20 UC uplift but the country is divided 38/39 on support/ oppose
Not an easy one, but was clearly part of the pandemic emergency funding, and they’ll need to find £6bn per year in taxes or borrowing to keep it running.
Ditto the furlough scheme, there’s several hundred thousand about to go from 80% of their salary to the dole. It still has to be done though.
In the last few days I have come to the conclusion that Boris is determined that wages have to rise hence why he is not permitting work visas
He seems to be developing a narrative that the conservative party are a high wage controlled immigration party, while labour will hold down wages through their support for unrestricted immigration
There is evidence wages are rising quite quickly and of course the electorate will see this in their pay packets, and it raises more tax and reduces the need for benefits
This is the brexit divided if it comes about
Not just that, but the pay rises are coming from the bottom.
For many years, the minimum wage was a maximum for many jobs - but now we are seeing genuine increases for the poorest workers, as firms compete to hire people, rather than people competing to be hired by firms.
Yes - during the Blair years there was a constant rising of average wages, which didn't seem to ring true - took a while to cotton on that while mean wages were going up, median wages were static: it was all driven by wage growth at the top.
That's not true: median income rose during the Blair years quite significantly.
I notice that 'transport and storage' has a total of 47k job vacancies at present.
I thought we'd been told that there are 100k HGV drivers needed ?
Now there may be some self-employed numbers complicating things but that's a big difference.
Anyone remember those innocent days when lots of vacancies was good news? So far as I can see the current score is that low vacancies, high vacancies and medium vacancies are all bad news.
Not really that extensive a reshuffle, is it? Not Night of the Long Knives by any stretch of the imagination, or even the later purges of Thatcher. Only four new members of the cabinet, one of whom will surely not last long, and several of the weakest performers like Shapps, Patel and Raab still there.
If Johnson is hoping to renew his government with this he’s achieved the impossible. He’s managed to be even dimmer than I thought he was.
Can Labour capitalise on this cut to UC? This is the sort of thing they should be scoring hits on a government over and yet I don't think they are being effective at all over it.
I do not support the loss of the temporary £20 UC uplift but the country is divided 38/39 on support/ oppose
Not an easy one, but was clearly part of the pandemic emergency funding, and they’ll need to find £6bn per year in taxes or borrowing to keep it running.
Ditto the furlough scheme, there’s several hundred thousand about to go from 80% of their salary to the dole. It still has to be done though.
In the last few days I have come to the conclusion that Boris is determined that wages have to rise hence why he is not permitting work visas
He seems to be developing a narrative that the conservative party are a high wage controlled immigration party, while labour will hold down wages through their support for unrestricted immigration
There is evidence wages are rising quite quickly and of course the electorate will see this in their pay packets, and it raises more tax and reduces the need for benefits
This is the brexit divided if it comes about
Not just that, but the pay rises are coming from the bottom.
For many years, the minimum wage was a maximum for many jobs - but now we are seeing genuine increases for the poorest workers, as firms compete to hire people, rather than people competing to be hired by firms.
Also good for the Treasury as:
(1) Higher wages mean more income tax and NI payments (2) Higher wages potentially means lower tax credit payments
Partially offset by higher wages means lower corporate profits which means lower corporation tax. However, as firms like Amazon do not pay taxes anyway, not much impact there.
There is, though, a small issue.
The UK already imports a lot more than it exports. We want higher wages, but that has to be matched by increased productivity, otherwise we will end up squeezing our remaining export industries.
I am heartened by Gove at Housing: my hope is that one is able to offer "real" pay rises to people by making their cost of living lower.
But this is a tightrope. And it's not like British firms are particularly profitable - corporate profits in the UK are already a smaller percentage of GDP than most of our European peers.
Edit to add: the NI charge is an issue here, as it effectively is a real pay cut for workers, and is really not what we want to be doing here.
Most of the higher wages are in service industries, which are generally internal with a few exceptions such as transport.
Increased costs of providing baristas, bartenders and arse-wipers, shouldn’t translate too much into inflation of exported goods.
Interesting - a Brexiter in charge of the laws to replace GDPR, also.
The current proposals are to gut GDPR and to seriously reduce data privacy safeguards, under the guise of some gentle streamlining of the regulation. I can't see the UK keeping its EU data adequacy agreement if they go ahead with the proposals.
If this stops people doing stupid stuff everywhere for fear of GDPR (e.g. My church used to email round a copy of the membership address book, now they will only give it out in hardcopy, lest it somehow get forwarded to someone who shouldn't have it in breach of our GDPR policy), then they should get on an do it. There may be some good in GDPR somewhere, but it's mostly just been an excuse for petty bureaucracy and stupid cookie popups.
Actually I disagree with that assessment. I would say GDPR is a serious attempt, maybe the only one in the world, to deal with an issue that exercises people about what happens to their data. I would also say it partially succeeds in its goal. It is an onerous piece of legislation - arguably too much so - although I think your church is possibly overcautious here - but it does have teeth. The main thing is that you can sue companies and institutions if they do it wrong, which is a big incentive for them to do it right.
The proposed changes is a weakening of safeguards across the piece, but with a multiplicative effect because the safeguards support each other. An example is that most data breaches will no longer need to be reported. The proposed "risk-based" data adequacy agreements will likely result in those that are minimally inconvenienced by the remaining safeguards can just ship the data abroad to do what they like with it.
Only if they are multinational companies and only a minority of private sector firms and virtually no public sector organisations are that and obviously it would have to be outside the UK and outside the EU
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
NEW: At 2200 BST tonight the Prime Minister will make an on camera address, alongside US President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Morrison, on a strategic national security announcement - Downing Street
Yes but it is now a more Leave Cabinet, all of those who left the Cabinet today were Remainers, Dorries, Barclay and Zahawi and Trevaleyan who entered the Cabinet were Leavers
NEW: At 2200 BST tonight the Prime Minister will make an on camera address, alongside US President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Morrison, on a strategic national security announcement - Downing Street
At 2200 BST tonight the Prime Minister will make an on camera address, alongside US President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Morrison, on a strategic national security announcement - Downing Street
Also plays to Johnson's PMQs line (twice, today) that Labour's pro-EU, pro-(low wage low skill) immigration policy will hold back lower paid wages...which are now rising...
How many were actual Remainers or just Greasy-Polers - i.e. how many were perfectly happy with hard Brexit when they saw where the Tory wind was blowing?
At 2200 BST tonight the Prime Minister will make an on camera address, alongside US President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Morrison, on a strategic national security announcement - Downing Street
Perhaps they all plan to resign at once live on air?
NEW: At 2200 BST tonight the Prime Minister will make an on camera address, alongside US President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Morrison, on a strategic national security announcement - Downing Street
This may be a big moment for UK - US - AUS and a real set back for France, Canada and NZ
I don't think Canada will be miffed (they're in the middle of an election), NZ is getting no more than it deserves and Macron will have to have a frank n'fearless chat with UvdL when she comes to Paris to talk about "European Defence".....
At 2200 BST tonight the Prime Minister will make an on camera address, alongside US President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Morrison, on a strategic national security announcement - Downing Street
Really interesting - what’s happened to Canada? (I know the reason with NZ)
How many were actual Remainers or just Greasy-Polers - i.e. how many were perfectly happy with hard Brexit when they saw where the Tory wind was blowing?
If we’re including them then the most important Remainer in the cabinet is Boris Johnson.
How many were actual Remainers or just Greasy-Polers - i.e. how many were perfectly happy with hard Brexit when they saw where the Tory wind was blowing?
I think most people in the parliamentary Conservative Party are greasy polers.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq, Covent Garden?
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
Also plays to Johnson's PMQs line (twice, today) that Labour's pro-EU, pro-(low wage low skill) immigration policy will hold back lower paid wages...which are now rising...
I think this could be the next GE24 slogan from Boris
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq, Covent Garden?
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq, Covent Garden?
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq, Covent Garden?
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq, Covent Garden?
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
No - the station is the same name.
Bank?
Nope. I don't mean entrances although yes Bank has two distinct lines (underground and DLR).
Can Labour capitalise on this cut to UC? This is the sort of thing they should be scoring hits on a government over and yet I don't think they are being effective at all over it.
I do not support the loss of the temporary £20 UC uplift but the country is divided 38/39 on support/ oppose
Not an easy one, but was clearly part of the pandemic emergency funding, and they’ll need to find £6bn per year in taxes or borrowing to keep it running.
Ditto the furlough scheme, there’s several hundred thousand about to go from 80% of their salary to the dole. It still has to be done though.
In the last few days I have come to the conclusion that Boris is determined that wages have to rise hence why he is not permitting work visas
He seems to be developing a narrative that the conservative party are a high wage controlled immigration party, while labour will hold down wages through their support for unrestricted immigration
There is evidence wages are rising quite quickly and of course the electorate will see this in their pay packets, and it raises more tax and reduces the need for benefits
This is the brexit divided if it comes about
Not just that, but the pay rises are coming from the bottom.
For many years, the minimum wage was a maximum for many jobs - but now we are seeing genuine increases for the poorest workers, as firms compete to hire people, rather than people competing to be hired by firms.
Also good for the Treasury as:
(1) Higher wages mean more income tax and NI payments (2) Higher wages potentially means lower tax credit payments
Partially offset by higher wages means lower corporate profits which means lower corporation tax. However, as firms like Amazon do not pay taxes anyway, not much impact there.
There is, though, a small issue.
The UK already imports a lot more than it exports. We want higher wages, but that has to be matched by increased productivity, otherwise we will end up squeezing our remaining export industries.
I am heartened by Gove at Housing: my hope is that one is able to offer "real" pay rises to people by making their cost of living lower.
But this is a tightrope. And it's not like British firms are particularly profitable - corporate profits in the UK are already a smaller percentage of GDP than most of our European peers.
Edit to add: the NI charge is an issue here, as it effectively is a real pay cut for workers, and is really not what we want to be doing here.
It's true that the cost of housing needs to be sorted. It's probably a significant part of why working people don't feel rich. (And to the extent that wages rise, I can imagine rents and house prices rising to absorb the extra cash.)
But it is also in the category of things where everyone knows what needs to be done, but nobody knows how to get re-elected afterwards.
(Preside over a house price boom, like Thatcher and Blair, you win. Preside over static or falling house prices, like almost everyone else, you lose.)
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Including vertical? In which case many, including KXSP. But horizontally: Stratford? Including two DLR ones?
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq, Covent Garden?
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
No - the station is the same name.
Edit: but yes those ones are very close.
Bank then, or KX/SP.
Three stations all the same name. Bank no, KGX also no although the main line makes two.
I am talking about....ta daah...West Hampstead - Tube, Thameslink, and Overground.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Shepherd's Bush?
No, or at least not the one I had in mind.
Not Shepherds Bush. You end up somewhere different although you cross the road to two different Shepherds Bushes.
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
Picadilly Circus, Leicester Sq, Covent Garden?
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
No - the station is the same name.
Bank?
Nope. I don't mean entrances although yes Bank has two distinct lines (underground and DLR).
Three completely different stations - Stratford? Underground, Overground and DLR.
The Morrison government is poised to tear up the troubled $90 billion contract with French shipbuilder Naval Group and partner with the United States and United Kingdom to switch to an American-made nuclear-powered submarine.
One source said the dramatic move would be justified that the shift to nuclear technology was required in light of the changing strategic circumstances as China becomes more aggressive in the region.
Of relevance to tonight’s announcement, the story of the AU and US police working with ‘a third country’ to develop a ‘super secure encrypted chat phone’, which they sold into the underworld and used to pickup a bunch of serious villains back in June.
I think that was just after they were told they were about to be arrested.
Nick Ferrari had the full clip.
I don't give a f##k....clear the idiots out the way, in the paddy wagon, then have a conversation about if they need to go potty or take oat milk for their tea at the station.
Important tube news: the two new stations at Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms open on Monday 20th September.
Which line is that?
Northern Line? Runs south from Kennington, I think.
A spur off it I suppose.
Spur to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington. Takes the number of tube stations to 272.
First new tube station since 2008 when Wood Lane opened on the Hammersmith & City Line, although that wasn't a new line: it was a new station inserted between existing stations. The most recent new station which involved new track was Heathrow Terminal 5 which opened earlier in 2008.
Silly tube trivia question. Which stations can you go north one stop, get off the train, go north another stop, and end back up in the same place?
Eh? So you're you walking to the second stop? Or is this a wordplay question? I'm interested, but I don't understand.
No. Taking two trains, one after each other. Both northbound. And end in same place. Not a joke, but for pedants, northbound would have been more accurate wording than north.
I think someone has already answered this correctly. While we are on this topic, name the tube station where you can take a train one stop and find yourself at the same station you started from.
Heathrow somewhere?
No - Heathrow stations have different names. Think South...
Australia, the United States and Britain will unveil a landmark new security pact to share advanced technologies, including nuclear submarine technology, in a major international announcement on Thursday morning.
As part of the pact, to be known as AUKUS, the US would help Australia develop a nuclear submarine capability, which could result in Australia dumping its $90 billion submarine deal with France, sources confirmed.
Comments
It’s not just great Dr Who it is great TV.
The proposed changes is a weakening of safeguards across the piece, but with a multiplicative effect because the safeguards support each other. An example is that most data breaches will no longer need to be reported. The proposed "risk-based" data adequacy agreements will likely result in those that are minimally inconvenienced by the remaining safeguards can just ship the data abroad to do what they like with it.
See https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyear2020
Well there was subsidised EOTHO last year but looking at CPI Food:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7c8/mm23
we see the cost index is:
Aug 21 103.9
Aug 20 103.7
Aug 19 103.4
Not what you would call soaring prices.
Looking further back it was
Aug 11 96.7
Aug 01 68.2
For some reason 'the poor cannot afford to eat' frothers were unconcerned during the Gordon Brown era.
As long as people dont take it too seriously they are all watchable, and some better.
https://www.thephonebook.bt.com/person/
https://twitter.com/Number10cat/status/1438125066852700161
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7c8/mm23
I notice that 'transport and storage' has a total of 47k job vacancies at present.
I thought we'd been told that there are 100k HGV drivers needed ?
Now there may be some self-employed numbers complicating things but that's a big difference.
One is existing pension commitments. That is, the promise to pay that everyone in the UK already has from the Westminster government. The answer to this one is easy to provide. Just as anyone who leaves the UK is still due their accumulated pension entitlement from the UK Government, so too will everyone in Scotland be entitled to the pensions they have earned to date from that government, which has benefitted from their tax contributions to date. Admittedly those pensions will be paid in English pounds, and they may be worth less than Scottish pounds, but that is the only risk I foresee.
He then goes on to write:
When considering this issue it has to be remembered that state pensions are not paid out of a pension fund. There are no savings or investments that back them up. The taxes and national insurance that we pay now are used to pay the pensions of those already retired
https://timesnewsnetwork.com/news/world/uk/richard-murphy-how-an-independent-scotland-can-beat-uks-lousy-pensions/
And on that note, which station are there three of within 500 yards?
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/government-reshuffle-september-2021
https://twitter.com/Number10cat/status/1436825103610884106
All of the Remainers have now gone.
Apart from Brandon Lewis.
And Grant Shapps.
And Therese Coffey.
And Alok Sharma.
And Sajid Javid.
And Ben Wallace.
And Oliver Dowden.
And Mark Spencer.
And Simon Hart.
And the actual foreign secretary Liz Truss.
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1438199627635900418?s=20
It's a beautiful story, that works on many levels. Sci-fi/fantasy at its best.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120402020253/http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0506/travelswithmycats.shtml
I'd like to think of Ethan now as a SeanT lookalike: travelling the world, experiencing everything it has to offer, looking for something he may never find.
It was one of the red warning signs that problems were being stored up.
Some others being falling home ownership, increasing debt, permanent trade deficit and stagnant investment.
If Johnson is hoping to renew his government with this he’s achieved the impossible. He’s managed to be even dimmer than I thought he was.
Increased costs of providing baristas, bartenders and arse-wipers, shouldn’t translate too much into inflation of exported goods.
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1438202465481117698?s=20
Arguably the strongest sign to date he intends to play the Brexit card hard against Labour at the next election
Reinforces my negative basecase for UK-EU relations
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1438203642641801220?s=20
Also plays to Johnson's PMQs line (twice, today) that Labour's pro-EU, pro-(low wage low skill) immigration policy will hold back lower paid wages...which are now rising...
Big moment
https://twitter.com/jdoyle597/status/1438202742648999947?s=20
‘You told the Ambassador that any further incursions would result in him personally, and I quote, “going home in an ambulance.”’
‘I’m sorry about that sir, but it had been a long day and he was getting on my -‘
‘Since when their armies have pulled back so far they are nearly in the next country.’
Definitely faster walking between those, even in the rain.
High wages - controlled immigration
Edit: but yes those ones are very close.
At least Brown never gave Corbyn a cabinet post.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/15/biden-deal-uk-australia-defense-tech-sharing-511877
But it is also in the category of things where everyone knows what needs to be done, but nobody knows how to get re-elected afterwards.
(Preside over a house price boom, like Thatcher and Blair, you win. Preside over static or falling house prices, like almost everyone else, you lose.)
I am talking about....ta daah...West Hampstead - Tube, Thameslink, and Overground.
It seems it is to do with Australia's nuclear weapons and cooperation with Japan and India
Just let us know if there's anything you need':
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9992613/Eco-mob-block-M25-AGAIN.html
Nick Ferrari had the full clip.
The Morrison government is poised to tear up the troubled $90 billion contract with French shipbuilder Naval Group and partner with the United States and United Kingdom to switch to an American-made nuclear-powered submarine.
One source said the dramatic move would be justified that the shift to nuclear technology was required in light of the changing strategic circumstances as China becomes more aggressive in the region.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/speculation-pm-will-announce-90b-french-submarine-deal-is-dead-20210915-p58rzo
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/11/inside-story-most-daring-surveillance-sting-in-history?source=techstories.org
Simon Clarke MP @SimonClarkeMP has been appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury @HMTreasury
He will attend Cabinet.
#Reshuffle
https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1438207991854026756?s=20
Australia, the United States and Britain will unveil a landmark new security pact to share advanced technologies, including nuclear submarine technology, in a major international announcement on Thursday morning.
As part of the pact, to be known as AUKUS, the US would help Australia develop a nuclear submarine capability, which could result in Australia dumping its $90 billion submarine deal with France, sources confirmed.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/ministers-granted-border-exemptions-to-attend-urgent-meeting-in-canberra-20210915-p58rzn.html