Interesting on here this morning. I'd been led to believe that Starmer had no chance whatsoever of winning anything due to his dullness, lack of ideas, boring persona, rubbish shadow cabinet and so on. Now some of those same people are speculating about his chances of winning enough seats to form a minority government.
For what it's worth, I haven't a clue what the outcome of the next GE will be. I strongly suspect it will be Starmer (definitely) vs. Johnson (probably), and I'm still thinking each has a 50:50 chance of being the subsequent PM.
The problem is most English voters dont like the idea of the SNP deciding whos going to run the country, assuming they havent voted for independence by the next election.
If the Tories get above 315 seats they stay in office, IMHO. And right now I think they will.
The Liberal Democrats are vanishing into oblivion and I don't see much evidence that Starmer can score more than a handful of seats.
If he does crack it he cracks it big time in my view, and not somewhere in the middle.
The Tories will almost certainly win a majority in England in 2024 regardless, Starmer is not going to win a Blair style 1997 landslide that is clear.
However it remains possible he could get the 50 to 100 Tory seats he needs to force a hung parliament across the UK and form a government with SNP and LD support and backing from the other minor parties
Nothing is 'clear'. It certainly doesn't look like Keir is going to make much headway in 2024 at the moment but events dear boy, events. We have no idea what is round the corner. Who could have predicted a global pandemic, for example?
A Blair style 1997 landslide, while incredibly unlikely at the moment, is far from impossible.
Substantial Tory disunity is the only thing that could cause such a thing in my view. The media is trying to play up the current disagreements, but overall I don't see any really big risks along those lines.
Once covid is not the main story every day then there's an awful lot that the government is going to need to do, and I suspect that the Tories generally will knuckle down and start to work on fixing all of the issues that covid and brexit have left us. By 2024 though new divisions might emerge.
Currently I think that a Tory majority is not far off the most likely outcome. I've backed it at 3.40 a couple of weeks ago. (Not a big bet though)
If the Tories get above 315 seats they stay in office, IMHO. And right now I think they will.
The Liberal Democrats are vanishing into oblivion and I don't see much evidence that Starmer can score more than a handful of seats.
If he does crack it he cracks it big time in my view, and not somewhere in the middle.
The Tories will almost certainly win a majority in England in 2024 regardless, Starmer is not going to win a Blair style 1997 landslide that is clear.
However it remains possible he could get the 50 to 100 Tory seats he needs to force a hung parliament across the UK and form a government with SNP and LD support and backing from the other minor parties
Nothing is 'clear'. It certainly doesn't look like Keir is going to make much headway in 2024 at the moment but events dear boy, events. We have no idea what is round the corner. Who could have predicted a global pandemic, for example?
A Blair style 1997 landslide, while incredibly unlikely at the moment, is far from impossible.
Sky reporting that the economy shrunk 9.9% in 2020 but there was growth in December and the UK will not go into a double dip recession
Ummm. Yeah? I'm not sure of the relevance here.
I'm not saying things will go south for the government. Far from it. I'm merely saying that we don't know what is round the corner. For example, we could get pulled into a popular war in which the government secures an even bigger majority to what it has now! Likewise, we could enter a long boom period in which all thoughts of "rejoin" evaporate and Brexit (and Scottish independence) ceases to be an issue of any significance. Who knows?
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
However, they will beat the Valentine's Day target.
I was being vague. The reported figures are always from the previous day, whereas I was thinking about today itself, which hopefully will be half a million more than what is announced later today.
Even accounting for Fence Post Error, we won't get there today.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
There's a very obvious counter-point here.
Even if you disregard the mental element of committing (or procuring) many murders with the goal of wiping out a race of people, the punishment for 6m murders without the "genocide" element is likely to be the same as the punishment for 6m murders with the "genocide" element.
So it doesn't realllyyyy matter.
Heroic effort last night, btw in responding to how people were "feeling" about the law.
If the Tories get above 315 seats they stay in office, IMHO. And right now I think they will.
The Liberal Democrats are vanishing into oblivion and I don't see much evidence that Starmer can score more than a handful of seats.
If he does crack it he cracks it big time in my view, and not somewhere in the middle.
The Tories will almost certainly win a majority in England in 2024 regardless, Starmer is not going to win a Blair style 1997 landslide that is clear.
However it remains possible he could get the 50 to 100 Tory seats he needs to force a hung parliament across the UK and form a government with SNP and LD support and backing from the other minor parties
Nothing is 'clear'. It certainly doesn't look like Keir is going to make much headway in 2024 at the moment but events dear boy, events. We have no idea what is round the corner. Who could have predicted a global pandemic, for example?
A Blair style 1997 landslide, while incredibly unlikely at the moment, is far from impossible.
Substantial Tory disunity is the only thing that could cause such a thing in my view. The media is trying to play up the current disagreements, but overall I don't see any really big risks along those lines.
Once covid is not the main story every day then there's an awful lot that the government is going to need to do, and I suspect that the Tories generally will knuckle down and start to work on fixing all of the issues that covid and brexit have left us. By 2024 though new divisions might emerge.
Currently I think that a Tory majority is not far off the most likely outcome. I've backed it at 3.40 a couple of weeks ago. (Not a big bet though)
I agree. I also think a Tory majority is the most likely outcome.
I think if they can sustain a post-COVID "boom" narrative as opposed to a post-COVID debt calling-in bonanza then that will be enough.
Hell if the Tories continue to actually invest in the North East like they seem to do be doing then maybe even I will vote for them, assuming the "anti-woke" narrative doesn't persist.
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
Exactly my thinking. I am rather saddened that the government has allowed itself to be bounced into this. Those three weeks are critical – given the obvious fact that they buy you fully SEVENTEEN DAYS of schools closure, simply because 2-18 April is the Easter holidays!
It is madness therefore to open schools on 8 March.
Haha. His stupid fucking hair. He looks like he has radiation poisoning.
He thinks that looking like a twat gives him an eccentric appeal. Problem is that more and more people just think he looks like a twat.
His current incarnation is beginning to make him look a bit like the lost eccentric, of the lead role of Werner Herzog's film about Kaspar Hauser from the 1970s, the idiot-savant boy who grew up chained in a cellar and then wondered the forest.
The question then is why are the conservatives leading labour, and in yesterdays poll Boris is leading Starmer
Of course the vaccination success is a big win for Boris and frankly Starmer is just too bland and not cutting through
There are many as evidenced on here who dislike Boris with a passion but this forum is not necessarily a reflection of the publics views and as indicated by the most recent polling
TBF I quite like Boris.
Will never vote for him mind.
I pretty much loathed him but I'm gaining respect these days. He has improved since, well, catching covid. I know he's a ditherer and I know he seems incapable of controlling the loose canons around him but the vaccine policy has been brilliant.
As for the tories next time around, I can see them increasing their majority. They may pick up seats in Wales. They were written off in Scotland: wipeout was being declared but I wonder if they've gone past that low point. If Keir Starmer's Labour are hoping to pick up seats in the red wall then I fear for Labour. It was Keir Starmer who was partly responsible for the anti-Brexit Labour non-policy.
People south of the border, and some north, are petrified of the SNP holding the reins of power and for that reason tlg86 is right I think. It's to their advantage.
But, really, this all comes down to vaccines. If Brits are able to worry less, live more freely, travel more because of the Government's brilliant vaccination success then it's game over. They'll win a landslide.
It's almost as if there is an element of the media that wants the vaccine to fail.
Macron? Sturgeon? von der Leyen? EU bureaucrats? Remainers?
One of the aspects of the UK Government's stellar vaccine success is that they backed multiple developers and pre-ordered in bulk from at least 7 different vaccine companies.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
What's bonkers is that the Premier League has not released their own subscription service for football. I'd easily pay £20 a month just to watch Newcastle matches and probably more to watch every match.
(I'm aware of the contractual and legal issues that would prevent this in the short term)
As for Labour, at the moment I think they're lost.
They're tinkering around with this or that bit of a machinery: a hub nut here, a wiper blade there but the Government designed the vehicle, put it into production and are behind the wheel.
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
Exactly my thinking. I am rather saddened that the government has allowed itself to be bounced into this. Those three weeks are critical – given the obvious fact that they buy you fully SEVENTEEN DAYS of schools closure, simply because 2-18 April is the Easter holidays!
It is madness therefore to open schools on 8 March.
Similar thing happened at christmas. I think the nation could have had a better christmas (People inevitably meet up at christmas and no Gov't is going to stop it) if we'd stayed locked down till, well christmas.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
What's bonkers is that the Premier League has not released their own subscription service for football. I'd easily pay £20 a month just to watch Newcastle matches and probably more to watch every match.
Something has to change with the Premier League post-Covid.
Going back to the insane old system of roughly 4 fixtures per week being televised (typically those involving clubs from London, Liverpool or Manchester) and the rest not legally available to watch surely won't be sustainable in their next negotiating round.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
I have no idea, check Netflix, they've got a lot of BBC stuff.
It sort of goes back to what we were discussing earlier, the licence fee holds the BBC back from offering a top level service IMO. It needs to go.
I would pay 37p tops for S1 of Forensics.
Actually I began to watch S2 E1 last night. Pretty compelling. Birmingham CID. Domestic murder, bloke confessed. Only half way through it but finding it very good.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
Why not? Given their subscription fee is far more than the subscription fee of any of Netflix, Amazon or Disney.
If they sorted themselves out properly then there should be enough to go around. For as long as they're moribund tied to the licence fee they've no incentive to fix these issues.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
As for Labour, at the moment I think they're lost.
They're tinkering around with this or that bit of a machinery: a hub nut here, a wiper blade there but the Government designed the vehicle, put it into production and are behind the wheel.
...unfortunately the vehicle in question is an Austin Allegro.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
To be fair to Sky, they're now backed by Comcast and they've been investing heavily in content to go on channels such as Sky Atlantic. I'm currently watching a Sky original show called ZeroZeroZero which is excellent and it has blockbuster production levels.
Sky/Comcast also know that for many people, to sign up for a 12-18 month subscription is no longer an option hence the rise of NowTV which is doing really well. Gets you access to all of those big shows they're making and you can add sports and movies (more recent releases than Netflix).
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
I know someone who used to work for Sky. Ever since Netflix was launched he would say that Sky was doomed once the content owners worked out they could make more money selling direct to the consumer.
I'm surprised that we haven't seen more such disintermediation in retail generally. Why did I buy my last washing machine from John Lewis, rather than direct from the manufacturer?
I noticed in the Dyson ads during the Channel 4 coverage of the Test cricket that they were mentioning people buying directly from them.
I don't see much of a future for retail or TV middlemen.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
Exactly my thinking. I am rather saddened that the government has allowed itself to be bounced into this. Those three weeks are critical – given the obvious fact that they buy you fully SEVENTEEN DAYS of schools closure, simply because 2-18 April is the Easter holidays!
It is madness therefore to open schools on 8 March.
Why keep everything closed until 2 April when rationale was to lock down to protect NHS and we can already see that the NHS is no longer under risk of not coping? Hospitalisation figures as of now do not warrant any further loss of liberty.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
Not even to watch the dramatisation of one of your works on a Sunday night?
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
To be fair to Sky, they're now backed by Comcast and they've been investing heavily in content to go on channels such as Sky Atlantic. I'm currently watching a Sky original show called ZeroZeroZero which is excellent and it has blockbuster production levels.
Sky/Comcast also know that for many people, to sign up for a 12-18 month subscription is no longer an option hence the rise of NowTV which is doing really well. Gets you access to all of those big shows they're making and you can add sports and movies (more recent releases than Netflix).
I used to use NowTV a lot to buy Sky Sports "day passes" however since stopping my TV license DD that is no longer an option...
They also put the price up to £10 per day which is extortionate.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
I'm with Charles on this (at least, according to your summary of his viewpoint - I haven't read all the posts).
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
I have no idea, check Netflix, they've got a lot of BBC stuff.
It sort of goes back to what we were discussing earlier, the licence fee holds the BBC back from offering a top level service IMO. It needs to go.
I would pay 37p tops for S1 of Forensics.
Actually I began to watch S2 E1 last night. Pretty compelling. Birmingham CID. Domestic murder, bloke confessed. Only half way through it but finding it very good.
Make that 50p S1 & S2.
But if you had a BBC Drama subscription for £4.99 per month it would simply be included as part of the archive access like Netflix and D+ have got. Stack on Documentaries for another £3-4 per month and you got all current and past documentaries, stack on entertainment and so on until a maximum of £19.99 for full access to all current and past BBC programming. Honestly, I think you'd get a huge number of takers between £15-20 which is more than they pay for the licence fee because of how amazing the BBC programming archive is.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
My understanding is that they wanted to do that, but were blocked by government on the basis that it would stifle the competition.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
I have no idea, check Netflix, they've got a lot of BBC stuff.
It sort of goes back to what we were discussing earlier, the licence fee holds the BBC back from offering a top level service IMO. It needs to go.
I would pay 37p tops for S1 of Forensics.
Actually I began to watch S2 E1 last night. Pretty compelling. Birmingham CID. Domestic murder, bloke confessed. Only half way through it but finding it very good.
Make that 50p S1 & S2.
But if you had a BBC Drama subscription for £4.99 per month it would simply be included as part of the archive access like Netflix and D+ have got. Stack on Documentaries for another £3-4 per month and you got all current and past documentaries, stack on entertainment and so on until a maximum of £19.99 for full access to all current and past BBC programming. Honestly, I think you'd get a huge number of takers between £15-20 which is more than they pay for the licence fee because of how amazing the BBC programming archive is.
Absolutely that is my preferred model for the BBC.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
On a simpler note, demonstrating mens rea is part and parcel of being able to convict for numerous crimes, so 'not opening a window into souls' really doesn't make much sense in a criminal context.
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
I agree.
And very good seeing some proper big Labour beasts getting involved.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
Main danger for the Tories is the economic "narrative". What will it be? There is little appetite for "austerity". Indeed quite the opposite from the Red Wall MP's. Meanwhile the vast majority of backbenchers are instinctively and ideologically averse to tax and spend. And we are skint. Largesse is fine, but who pays? That is the circle to be squared.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
I'm with Charles on this (at least, according to your summary of his viewpoint - I haven't read all the posts).
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
I don't really want to reignite the whole debate on this however I must remind everyone that this debate has more significance in regards to lesser crimes, not murder. Murder has a mandatory life sentence in any case.
On "lesser" offences such as GBH, racial motivation is one of many aggravating factors along with targeting of emergency workers, working in gangs, committing crimes on license, etc.
Like I said last night, if you remove all "aggravating factors" then before you know it some populist is elected with a promise to be "tough on gang violence" and before you know it "committing crimes in gangs" is suddenly an aggravating factor again.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
To be fair to Sky, they're now backed by Comcast and they've been investing heavily in content to go on channels such as Sky Atlantic. I'm currently watching a Sky original show called ZeroZeroZero which is excellent and it has blockbuster production levels.
Sky/Comcast also know that for many people, to sign up for a 12-18 month subscription is no longer an option hence the rise of NowTV which is doing really well. Gets you access to all of those big shows they're making and you can add sports and movies (more recent releases than Netflix).
I used to use NowTV a lot to buy Sky Sports "day passes" however since stopping my TV license DD that is no longer an option...
They also put the price up to £10 per day which is extortionate.
They do a £25 a month offer for the Sky Sports channels (or at least they did back in Nov when we signed up) which is a lot better, but it's still a lot and as you mentioned above it doesn't solve the problem of getting all Premier League matches in a one stop shop.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
I was one of many people to say this over the years. The BBC should have when digital TV came out, have turned the license fee system into a subscription. They proudly boasted of blocking that.
They should have also made a push to retain more rights in the programs they commission.
The world wide sales for the BBC streaming subscriptions could have eclipsed the license fee. Probably to the point where you could make the BBC free to all UK residents.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
I'm with Charles on this (at least, according to your summary of his viewpoint - I haven't read all the posts).
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
The government cannot allow any group to feel that they are particularly at risk. OK white Man U fans do technically qualify as a group but not one that has featured historically as having been discriminated against. Apart from Man City fans...
Jews, blacks, gays, etc have all been discriminated against by society. Hence in a civilised society governments crack down on such "hate crimes" because it sends a message.
To potential perpetrators that such discrimination will not be tolerated; and to victims (victim groups more pertinently) that the government will act decisively to protect minority groups which have had a history of institutionalised discrimination and violence against them.
Common cold coronavirus shows a definite preference for the winter.
Think SARS-Cov19 is likely very similar.
Yes, there is very clearly a seasonal effect - though no one is entirely sure what the various underlying mechanisms are, and it appears to work differently in different parts of the globe.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
My understanding is that they wanted to do that, but were blocked by government on the basis that it would stifle the competition.
Putting "competition" on a pedestal and claiming it will salve all ills is the Conservative disease.
(Yes, I’m aware that the other side has flaws too, don’t @ me.)
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
Exactly my thinking. I am rather saddened that the government has allowed itself to be bounced into this. Those three weeks are critical – given the obvious fact that they buy you fully SEVENTEEN DAYS of schools closure, simply because 2-18 April is the Easter holidays!
It is madness therefore to open schools on 8 March.
Similar thing happened at christmas. I think the nation could have had a better christmas (People inevitably meet up at christmas and no Gov't is going to stop it) if we'd stayed locked down till, well christmas.
I disagree.
If the numbers are crunched enough and the vaccine protection is there then for the mental health of children and their parents then kids going to school even if it's a few weeks only is important.
Three weeks seeing their friends, teachers, other people etc when they potentially have not seen anyone since December ... It matters.
It's like a reverse circuit break but it is the mental health and well-being of the children that is being addressed in those weeks. Four months of staying at home, if it's no longer necessary, is driving people to despair.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
I know someone who used to work for Sky. Ever since Netflix was launched he would say that Sky was doomed once the content owners worked out they could make more money selling direct to the consumer.
Sky is doing extremely well. They are part of Comcast, have a tie-in with Disney and are pioneering world cinema with original titles in their brilliant dedicated Sky World Cinema and Sky Originals brands. They're even building a dedicated state-of-the art studio in this country at Elstree.
Your dear satellite dish installer friend is talking utter bollox I'm afraid.
It's actually Netflix who are financially much more dodgy. They are constantly in debt, leveraged up to the hilt and forever commissioning zillions of new titles either which never make it through to production or which get dropped after a very short run.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
My understanding is that they wanted to do that, but were blocked by government on the basis that it would stifle the competition.
Putting "competition" on a pedestal and claiming it will salve all ills is the Conservative disease.
(Yes, I’m aware that the other side has flaws too, don’t @ me.)
Labour was the government at the time of digital switchover and the launch of iPlayer etc
If the Tories get above 315 seats they stay in office, IMHO. And right now I think they will.
The Liberal Democrats are vanishing into oblivion and I don't see much evidence that Starmer can score more than a handful of seats.
If he does crack it he cracks it big time in my view, and not somewhere in the middle.
The Tories will almost certainly win a majority in England in 2024 regardless, Starmer is not going to win a Blair style 1997 landslide that is clear.
However it remains possible he could get the 50 to 100 Tory seats he needs to force a hung parliament across the UK and form a government with SNP and LD support and backing from the other minor parties
Nothing is 'clear'. It certainly doesn't look like Keir is going to make much headway in 2024 at the moment but events dear boy, events. We have no idea what is round the corner. Who could have predicted a global pandemic, for example?
A Blair style 1997 landslide, while incredibly unlikely at the moment, is far from impossible.
Substantial Tory disunity is the only thing that could cause such a thing in my view. The media is trying to play up the current disagreements, but overall I don't see any really big risks along those lines.
Once covid is not the main story every day then there's an awful lot that the government is going to need to do, and I suspect that the Tories generally will knuckle down and start to work on fixing all of the issues that covid and brexit have left us. By 2024 though new divisions might emerge.
Currently I think that a Tory majority is not far off the most likely outcome. I've backed it at 3.40 a couple of weeks ago. (Not a big bet though)
I agree. I also think a Tory majority is the most likely outcome.
I think if they can sustain a post-COVID "boom" narrative as opposed to a post-COVID debt calling-in bonanza then that will be enough.
Hell if the Tories continue to actually invest in the North East like they seem to do be doing then maybe even I will vote for them, assuming the "anti-woke" narrative doesn't persist.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
My understanding is that they wanted to do that, but were blocked by government on the basis that it would stifle the competition.
Putting "competition" on a pedestal and claiming it will salve all ills is the Conservative disease.
(Yes, I’m aware that the other side has flaws too, don’t @ me.)
Labour was the government at the time of digital switchover and the launch of iPlayer etc
iPlayer was massively ahead of its time. Same with 4oD. Both leads were squandered or left to rot.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
I'm with Charles on this (at least, according to your summary of his viewpoint - I haven't read all the posts).
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
The government cannot allow any group to feel that they are particularly at risk. OK white Man U fans do technically qualify as a group but not one that has featured historically as having been discriminated against. Apart from Man City fans...
Jews, blacks, gays, etc have all been discriminated against by society. Hence in a civilised society governments crack down on such "hate crimes" because it sends a message.
To potential perpetrators that such discrimination will not be tolerated; and to victims (victim groups more pertinently) that the government will act decisively to protect minority groups which have had a history of institutionalised discrimination and violence against them.
Why is this difficult to understand?
The point of a "hate crime" is to terrorise a group. That’s why they are classified differently to other crimes. Obviously for the individual who’s victimised, the outcome is no different to the equivalent non-hate crime. Assault is assault from that point of view, but the state rightly recognises that there is a wider harm that also needs to be addressed in the former case.
Perhaps wrongly, football supporters have generally not been regarded as deserving of being put into such a protected class. If someone wants to make a case for it, then I’m willing to hear it!
Common cold coronavirus shows a definite preference for the winter.
Think SARS-Cov19 is likely very similar.
Yes, there is very clearly a seasonal effect - though no one is entirely sure what the various underlying mechanisms are, and it appears to work differently in different parts of the globe.
Next September onwards will be the squeaky bum time.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
I'm with Charles on this (at least, according to your summary of his viewpoint - I haven't read all the posts).
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
The government cannot allow any group to feel that they are particularly at risk. OK white Man U fans do technically qualify as a group but not one that has featured historically as having been discriminated against. Apart from Man City fans...
Jews, blacks, gays, etc have all been discriminated against by society. Hence in a civilised society governments crack down on such "hate crimes" because it sends a message.
To potential perpetrators that such discrimination will not be tolerated; and to victims (victim groups more pertinently) that the government will act decisively to protect minority groups which have had a history of institutionalised discrimination and violence against them.
Why is this difficult to understand?
The point of a "hate crime" is to terrorise a group. That’s why they are classified differently to other crimes. Obviously for the individual who’s victimised, the outcome is no different to the equivalent non-hate crime. Assault is assault from that point of view, but the state rightly recognises that there is a wider harm that also needs to be addressed in the former case.
Perhaps wrongly, football supporters have generally not been regarded as deserving of being put into such a protected class. If someone wants to make a case for it, then I’m willing to hear it!
Well perhaps Sunderland fans.
But yes that is exactly right - it is about the government making it clear that exactly such terrorising is more egregious than either a random or pre-planned crime without such factors.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
My understanding is that they wanted to do that, but were blocked by government on the basis that it would stifle the competition.
Putting "competition" on a pedestal and claiming it will salve all ills is the Conservative disease.
(Yes, I’m aware that the other side has flaws too, don’t @ me.)
Labour was the government at the time of digital switchover and the launch of iPlayer etc
iPlayer was massively ahead of its time. Same with 4oD. Both leads were squandered or left to rot.
A real shame.
That's what happens when you have a nationalised industry with no incentive to win subscribers.
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
Exactly my thinking. I am rather saddened that the government has allowed itself to be bounced into this. Those three weeks are critical – given the obvious fact that they buy you fully SEVENTEEN DAYS of schools closure, simply because 2-18 April is the Easter holidays!
It is madness therefore to open schools on 8 March.
Why keep everything closed until 2 April when rationale was to lock down to protect NHS and we can already see that the NHS is no longer under risk of not coping? Hospitalisation figures as of now do not warrant any further loss of liberty.
Well I agree as you know, but I think if it's a case of 8 March vs 2 April (which actually means 19 April for schools), we might as well opt for the latter for all the difference it makes.
I mean, you are essentially getting three weeks of primary schools opening – for what? So the mad scientists can point to a slight uptick in case numbers then lobby hard to prevent pubs opening for an eternity etc etc.
I think play our cards right: trade three weeks of primary schools for a proper reopening soon after?
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
I'm with Charles on this (at least, according to your summary of his viewpoint - I haven't read all the posts).
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
The government cannot allow any group to feel that they are particularly at risk. OK white Man U fans do technically qualify as a group but not one that has featured historically as having been discriminated against. Apart from Man City fans...
Jews, blacks, gays, etc have all been discriminated against by society. Hence in a civilised society governments crack down on such "hate crimes" because it sends a message.
To potential perpetrators that such discrimination will not be tolerated; and to victims (victim groups more pertinently) that the government will act decisively to protect minority groups which have had a history of institutionalised discrimination and violence against them.
Why is this difficult to understand?
The point of a "hate crime" is to terrorise a group. That’s why they are classified differently to other crimes. Obviously for the individual who’s victimised, the outcome is no different to the equivalent non-hate crime. Assault is assault from that point of view, but the state rightly recognises that there is a wider harm that also needs to be addressed in the former case.
Perhaps wrongly, football supporters have generally not been regarded as deserving of being put into such a protected class. If someone wants to make a case for it, then I’m willing to hear it!
Well perhaps Sunderland fans.
But yes that is exactly right - it is about the government making it clear that exactly such terrorising is more egregious than either a random or pre-planned crime without such factors.
Of course pre-planning is an aggravating factor in its own right.
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
Exactly my thinking. I am rather saddened that the government has allowed itself to be bounced into this. Those three weeks are critical – given the obvious fact that they buy you fully SEVENTEEN DAYS of schools closure, simply because 2-18 April is the Easter holidays!
It is madness therefore to open schools on 8 March.
Why keep everything closed until 2 April when rationale was to lock down to protect NHS and we can already see that the NHS is no longer under risk of not coping? Hospitalisation figures as of now do not warrant any further loss of liberty.
Well I agree as you know, but I think if it's a case of 8 March vs 2 April (which actually means 19 April for schools), we might as well opt for the latter for all the difference it makes.
I mean, you are essentially getting three weeks of primary schools opening – for what? So the mad scientists can point to a slight uptick in case numbers then lobby hard to prevent pubs opening for an eternity etc etc.
I think play our cards right: trade three weeks of primary schools for a proper reopening soon after?
Yeah it's better for us to grin and bear it for the sake of a few more weeks. We don't want to repeat the December mistake again.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
Yes when the KKK hang a black person, they are committing two crimes. Murder and suppressing and creating fear in black people. It is not just murder.
Having said that, it doesnt mean society cant go too far in recognising the hate aspect of the crime. Are we there at the moment? Not sure, its complex and I wouldnt expect to have a good answer from reading press headlines or deducing it from logic. Unfortunately it is not all black and white (sorry).
Great to see Lord Blunkett in the papers this morning, calling for a clear road out of this. We need more Labour voices to amplify his critique.
My view FWIW:
KEEP EVERYTHING CLOSED UNTIL 0001hrs on 2 April.
There is very little point opening schools for three weeks then running into the Easter holidays, when we could be holing this thing below the waterline.
Then, open up beer gardens (table service on Good Friday 2 April). Schools go back after the Easter holidays.
Then the weather should be warming up and we can look towards a full reopening around May Day.
Crunch hard, then open up properly.
Yes, agree with this. Get all over 50s and teachers first jabs done by the middle of March so that by the time we get to reopening after Easter all over 50s and teachers are immunised against severe symptoms. Opening schools for three weeks in March is such an unnecessary risk to take when we're so close to having this under control.
I agree.
And very good seeing some proper big Labour beasts getting involved.
Plural? I saw Lord Blunkett (a characteristically excellent piece by him in today's papers) but haven't spotted any others? However, you are absolutely right to imply that we need pressure from both left and right.
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
I am sure this has been asked before so forgive me asking again but I don't remember the answers.
What do people think is the protocol if Starmer is in place as PM and Johnson is only short a majority because of SNP seats, if the Scots win an Independence referendum? I assume it triggers a vote of No Confidence and a GE? But with the fixed term Parliament act in place can their be a change of Government without a GE?
And if the Scots win independence in this Parliament, say 6 months prior to a GE so without sufficient time to enact it in the current term, would they stand for election in 2024 knowing they were only going to be in Parliament for a few months?
POint 1: it's the Parliament that is fixed in term, not the Government surely. Point 2: why not? they'd still be part of the UK and have business to transact and constituents to represent on non-devolved matters. Quite apart from forestalling any monkey business that might happen if they were off the scene.
I do not see why those MPs would leave Parliament until Independence happenend, or any transition.
Disney+ now has more than 94.9 million subscribers. Projected to hit 250 million in a couple of years.
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Indeed, it's not Netflix that needs to worry about D+ it's broadcast TV subscription services.
Absolutely bonkers I wanted to watch S1 of Forensics on the BBC last night before I started on S2.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
Indeed!
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
For many of these series the BBC does not have the rights to show them on iPlayer in perpetuity - they have to pay every time (just as Netflix does for non-Netflix exclusive series). For those series, if it’s its on iPlayer, it’s being paid for out of the licence fee right now & there isn’t enough to go round to pay for everything to be available continually.
As someone on here mentioned c. 18 months ago, the BBC's failure to make iPlayer a global subscription service is one of the worst commercial decisions of the past 25 years.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
My understanding is that they wanted to do that, but were blocked by government on the basis that it would stifle the competition.
Putting "competition" on a pedestal and claiming it will salve all ills is the Conservative disease.
(Yes, I’m aware that the other side has flaws too, don’t @ me.)
Labour was the government at the time of digital switchover and the launch of iPlayer etc
(Examines history): and a Conservative government as been in power for 11 of the 14 years iPlayer has been an official service.
It seems unreasonable to expect the BBC to roll out an International service in 2007. Netflix only started offering streaming as a separate service to DVD rental in the US in 2010. I think this one is mostly on the Conservatives. I note that the charter was up for renewal in 2017 - this would definitely have been something that was on the table then.
Interesting thread on why the EU may be storing up trouble down the road:
Yes, he makes some very good points. The EU is being short-sighted on this, although that's partly because the UK's approach has been so insulting and unhelpful. For example: if we want the EU to be sensitive to the political and economic issues in NI, why did we ban them from having the office in Belfast which would have made it easier for them to be well informed about them?
Ultimately, though, this is going to be about how well the Republic does in calming things down and promoting practical solutions, especially within the EU. After all, 26 out of 27 EU countries don't have any particular interest in NI and the GFA. It's only solidarity with the Republic that pushes them to be positive at all.
Ludicrous. The EU spent weeks insulting and threatening the UK over vaccines, proposing to put us in the absolute pits with Russia, and then they pushed the red button and unilaterally invoked Article 16. Without consulting NI, the Irish Republic or the UK. We've just sent a letter to them - and it's an entirely reasonable position to take in my view.
The idea the EU is playing hardball on NI out of "solidarity" with Ireland is the propaganda they put out, and personally I find those that believe it rather sweet, but the real reason is that it's the most practical lever they had to force the UK to maintain close alignment with the single market and customs union. Failing that, it divides and splits the UK internally - which is a suitable punishment.
What they are absolutely not interested in is a practical solution that works for NI, Ireland and the UK in treating both the Irish sea border and Irish land border equitably for a sustainable solution that all sides can buy into.
If they were then they'd leave it to Ireland alone to propose how to protect the single market, since goods can only leach into from there across the sea.
If this isn't faced up to and dealt with then there's a real risk the whole trade deal blows up, and we go back to No Deal.
Sensible people behind the scenes on both sides will know this. So it's time to cut the crap, and compromise.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
After the over 50s are done teachers can all be done within a week. It's not really a big deal and it's a nice symbolic thing to do before opening schools as well.
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
After the over 50s are done teachers can all be done within a week. It's not really a big deal and it's a nice symbolic thing to do before opening schools as well.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
I'm with Charles on this (at least, according to your summary of his viewpoint - I haven't read all the posts).
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
The government cannot allow any group to feel that they are particularly at risk. OK white Man U fans do technically qualify as a group but not one that has featured historically as having been discriminated against. Apart from Man City fans...
Jews, blacks, gays, etc have all been discriminated against by society. Hence in a civilised society governments crack down on such "hate crimes" because it sends a message.
To potential perpetrators that such discrimination will not be tolerated; and to victims (victim groups more pertinently) that the government will act decisively to protect minority groups which have had a history of institutionalised discrimination and violence against them.
Why is this difficult to understand?
I've no problem with 'hate' crimes attracting a harsher sentence than crimes with some other motivation. I just think we need a broad interpretation of 'hate' to, well, include hate in general. The wallet stealer example up-thread could have a lower sentence (depending on the circumstances) as murder was likely not the motivation and neither was hatred, just money. Still murder and 'life' sentence, obviously, but possibly lower minimum term.
Looks like I may regret coming into this halfway through, without all the context, but what I was really objecting to was the idea that there should be special groups, not that motivation doesn't matter.
And the Man U thing is not a great example. Lets say they decide to kill someone with red hair. Another historically persecuted group (obviously to a much lesser extent). That, again, is just as bad. But such crimes are rare, there's less need to 'send a message' but then the message will also be sent less often as such crimes are rare. If persecution of red-heads increases then the message that this will not be tolerated will be sent more often (and there will also be a greater need for it).
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
After the over 50s are done teachers can all be done within a week. It's not really a big deal and it's a nice symbolic thing to do before opening schools as well.
Teachers could be done in a day!
Who would object to "Teachers' vaccination day"?
Gavin Williamson.
But yes, agree that after the over 50s are all done it wouldn't be controversial to line up teachers, police and supermarket workers for jabs. We could cover all of them in two weeks.
Its 4 weeks since my dad has his jab (Pfizer) and 2 weeks since my mum had hers (AZ). Hopefully they would both be okay now even if they got the virus.
Neil Ferguson and Susan Michie will be along later to tell you why its NOT OK.
Re the debate on when things should re-open, I think once the over 50's and most vulnerable are 21 days out from first jabs then that's it. We need to get on and live. There will be some residual coronavirus around and we will have to get used to it. Some may contract it but relatively few will die from it.
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
After the over 50s are done teachers can all be done within a week. It's not really a big deal and it's a nice symbolic thing to do before opening schools as well.
Less than that! Tony Blair was on Sophy Ridge recently. He pointed out that there are only approx 600,000 or so teachers in all settings (state and private) UK wide, so you could jab all of them in a single weekend!
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
A different sub-group - those trying to walk the streets after dark in that area.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
No its not difficult, its just too simplistic and wrong.
Terrorising anyone doesn't make things better and who or why someone targets a group is not consistent and doesn't just fall it clean, neat boxes. There are not better or worse reasons to terrorise people.
How big or small does a group need to be to be 'protected'? Who decides?
Take one of the worst 20th century serial killers, Peter Sutcliffe. His case was mangled because the Police thought he was targetting prostitutes, it was only once they realised he was targeting all women that he was eventually caught and dealt with properly.
Is attacking a prostitute because she is a prostitute a hate crime? Is attacking a woman because she is a woman a hate crime? Is the terror from one better or worse than the other? Which of these groups is 'protected'?
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
A different sub-group - those trying to walk the streets after dark in that area.
Targeting someone in an isolated place is an aggravating factor also.
And that is the fundamental difference between us.
I punish actions. You criminalise thoughts and beliefs.
To quote Bacon: I do not want to open windows into men’s souls
Thoughts and beliefs not actioned are clearly a private matter. Here we're considering whether a racial motive for a crime adds to its gravity. You say it doesn't for you and this is what I am probing.
Let's macro it up. Genocide. This for most people has a uniquely awful place in the annals of atrocities. But not for you, right? To you it's just about the numbers. The horror of the Holocaust is purely the 6m. That it was targeted at wiping out the Jews adds nothing. Ditto China and the Uighurs today. The crime is adequately described simply by the quantum of victims not by who they are and why chosen.
Are you sure that such a view stacks up?
Yes.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I agree. Same reason I am opposed to extra sentences for hate crimes. I don't care if somebody was murdered by a neo-Nazi thug or a ghetto thug trying to steal his wallet. The same dead body, the same number of grieving relatives, the same damage. So the same sentence.
But not the same terror instilled in the victim's sub-group as in a racially-motivated killing.
They all instill the same terror.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
It is about terrorising a group not an individual who might be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The government wants to promote a society wherein each group (black, gay, jew, etc) does not feel terrorised and there is no discrimination of or between groups and hence it is harsher on crimes which seek to terrorise or discriminates against those groups.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
You are right, it is not difficult to understand, the Government wants to discourage certain types of behaviour against groups that have been persecuted.
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
Interesting that the Pfizer response to the SA variant is being classes as good (rightly) because it has a robust t-cell response but the AZ vaccine had a very similar t-cell response but was on the receiving end of some very unfair briefings.
It's almost as if there is an element of the media that wants the vaccine to fail.
Easy for people with Pfizer in their arm to claim both are as good as each other.
Would anyone, given a free choice not go Pfizer?
Late to this today, but as someone with AZ in the arm its a question I have pondered. If offered a choice, I think I would have preferred Pfizer. However, what must be remembered is that the data for ALL the vaccines is still very incomplete. Real world data will give a far fairer picture, and its entirely possible that all the vaccines end up in the same rough ball park. I understand that Pfizer has introduced some extra 'stiffness' to the spike protein, and it is possible that this approach gives it the edge. We will see. Real UK data will not be long in coming. I'm also interested at the proportions of P to AZ injected so far. I think most of us expected AZ to be dominating (pretty sure UVDL did...)
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Once covid is not the main story every day then there's an awful lot that the government is going to need to do, and I suspect that the Tories generally will knuckle down and start to work on fixing all of the issues that covid and brexit have left us. By 2024 though new divisions might emerge.
Currently I think that a Tory majority is not far off the most likely outcome. I've backed it at 3.40 a couple of weeks ago. (Not a big bet though)
I'm not saying things will go south for the government. Far from it. I'm merely saying that we don't know what is round the corner. For example, we could get pulled into a popular war in which the government secures an even bigger majority to what it has now! Likewise, we could enter a long boom period in which all thoughts of "rejoin" evaporate and Brexit (and Scottish independence) ceases to be an issue of any significance. Who knows?
My point is that nothing is "clear".
I would be very worried if I was Sky.
Killing 6m civilians is horrendous whether it be Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, those with brown eyes, the educated, or just selected at random to terrorise the population.
Yes it was bad against the Jews - but it would have been equally evil against anyone else.
I think if they can sustain a post-COVID "boom" narrative as opposed to a post-COVID debt calling-in bonanza then that will be enough.
Hell if the Tories continue to actually invest in the North East like they seem to do be doing then maybe even I will vote for them, assuming the "anti-woke" narrative doesn't persist.
It is madness therefore to open schools on 8 March.
S1 "is not available right now". Why on earth not? Is it bandwidth?
As for the tories next time around, I can see them increasing their majority. They may pick up seats in Wales. They were written off in Scotland: wipeout was being declared but I wonder if they've gone past that low point. If Keir Starmer's Labour are hoping to pick up seats in the red wall then I fear for Labour. It was Keir Starmer who was partly responsible for the anti-Brexit Labour non-policy.
People south of the border, and some north, are petrified of the SNP holding the reins of power and for that reason tlg86 is right I think. It's to their advantage.
But, really, this all comes down to vaccines. If Brits are able to worry less, live more freely, travel more because of the Government's brilliant vaccination success then it's game over. They'll win a landslide.
Think SARS-Cov19 is likely very similar.
And their annual subscription licence fee is nearly three times the annual fee for D+
Bonkers.
Sturgeon?
von der Leyen?
EU bureaucrats?
Remainers?
One of the aspects of the UK Government's stellar vaccine success is that they backed multiple developers and pre-ordered in bulk from at least 7 different vaccine companies.
It's astounding and outstanding.
(I'm aware of the contractual and legal issues that would prevent this in the short term)
They're tinkering around with this or that bit of a machinery: a hub nut here, a wiper blade there but the Government designed the vehicle, put it into production and are behind the wheel.
AAARRRGGGGHHH
https://twitter.com/adamcooperF1/status/1360175378522865669
It sort of goes back to what we were discussing earlier, the licence fee holds the BBC back from offering a top level service IMO. It needs to go.
Going back to the insane old system of roughly 4 fixtures per week being televised (typically those involving clubs from London, Liverpool or Manchester) and the rest not legally available to watch surely won't be sustainable in their next negotiating round.
Actually I began to watch S2 E1 last night. Pretty compelling. Birmingham CID. Domestic murder, bloke confessed. Only half way through it but finding it very good.
Make that 50p S1 & S2.
If they sorted themselves out properly then there should be enough to go around. For as long as they're moribund tied to the licence fee they've no incentive to fix these issues.
Very typical of a nationalised industry.
I refuse to pay for a tv licence on principle.
Sky/Comcast also know that for many people, to sign up for a 12-18 month subscription is no longer an option hence the rise of NowTV which is doing really well. Gets you access to all of those big shows they're making and you can add sports and movies (more recent releases than Netflix).
There's a reason everyone who tries to get subscriptions has gone down that road.
I'm surprised that we haven't seen more such disintermediation in retail generally. Why did I buy my last washing machine from John Lewis, rather than direct from the manufacturer?
I noticed in the Dyson ads during the Channel 4 coverage of the Test cricket that they were mentioning people buying directly from them.
I don't see much of a future for retail or TV middlemen.
They also put the price up to £10 per day which is extortionate.
Say Nazi Germany decided to persecute any other group for no good reason (they did, of course, with several other groups) - but say they killed 6 million people because they had red hair, or they had a family name starting with G, or they killed the oldest 6 million first-borns in the country or the first 6 million in alphabetical order of first name. All, to me, just as bad - it's killing a group, any group, for no good reason at all except some random characteristic. Do you value the lives of any of those 6 millions less than the lives of 6 million* people of Jewish descent? If so, why?
To take a smaller example: A group of white men are racist and decide to kill a black man. Stephen Lawrence case, horrendous. A group of white men hate Manchester United and decide to kill one of their (as it happens, white) supporters. Just as bad, in my view, even though there's no racial motivation. Same sentence. Killing someone/some group because they match some basic characteristic, irrespective of the actions of the individual is as bad as it gets on any level. I don't particularly care what the characteristic is.
And very good seeing some proper big Labour beasts getting involved.
If there's a section of town you are too afraid to go to because people are frequently murdered.there for their wallets are you saying that instills no terror? What about for the poor saps who live there?
What will it be?
There is little appetite for "austerity". Indeed quite the opposite from the Red Wall MP's.
Meanwhile the vast majority of backbenchers are instinctively and ideologically averse to tax and spend. And we are skint.
Largesse is fine, but who pays?
That is the circle to be squared.
On "lesser" offences such as GBH, racial motivation is one of many aggravating factors along with targeting of emergency workers, working in gangs, committing crimes on license, etc.
Like I said last night, if you remove all "aggravating factors" then before you know it some populist is elected with a promise to be "tough on gang violence" and before you know it "committing crimes in gangs" is suddenly an aggravating factor again.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53385203
They should have also made a push to retain more rights in the programs they commission.
The world wide sales for the BBC streaming subscriptions could have eclipsed the license fee. Probably to the point where you could make the BBC free to all UK residents.
Jews, blacks, gays, etc have all been discriminated against by society. Hence in a civilised society governments crack down on such "hate crimes" because it sends a message.
To potential perpetrators that such discrimination will not be tolerated; and to victims (victim groups more pertinently) that the government will act decisively to protect minority groups which have had a history of institutionalised discrimination and violence against them.
Why is this difficult to understand?
(Yes, I’m aware that the other side has flaws too, don’t @ me.)
If the numbers are crunched enough and the vaccine protection is there then for the mental health of children and their parents then kids going to school even if it's a few weeks only is important.
Three weeks seeing their friends, teachers, other people etc when they potentially have not seen anyone since December ... It matters.
It's like a reverse circuit break but it is the mental health and well-being of the children that is being addressed in those weeks. Four months of staying at home, if it's no longer necessary, is driving people to despair.
Your dear satellite dish installer friend is talking utter bollox I'm afraid.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sky-more-choiceful-content-deals-1129487
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/sky-cinema-eyes-piece-of-the-action-with-movies-of-its-own-1.3628254
https://www.televisual.com/news/sky-studios-elstree-to-start-construction-this-month/
It's actually Netflix who are financially much more dodgy. They are constantly in debt, leveraged up to the hilt and forever commissioning zillions of new titles either which never make it through to production or which get dropped after a very short run.
A real shame.
Perhaps wrongly, football supporters have generally not been regarded as deserving of being put into such a protected class. If someone wants to make a case for it, then I’m willing to hear it!
But yes that is exactly right - it is about the government making it clear that exactly such terrorising is more egregious than either a random or pre-planned crime without such factors.
I mean, you are essentially getting three weeks of primary schools opening – for what? So the mad scientists can point to a slight uptick in case numbers then lobby hard to prevent pubs opening for an eternity etc etc.
I think play our cards right: trade three weeks of primary schools for a proper reopening soon after?
https://twitter.com/antheaturner1/status/1359937654318587904?s=21
Having said that, it doesnt mean society cant go too far in recognising the hate aspect of the crime. Are we there at the moment? Not sure, its complex and I wouldnt expect to have a good answer from reading press headlines or deducing it from logic. Unfortunately it is not all black and white (sorry).
Who are the other big Labour beasts?
The teacher thing is a bit of a red herring imho. It's all down to the JCVI priority list.
Compare with UK MEPs.
It seems unreasonable to expect the BBC to roll out an International service in 2007. Netflix only started offering streaming as a separate service to DVD rental in the US in 2010. I think this one is mostly on the Conservatives. I note that the charter was up for renewal in 2017 - this would definitely have been something that was on the table then.
The idea the EU is playing hardball on NI out of "solidarity" with Ireland is the propaganda they put out, and personally I find those that believe it rather sweet, but the real reason is that it's the most practical lever they had to force the UK to maintain close alignment with the single market and customs union. Failing that, it divides and splits the UK internally - which is a suitable punishment.
What they are absolutely not interested in is a practical solution that works for NI, Ireland and the UK in treating both the Irish sea border and Irish land border equitably for a sustainable solution that all sides can buy into.
If they were then they'd leave it to Ireland alone to propose how to protect the single market, since goods can only leach into from there across the sea.
If this isn't faced up to and dealt with then there's a real risk the whole trade deal blows up, and we go back to No Deal.
Sensible people behind the scenes on both sides will know this. So it's time to cut the crap, and compromise.
Equally, and critically, it is harsher because it wants to deter perpetrators, by force (of the increased sentence) from seeking to terrorise or discriminate against those groups.
Terrorising black people is worse than terrorising one person (black or white) walking home from the pub on his own. And if that person was targeted because he was black (or white) then it is the same because it would be a "hate crime".
Again, not difficult to understand.
I guess I'll just wait and see.
I see Rishi Sunak is planning a GBP6bn tax raid.
Only 394bn to go then.
Who would object to "Teachers' vaccination day"?
Looks like I may regret coming into this halfway through, without all the context, but what I was really objecting to was the idea that there should be special groups, not that motivation doesn't matter.
And the Man U thing is not a great example. Lets say they decide to kill someone with red hair. Another historically persecuted group (obviously to a much lesser extent). That, again, is just as bad. But such crimes are rare, there's less need to 'send a message' but then the message will also be sent less often as such crimes are rare. If persecution of red-heads increases then the message that this will not be tolerated will be sent more often (and there will also be a greater need for it).
But yes, agree that after the over 50s are all done it wouldn't be controversial to line up teachers, police and supermarket workers for jabs. We could cover all of them in two weeks.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
Terrorising anyone doesn't make things better and who or why someone targets a group is not consistent and doesn't just fall it clean, neat boxes. There are not better or worse reasons to terrorise people.
How big or small does a group need to be to be 'protected'? Who decides?
Take one of the worst 20th century serial killers, Peter Sutcliffe. His case was mangled because the Police thought he was targetting prostitutes, it was only once they realised he was targeting all women that he was eventually caught and dealt with properly.
Is attacking a prostitute because she is a prostitute a hate crime? Is attacking a woman because she is a woman a hate crime? Is the terror from one better or worse than the other? Which of these groups is 'protected'?
The problem people have with hate crimes (or, at least I do), is that it effectively creates inequality amongst victims. Part of the healing process for many victims is the retribution element and feeling as though their attacker has been duly punished. If I face the same injury from an attack than, e.g. a Black person, but my attacker gets a lower sentence than the attacker of the Black person simply because the latter is Black, I would feel I have been treated as a lesser person by the justice system.
https://twitter.com/beverleyturner/status/1359929399966113797
"Let that sink in" - Pnarr, Pnarr.
I understand that Pfizer has introduced some extra 'stiffness' to the spike protein, and it is possible that this approach gives it the edge. We will see. Real UK data will not be long in coming.
I'm also interested at the proportions of P to AZ injected so far. I think most of us expected AZ to be dominating (pretty sure UVDL did...)