Conservative 43% (+1) Labour 33% (–) Liberal Democrat 10% (–) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Green 5% (-1) Other 6% (+1)
Tied lowest Lab % since 5/2020
Changes +/- 17 May
Green Shoots for Sir Keir
"Keir Starmer’s net approval rating stands at -11%, a one-point increase from last week. 35% disapprove of Keir Starmer’s job performance (no change) while 24% approve (up 1%). Meanwhile, 34% neither approve nor disapprove of Starmer’s job performance.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s net approval rating is positive for the sixteenth week in a row––this time at +8%, though this represents a two-point decrease from last week and a nine-point decrease from two weeks ago. This week’s poll finds 44% approving of his overall job performance (no change) against 36% disapproving (up 2%)."
Boris Gross Positive lead of 20 and net of 19
Boris only leading by 21 points now on "Best PM"
"Between Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer, 47% say they think Boris Johnson would be a better Prime Minister for the United Kingdom at this moment than Keir Starmer, a three-point decrease from last week. Conversely, 26% think Keir Starmer would be the better Prime Minister when compared to Boris Johnson, a two-point increase from last week"
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
Say what you like about Brexit, but London has responded before Brussels to the detention of an EU plane operated by an EU airline flying between two EU capitals.
UK orders British airlines to avoid flying over Belarus and suspends operating permit of Belarus' national airline
Wow, Alexander Lukashenko and Vlad Putin must be petrified with fear at that move.
What would you have recommended? This is pretty par for the course.
Not a lot, sadly. It was just the way it was announced on that post as though we had patriotically outdone other countries in our bellicosity, when all we have done is protect our own planes and passengers and banned an airline that probably flies very few flights anyway.
And when everyone else follows our lead, we have shown the way
I am not sure whether you were being ironic, but @BluestBlue thought you weren't by jingo!!! Anyone who thought braindead jingoism is in the past need to come on here a few times. Hilarious. The same types who always run a mile at the first sign of danger or the smell of cordite.
Being the first to announce action against Belarus is not jingoism, it is the right think to do
Oh you were not being ironic!! FFS! What has being first got to do with it?!!!! How about getting it right, or does that not matter in the age of Bozo Johnson?
World beating sanctions on Belarus !
Actually the EU should switch off the oil and gas pipelines out of Belarus until such time as Protasevich and his companion are released to an EU country unharmed. It would the Belarus economy to its knees, as that country is totally reliant on those pipelines.
Despite the nurse who looked after him and who isn't a fan of the Boris to say the least, saying he was really was in a very bad way...
Hmmm , a couple of hours on oxygen and working the rest of the time does not sound like he was on his last legs. Ill certainly but it was played for all it was worth, milked to death.
You believe the No10 spokesperson? They aren't exactly going to say he's gravely ill and could die any minute, are they?
This was tweeted a few minutes ago by one of the US pilots who has reported a spectacular sighting
(1/6) As viewed from the Situation Awareness page, the GIMBAL object appeared to be ‘behind’ a wedge formation of 4-6 objects that were flying in a straight-line path for a period of time. From the appearance of their radar tracks, they appeared similar to my eye as the
@uncertainvector · 8m Replying to @uncertainvector (2/6) ‘cube in a sphere’ objects we’d see regularly. I say this as their Target Aspect indicator seemed a bit jittery- as if the radar had difficulty determining which way the vehicle was pointing even though they were proceeding in a straight line. Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 8m (3/6) Eventually, the wedge formation began a turn. The vehicles turned similar to an aircraft, where they had a radius of turn. This is in contrast to the GIMBAL object which reversed its direction with no turn. The turn of the wedge formation, if I remember correctly, was Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 8m (4/6) not a ‘clean’ formation turn. The vehicles seemed to break formation to a certain extent but reposition to their original formation as they rolled out on the opposite heading. The GIMBAL object was stationary (as seen in the video) as the turn was executed. Once the wedge Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 8m (5/6) formation completed the turn and was flowing in the opposite direction, the GIMBAL object rotated as seen in the video. After the video was cut, the GIMBAL began to flow behind the wedge formation. Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 9m (6/6) For the record, after seeing 100s of aircraft and countless other air and ground based objects through the FLIR, I have never seen anything like GIMBAL. I think it's clear the Aircrew in the video feel the same way.
What I find curious about all these is that the objects in question are able to occupy the same physical space as things like air, without affecting them, yet somehow do allow radar waves to bounce off them,
Say what you like about Brexit, but London has responded before Brussels to the detention of an EU plane operated by an EU airline flying between two EU capitals.
UK orders British airlines to avoid flying over Belarus and suspends operating permit of Belarus' national airline
Bearing in mind the Lufthansa flight shenanigans it looks like Minsk is trying to pick a fight, rather than to calm things down after snatching the guy they were after.
I can't work out what their objective is.
Minsk is probably confidant nobody is going to send tanks across the boarder, so I suspect this is for the domestic audience.
Get 'foreigners' to say nasty things about Your nation and then play that on repeat on your state TV, provoked a siege mentality and people will rally round the leader, at lest to some extent, even a leader they do not like. its one of the oldest 'plays' in the dictator hand book. in resent times its been used by Cuba, Veniszwala, and North Korea, to a greater or lesser extent.
Is that what we are seeing here? Don't know for sure but based on last years election which was heavily rigged but resulted in mass protests after. I suspect the government does fear an internal revolution.
So what to do now? stopping flights from flying over Belarus is probably sensible. but I think better if western leaders avowed making public speeches condemning 'Belarus'
Conservative 43% (+1) Labour 33% (–) Liberal Democrat 10% (–) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Green 5% (-1) Other 6% (+1)
Tied lowest Lab % since 5/2020
Changes +/- 17 May
Green Shoots for Sir Keir
"Keir Starmer’s net approval rating stands at -11%, a one-point increase from last week. 35% disapprove of Keir Starmer’s job performance (no change) while 24% approve (up 1%). Meanwhile, 34% neither approve nor disapprove of Starmer’s job performance.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s net approval rating is positive for the sixteenth week in a row––this time at +8%, though this represents a two-point decrease from last week and a nine-point decrease from two weeks ago. This week’s poll finds 44% approving of his overall job performance (no change) against 36% disapproving (up 2%)."
You know, if the LibDems and/or greens can get some press from both by-elections, they really might consolidate some of their gains. Away from the Tories, it all feels a bit fragile polling numbers wise, and like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I don’t really understand the criticism here. Are PMs not allowed any down time ever? Not sure I want someone minding our nuclear arsenal if they never get any time off. If he missed crucial meetings to write it, that’s wrong. Otherwise, so what?
Moonlighting in another paid job - which is hard work - rather than resting?
I relax by doing things that are hard work. A change is as good as a rest. I can believe the PM enjoys writing. He just happens to get paid for it too. Remember that he probably doesn’t get to do much of it now.
I can’t believe I’ve found myself in the position of defending the PM! I just don’t think there’s a story here.
I agree in part, but it is the final preparation for publication that is like pulling teeth - all the checking, checking and checking again in particular, and also the polishing and editing.
Also - it's one thing to do something as a hobby. It's another to do something as a paid contract. Both by their nature and by the optics. He has time to spare to edit a book for publication? Who is he, Marcus Aurelius?
Edit: perhaps more to the point, who is he, Winston Churtchill? Even Churchill (AIUI) did his books when out of power.
Ah, sounds as if the book will be put off till heaven knows when. Which makes better sense. I couldn't see how it could work. Even paying someone to do the research and checking au Churchill would cost a fair amount at a reasonable hourly rate plus tax plus NI.
Say what you like about Brexit, but London has responded before Brussels to the detention of an EU plane operated by an EU airline flying between two EU capitals.
UK orders British airlines to avoid flying over Belarus and suspends operating permit of Belarus' national airline
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
You're being very harsh on MalcolmG.
I believe he was pooh poohing anyone who said Salmond and Alba would struggle.
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
Reported as if we should be shocked....its the way COVID works....you get lots of people get infected, then 7-10 days down the line some of them need hospital treatment.
I don’t really understand the criticism here. Are PMs not allowed any down time ever? Not sure I want someone minding our nuclear arsenal if they never get any time off. If he missed crucial meetings to write it, that’s wrong. Otherwise, so what?
Moonlighting in another paid job - which is hard work - rather than resting?
I relax by doing things that are hard work. A change is as good as a rest. I can believe the PM enjoys writing. He just happens to get paid for it too. Remember that he probably doesn’t get to do much of it now.
I can’t believe I’ve found myself in the position of defending the PM! I just don’t think there’s a story here.
I agree in part, but it is the final preparation for publication that is like pulling teeth - all the checking, checking and checking again in particular, and also the polishing and editing.
Also - it's one thing to do something as a hobby. It's another to do something as a paid contract. Both by their nature and by the optics. He has time to spare to edit a book for publication? Who is he, Marcus Aurelius?
Edit: perhaps more to the point, who is he, Winston Churtchill? Even Churchill (AIUI) did his books when out of power.
Ah, sounds as if the book will be put off till heaven knows when. Which makes better sense. I couldn't see how it could work. Even paying someone to do the research and checking au Churchill would cost a fair amount at a reasonable hourly rate plus tax plus NI.
All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
Or, to put it another way, Boris will be able to charm and persuade and to manipulate the truth. Until one day, he won't.
My gut is that Boris will be longer lived than most, but that the charm will start to fade some time shortly after the 2024 election.
The more interesting question is what happens to the Little England party then.
Again the comparison with Trump is the template.
The Republicans should have ditched the loser in January. They didn't.
When BoZo falls, will the Conservative and Unionist party renounce all things BoZo, or will the Little Englanders continue to carry the torch to oblivion?
"the comparison with Trump is the template" Reagan is a better comparison.
Is it?
To come to @contrarian's point about economics being the biggest element, it's worth remembering what Reagan did (and what he benefited from). Essentially, he was at the nexus of three massive forces:
1. The end of the Middle Eastern pressure on oil prices. In the 70s, OPEC twice threw the West into serious recessions by hiking the price of oil. In the 80s, oil from Alaska, the North Sea, and enhanced oil recovery meant they couldn't do that. In fact throughout the period, you saw commodity prices falling, which was a massive economic benefit to the West.
plus
2. The end of inflation. This is related to above: the 80s (not only in the US) saw inflation fall, and saw interest rates fall. A long term falling interest rate environment makes everyone feel richer.
Then there was what he created: a massive revamp of the US tax system (paid for through enormous deficits) that also put money in peoples' pockets.
Of course, Reagan also seeded the US's current imbalances, by moving the country from one that (broadly) paid its bills, to one that needed to import metric shit tonnes of capital from abroad to pay for imports of consumer goods.
Will Boris have similar economic good fortune?
Your own argument was expressed in terms of personality, not economics:
Boris will be able to charm and persuade and to manipulate the truth. Until one day, he won't.
My gut is that Boris will be longer lived than most, but that the charm will start to fade some time shortly after the 2024 election.
In these terms I maintain that Boris is nearer to Reagan than Trump.
And anyway on the economics you ask "will Boris have similar economic good fortune" [to Reagan]. Who knows? He's been lucky so far.
R4 PM Belarusian guest says official narrative is the pilot “requested” to land at Minsk because Hamas had threatened to blow up the plane.
I know in these situations the various sides don't expect others to believe their statements, but that sounds like a parody answer, where they decided to go with 'bad guy islamists' as the excuse and picked Hamas because they have been in the news a lot in the last few weeks, so people will remember it.
R4 PM Belarusian guest says official narrative is the pilot “requested” to land at Minsk because Hamas had threatened to blow up the plane.
Mmm. Methinks Hamas would have better targets. And other things on their mind around now.
About as believable as those Russian lads wanting to see Salisbury Cathedral.
Actually more believable than that. That was about as false as any theory could ever be outside of maths.
In this instance it's just about possible that Belarus is being played by another nation's agents. However if that's so then they deserve their fate in that they should have spotted it, and just waved all of the passengers back on board.
Despite the nurse who looked after him and who isn't a fan of the Boris to say the least, saying he was really was in a very bad way...
Hmmm , a couple of hours on oxygen and working the rest of the time does not sound like he was on his last legs. Ill certainly but it was played for all it was worth, milked to death.
There's no mileage in trying to attack him on that front, IMO. It's not like he made the call on how to be treated during a medical emergency, and if the charge is he was very ill but still played it up afterwards? That really is weaksauce - he's guilty of being a bit dramatic in his language over the time he was sent to the ICU? Unlike some other examples where attacks are ineffective, I don't think there's even an issue of integrity at play.
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
This was tweeted a few minutes ago by one of the US pilots who has reported a spectacular sighting
(1/6) As viewed from the Situation Awareness page, the GIMBAL object appeared to be ‘behind’ a wedge formation of 4-6 objects that were flying in a straight-line path for a period of time. From the appearance of their radar tracks, they appeared similar to my eye as the
@uncertainvector · 8m Replying to @uncertainvector (2/6) ‘cube in a sphere’ objects we’d see regularly. I say this as their Target Aspect indicator seemed a bit jittery- as if the radar had difficulty determining which way the vehicle was pointing even though they were proceeding in a straight line. Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 8m (3/6) Eventually, the wedge formation began a turn. The vehicles turned similar to an aircraft, where they had a radius of turn. This is in contrast to the GIMBAL object which reversed its direction with no turn. The turn of the wedge formation, if I remember correctly, was Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 8m (4/6) not a ‘clean’ formation turn. The vehicles seemed to break formation to a certain extent but reposition to their original formation as they rolled out on the opposite heading. The GIMBAL object was stationary (as seen in the video) as the turn was executed. Once the wedge Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 8m (5/6) formation completed the turn and was flowing in the opposite direction, the GIMBAL object rotated as seen in the video. After the video was cut, the GIMBAL began to flow behind the wedge formation. Ryan Graves @uncertainvector · 9m (6/6) For the record, after seeing 100s of aircraft and countless other air and ground based objects through the FLIR, I have never seen anything like GIMBAL. I think it's clear the Aircrew in the video feel the same way.
What I find curious about all these is that the objects in question are able to occupy the same physical space as things like air, without affecting them, yet somehow do allow radar waves to bounce off them,
One can only hope they don't get mistaken for an ICBM.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
You're being very harsh on MalcolmG.
I believe he was pooh poohing anyone who said Salmond and Alba would struggle.
They are doing very well thankyou, more members than Libdems, more MP's than Labour and they ain't going away. We will see how the court cases go , will Ollie find £600K behind the sofa , will Evans survive , Wolffe already on the way out before he is totally ruined . We will see what happens as she does nothing for independence, they can only keep the sheep penned for so long, wolves or no wolves.
NatWest faces 'significant' damage to reputation as it becomes first bank to appear in court on criminal charges over money laundering, lawyers say. Did not take long from it returning to old ownership openly ( not that it was not always NATWEST ) to get into trouble.
Malcolm, you don't half talk some rubbish.
Pop quiz who said?
If we all had our time again we'd look at things differently. I think there are very few people who can justifiably say that they anticipated the full extent of the financial collapse - the financial crisis.
I mean I know some people claim they did but I think if you examine the record you'll find there's very few people on the planet - and I am certainly not one of them - who anticipated it.
So, yeah, of course, if we had the benefit of hindsight we'd do things differently and I am sure that is true of lots and lots of people.
Also HSBC would like a word.
HSBC to pay $1.9 billion U.S. fine in money-laundering case.
Ok the answer to my above question is Alex Salmond.
His supporters will argue this is a brave step: Salmond is a proud man. Scottish Labour disagrees: that was simply a half apology, they argue. They have been brandished the letter Salmond wrote days after winning the Scottish election in 2007 urging on the then Sir Fred Goodwin to take over the Dutch bank ABN Amro.
He offered Goodwin "any assistance my office can provide", for a take-over which toppled RBS and forced then Chancellor Alistair Darling to spend £46bn saving it from disintegration.
Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader, said Salmond's regrets were welcomed, but then came the sting:
His infamous letter to Fred Goodwin offering him the services of the government to help with the disastrous takeover of ABN Amro was ill-judged.
Apologising for that is one thing, but what Alex Salmond should really apologise for is supporting even lighter bank regulations.
Labour has already apologised for not being tough enough on the banks, and it is time the SNP did the same
Labour took great delight in quoting back Salmond's words from an article in the Times on 7 April 2007:
We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in 'gold-plated' regulation.
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
Reported as if we should be shocked....its the way COVID works....you get lots of people get infected, then 7-10 days down the line some of them need hospital treatment.
Next you'll be telling us that weekends have an effect on numbers.
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
How many of those have refused the vaccine?
Well that's unsurprising, given the increase in positives there.
Happily, positive tests appear to have turned the corner and be heading back down again. So while hospitalisations may continue to rise for a bit yet, the leading indicator appears to already be declining.
Likely to be a few other districts going through a similar pattern, though possible none so steeply as Bolton - Rossendale looks like being next.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
You're being very harsh on MalcolmG.
I believe he was pooh poohing anyone who said Salmond and Alba would struggle.
They are doing very well thankyou, more members than Libdems, more MP's than Labour and they ain't going away. We will see how the court cases go , will Ollie find £600K behind the sofa , will Evans survive , Wolffe already on the way out before he is totally ruined . We will see what happens as she does nothing for independence, they can only keep the sheep penned for so long, wolves or no wolves.
I believe you were typically abusive to myself and Gardenwalker who scoffed at your prediction of at least 12 MSPs for Alba.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
I'm still haunted by that prediction from last year that said a major Covid-19 outbreak in Taiwan would be the perfect excuse from China to send 'assistance' to help their brethren via the medium of the People's Liberation Army.
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
How many of those have refused the vaccine?
We can't be held to ransom as a society by people who reuse to take the vaccine. If you don't want to take it, stay at home for the next 20 years and let everyone else get on with it.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
It's the other way round. Fuel for space launch *was* peanuts.
SpaceX has reached the point that they are shopping around to get the best price on RP-1.
If your launch costs $500 million dollars, then a million for fuel is nothing.
If the marginal cost of a launch is heading south of $20 million.......
I don’t really understand the criticism here. Are PMs not allowed any down time ever? Not sure I want someone minding our nuclear arsenal if they never get any time off. If he missed crucial meetings to write it, that’s wrong. Otherwise, so what?
Moonlighting in another paid job - which is hard work - rather than resting?
I relax by doing things that are hard work. A change is as good as a rest. I can believe the PM enjoys writing. He just happens to get paid for it too. Remember that he probably doesn’t get to do much of it now.
I can’t believe I’ve found myself in the position of defending the PM! I just don’t think there’s a story here.
I agree in part, but it is the final preparation for publication that is like pulling teeth - all the checking, checking and checking again in particular, and also the polishing and editing.
Also - it's one thing to do something as a hobby. It's another to do something as a paid contract. Both by their nature and by the optics. He has time to spare to edit a book for publication? Who is he, Marcus Aurelius?
Edit: perhaps more to the point, who is he, Winston Churtchill? Even Churchill (AIUI) did his books when out of power.
Ah, sounds as if the book will be put off till heaven knows when. Which makes better sense. I couldn't see how it could work. Even paying someone to do the research and checking au Churchill would cost a fair amount at a reasonable hourly rate plus tax plus NI.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
What does that make you, a...?
No idea. Why don't you Google it? Sorry, I forgot it takes you nearly an hour to type "Josh Taylor" into Google.
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
How many of those have refused the vaccine?
We can't be held to ransom as a society by people who reuse to take the vaccine. If you don't want to take it, stay at home for the next 20 years and let everyone else get on with it.
Tp be fair - if you wear a full biohazard space suit every time you go out, that should also do the trick.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
What does that make you, a...?
"PB Scotch experts" - blended or single malt?
Well, I just emptied the last of a bottle of SMWS single malt, one of their numbered ones inherited from my dad - forgot to check which distillery but 'boozy Christmas cake' was the tasting note and absolutely spot on).
PS Now checked: Glen Moray 10 Years Old 2004 58.7%, 1st Fill Sherry Butt.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Ok the answer to my above question is Alex Salmond.
His supporters will argue this is a brave step: Salmond is a proud man. Scottish Labour disagrees: that was simply a half apology, they argue. They have been brandished the letter Salmond wrote days after winning the Scottish election in 2007 urging on the then Sir Fred Goodwin to take over the Dutch bank ABN Amro.
He offered Goodwin "any assistance my office can provide", for a take-over which toppled RBS and forced then Chancellor Alistair Darling to spend £46bn saving it from disintegration.
Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader, said Salmond's regrets were welcomed, but then came the sting:
His infamous letter to Fred Goodwin offering him the services of the government to help with the disastrous takeover of ABN Amro was ill-judged.
Apologising for that is one thing, but what Alex Salmond should really apologise for is supporting even lighter bank regulations.
Labour has already apologised for not being tough enough on the banks, and it is time the SNP did the same
Labour took great delight in quoting back Salmond's words from an article in the Times on 7 April 2007:
We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in 'gold-plated' regulation.
It's fine, they're now campaigning on the basis that there's not much financial sector left to lose so it's not a big deal.
All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
Or, to put it another way, Boris will be able to charm and persuade and to manipulate the truth. Until one day, he won't.
My gut is that Boris will be longer lived than most, but that the charm will start to fade some time shortly after the 2024 election.
The more interesting question is what happens to the Little England party then.
Again the comparison with Trump is the template.
The Republicans should have ditched the loser in January. They didn't.
When BoZo falls, will the Conservative and Unionist party renounce all things BoZo, or will the Little Englanders continue to carry the torch to oblivion?
"the comparison with Trump is the template" Reagan is a better comparison.
Is it?
To come to @contrarian's point about economics being the biggest element, it's worth remembering what Reagan did (and what he benefited from). Essentially, he was at the nexus of three massive forces:
1. The end of the Middle Eastern pressure on oil prices. In the 70s, OPEC twice threw the West into serious recessions by hiking the price of oil. In the 80s, oil from Alaska, the North Sea, and enhanced oil recovery meant they couldn't do that. In fact throughout the period, you saw commodity prices falling, which was a massive economic benefit to the West.
plus
2. The end of inflation. This is related to above: the 80s (not only in the US) saw inflation fall, and saw interest rates fall. A long term falling interest rate environment makes everyone feel richer.
Then there was what he created: a massive revamp of the US tax system (paid for through enormous deficits) that also put money in peoples' pockets.
Of course, Reagan also seeded the US's current imbalances, by moving the country from one that (broadly) paid its bills, to one that needed to import metric shit tonnes of capital from abroad to pay for imports of consumer goods.
Will Boris have similar economic good fortune?
Your own argument was expressed in terms of personality, not economics:
Boris will be able to charm and persuade and to manipulate the truth. Until one day, he won't.
My gut is that Boris will be longer lived than most, but that the charm will start to fade some time shortly after the 2024 election.
In these terms I maintain that Boris is nearer to Reagan than Trump.
And anyway on the economics you ask "will Boris have similar economic good fortune" [to Reagan]. Who knows? He's been lucky so far.
Well, I would argue that Reagan became President at a time when the pendulums had really swung to an extreme against the US.
Now Boris has the advantage of Brexit, but I'd argue that on almost every cyclical measure the UK's pendulim is probably at the other extreme.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
What does that make you, a...?
No idea. Why don't you Google it? Sorry, I forgot it takes you nearly an hour to type "Josh Taylor" into Google.
Delayed action Doog and one his zingers, so good he's re-releasing it at 2 hour intervals!
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Dave West @Davewwest BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
How many of those have refused the vaccine?
We can't be held to ransom as a society by people who reuse to take the vaccine. If you don't want to take it, stay at home for the next 20 years and let everyone else get on with it.
I don't think that the people not taking the vaccine are holding the nation to ransom. The few that I know are also the most ardent anti-lockdown.
It is in my opinion overly cautious people in SAGE and the BBC/Media that love a panic story that are holding up full reopening. if there was a reasonable possibility that so many people in the biggest risk groups had tern down the vaccine that the NHS might be overrun, in the next 6 weeks then I would understand but there is not.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
I don't think I'm making too much of a leap in inferring that Pagel wants nothing more than for Britain to fail.
She's clearly a clever individual but is no better than anyone else in starting from the conclusion she wants to reach (Boris=bad, Brexit=bad, UK=bad) and trying to find a case to justify it. It's slightly worrying that people like this make it so high up the academic ladder. You'd have thought some sort of intellectual curiosity would be a pre-requisite.
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
What does that make you, a...?
No idea. Why don't you Google it? Sorry, I forgot it takes you nearly an hour to type "Josh Taylor" into Google.
Delayed action Doog and one his zingers, so good he's re-releasing it at 2 hour intervals!
Most of those I have been intimate with have regarded delayed action as one of my better qualities. I'm sorry for your own that it doesn't appear to be one you appreciate.
Despite the nurse who looked after him and who isn't a fan of the Boris to say the least, saying he was really was in a very bad way...
Hmmm , a couple of hours on oxygen and working the rest of the time does not sound like he was on his last legs. Ill certainly but it was played for all it was worth, milked to death.
You believe the No10 spokesperson? They aren't exactly going to say he's gravely ill and could die any minute, are they?
No one gets an ICU bed in a pandemic unless they need it. When I was helping on ICU in the second wave about a quarter were on CPAP, but needing closer monitoring than a regular ward in case of going off.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
I don't think I'm making too much of a leap in inferring that Pagel wants nothing more than for Britain to fail.
She's clearly a clever individual but is no better than anyone else in starting from the conclusion she wants to reach (Boris=bad, Brexit=bad, UK=bad) and trying to find a case to justify it. It's slightly worrying that people like this make it so high up the academic ladder. You'd have thought some sort of intellectual curiosity would be a pre-requisite.
Who is Pagel?
I get from the context she is an academic, but I have not come across her before.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Cyclefree's Foolproof Guide to The 10 Stages of a Crisis
1. People turn a blind eye. 2. People can’t believe it. 3. People refuse to believe it. 4. People accept that something has gone wrong but insist that it is limited to “1 or 2 bad apples”. 5. When it becomes clear that it is not 1 or 2, stages 1, 2 and 3 are repeated. 6. A limited inquiry is started in the hope that this will sort matters out. It won’t. 7. People become more concerned with protecting the institution rather than dealing with what is wrong. 8. The non-apology apology. 9. Eventually ….. a much more extensive investigation is done and remedial measures are taken. 10. Alas ….. the institution is dealing with the continuing fall-out from the previous failures for a long time after it has cleaned itself up.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
I don't think I'm making too much of a leap in inferring that Pagel wants nothing more than for Britain to fail.
She's clearly a clever individual but is no better than anyone else in starting from the conclusion she wants to reach (Boris=bad, Brexit=bad, UK=bad) and trying to find a case to justify it. It's slightly worrying that people like this make it so high up the academic ladder. You'd have thought some sort of intellectual curiosity would be a pre-requisite.
Even Devi has ditched the endless lockdown mantra. Pagel has become the new poster girl for Zerovidism.
I'm wondering whether the "shock" revelation that Cummings is planning might be linked to Boris on vaccination.
It would be hilarious (and very upsetting for his fanbois) if it were revealed that Bozo had attempted to procrastinate over the vaccination process or something similar.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
It's not "Scotch" in this context.
Ooh, an expert on which contexts the term Scotch can be used.
What does that make you, a...?
"PB Scotch experts" - blended or single malt?
Bells aw the way
As I thought, person who claims to be a Scotch expert actually drinks piss as well as talks shit.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
I don't think I'm making too much of a leap in inferring that Pagel wants nothing more than for Britain to fail.
She's clearly a clever individual but is no better than anyone else in starting from the conclusion she wants to reach (Boris=bad, Brexit=bad, UK=bad) and trying to find a case to justify it. It's slightly worrying that people like this make it so high up the academic ladder. You'd have thought some sort of intellectual curiosity would be a pre-requisite.
Who is Pagel?
I get from the context she is an academic, but I have not come across her before.
She's on Independent Sage. She gets wheeled out whenever the media want a 'we need more lockdown' angle.
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
You're being very harsh on MalcolmG.
I believe he was pooh poohing anyone who said Salmond and Alba would struggle.
They are doing very well thankyou, more members than Libdems, more MP's than Labour and they ain't going away. We will see how the court cases go , will Ollie find £600K behind the sofa , will Evans survive , Wolffe already on the way out before he is totally ruined . We will see what happens as she does nothing for independence, they can only keep the sheep penned for so long, wolves or no wolves.
I believe you were typically abusive to myself and Gardenwalker who scoffed at your prediction of at least 12 MSPs for Alba.
He is abusive to everyone. he is a nationalist. He cannot articulate argument, so abuse is his only contribution. He is useful though, because he helps to illustrate my point that Nats are often quite unpleasant folk. Anyone who can have a person described as a bully and a sex pest as his idol is not really a person of high reputation themselves.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Ten years ago, commercial space launch was c. 40% Europe, 30% Russia, 20% Asia, 10% USA.
It's now something like 60% SpaceX, and everyone else has been decimated.
I can't see how (absent massive government subsidies) any of the legacy players survive. They are compeltely un-cost-competitive. (Boeing SLS's fuel cost alone is more than the total cost of an entire SpaceX mission. And that is a completely unreusable rocket.)
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Where do SpaceX get revenue from?
Launching commercial satellites, soon NASA missions.
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Ow. Trading while insolvent is a pretty serious crime.
Yup, from that piece.
There was another eye-catching number in the court bundle — £9 million, which BetIndex paid to a company called Fame Ventures over the course of 2020. The Athletic understands that this is the old name of Index Labs, the parent company which built the software underwiring Football Index, and would maintain this role under insolvency plans.
Many disgruntled users have noted with surprise that Index Labs is advertising jobs on LinkedIn.
Reviving Football Index may seem fanciful for those who have had their lives ruined by the events of March, but The Athletic understands it is a serious proposition.
Pointing and sniggering at a bunch of people who defended a lying **** defending another lying **** a year ago now picking and choosing which lying **** to believe because the two lying ****s have fallen out is satisfyingly consistent and confirmatory from my point of view.
*cough*Eck and Nicola*cough*
Yep, all the PB Scotch experts confidently predicting the SNP & Sturgeon's demise (again) really reinforced their reputation (again). The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
You're being very harsh on MalcolmG.
I believe he was pooh poohing anyone who said Salmond and Alba would struggle.
They are doing very well thankyou, more members than Libdems, more MP's than Labour and they ain't going away. We will see how the court cases go , will Ollie find £600K behind the sofa , will Evans survive , Wolffe already on the way out before he is totally ruined . We will see what happens as she does nothing for independence, they can only keep the sheep penned for so long, wolves or no wolves.
More members than the LibDems???
My God, they should be heading back to their constituencies and preparing for government. Or lunch. Not sure exactly which. But definitely one of the two.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
There are those at other end of spectrum who say, everything the government does is wonderful and it must be the wonderful decision of the Glorious Leader( I don't think you are one of those folk btw). the truth is somewhere in between. The way I look at is that even a lying incompetent twat like Bozo gets the odd decision right. We are all fortunate whoever advised him on this did a good job and he took a really good guess based on his sound understanding of science, "er er er... whato, lets give these ere er er vaccine thingies a run shall we?"
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Taiwan on 6 deaths 2 days in a row. Similar to here. We are over it, they are just at the beginning...
Thanks for that, I thought I would look up Taiwan, it seems they are on only 0.14% of total population vaccinated, which seems very low for a rich nation. At least according to the 'our would in data' website:
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
The footballisation of political support is so dispiriting. Depending on whether your scarf is blue, red or yellow all that matters is whether you win the vote or, rarely, the argument. Truth doesn't come into it.
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Where do SpaceX get revenue from?
Launching commercial satellites, soon NASA missions.
Currently
- Lots of revenue from NASA - Lots from US DoD - Lots from external commercial - Tons of work at a low margin for Starlink
The launch cost is one thing - they make alot of money providing the ancillary services around the actual launch.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
There are those at other end of spectrum who say, everything the government does is wonderful and it must be the wonderful decision of the Glorious Leader( I don't think you are one of those folk btw). the truth is somewhere in between. The way I look at is that even a lying incompetent twat like Bozo gets the odd decision right. We are all fortunate whoever advised him on this did a good job and he took a really good guess based on his sound understanding of science, "er er er... whato, lets give these ere er er vaccine thingies a run shall we?"
I don't disagree with you tbf, I think the whole "my side must always be right, especially when they're wrong" has been a very unwelcome development. People have completely lost their objectivity.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
I'm wondering whether the "shock" revelation that Cummings is planning might be linked to Boris on vaccination.
It would be hilarious (and very upsetting for his fanbois) if it were revealed that Bozo had attempted to procrastinate over the vaccination process or something similar.
Oh, I'm sure they'd rationalise in about half an hour. (We're starting to see that already.)
The thing about the true fanbois is that the worse the nonsense they have to justify, the more they can show their True Followership of the Great Leader by swallowing it. Think of it like an initiation ritual- the worse the initial humiliation, the greater the resulting loyalty.
Say what you like about Brexit, but London has responded before Brussels to the detention of an EU plane operated by an EU airline flying between two EU capitals.
UK orders British airlines to avoid flying over Belarus and suspends operating permit of Belarus' national airline
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
Quite a few countries are I think, Canada is even going for 16 weeks.
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
Canada went to 16 weeks for everything, I think Denmark went to 6-8 weeks for Pfizer/Moderna and 10-12 weeks for AZ. Which is actually pretty close to our real world gaps of about 12 weeks for AZ and 9 weeks for Pfizer.
Pagel has been very active on Twitter saying that yesterday's good news about vaccine efficacy was in fact bad news, because we are too slow to give second doses. That's the way I read it anyway. I'm not sure it makes much sense!
It doesn't. The actual expert I spoke to (and who's predictions have been absolutely on the money all the way through) said that the lengthened gap between doses would give better medium term protection as the body tends to produce a better immune response that way and neutralising antibody presence is stretched out so people aren't only relying on long term immunity from t/b cells. If we had an actually serious variant unlike this India one and we had been vaccinating to schedule all of our groups 1-4, the most vulnerable plus healthcare workers, would have had their second dose three months ago and their neutralising antibody presence would be waning. With lesser binding efficiency that can result in more mild infections as well as higher levels of infectiousness among the vaccinated.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
+1
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The recommended dosing regime seems to have worked very well in Israel.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
The BBC seems absolutely stuffed with people convinced that they are one of the good guys.
Most organisations are like that. It doesn't help when we deify them so that they think they are beyond challenge. See the NHS for example which has a terrible record for treatment of whistleblowers and the scandals that became worse because no-one would admit they were wrong.
Switch on WATO. Banging on about the BBC. Switch off.
- We're joined in the studio by the BBC's BBC correspondent. What's the latest? - Tight lips at the BBC today, Sarah. The BBC is yet to comment on that bombshell BBC Newsnight report. - Can the BBC really stay silent on this? - I'm hearing rumours that BBC Today is in negotiations with the BBC to secure an interview. - Be sure to stay tuned to the BBC for any developments.
The BBC's own travails are much much less important than Putin's allies hijacking planes.
Obviously.
The difficulty is that what has been revealed about BBC culture and governance - not just 25 years ago - but much more recently is pretty awful. And it shows a news gathering organisation for which we all pay which cannot gather news, cannot investigate properly, cannot admit to mistakes, cannot manage, cannot comply with even the most basic standards of integrity, good employment and hiring practice. That is not something to be ignored. It does need to be covered and addressed. But by whom and how.
If the BBC does not cover it, who will? And if the BBC does not cover it, it will be accused of ignoring its own wrongdoing.
Did you listen to the interview? Richard Sharp sounded pretty convincing to me.
He is. But its the permafrost level of management which needs to change and that is very much harder than it seems. Believe me - I have been through this. The man at the top talks about culture change. They mean it too. But getting all the people all the way down to understand what it means and to change what they have been doing and get their teams to do it day in day out is bloody hard work. It takes years. It takes relentless pressure from the top and from outside. It takes buy in at all levels and it takes courage.
A good interview and a few memos are not enough. Culture change is hard. The hardest part is admitting that you need to do it. The fact that so many are saying that it's all a long time ago and that the managers who covered it up have gone is a sign to me that the people there now don't really get it. They are still in "it's not me guv, I'm one of the good guys" mode, which is a very common human reaction. But the wrong one - even good guys can get stuff wrong. That complacency is one of the problems.
One of the fascinating things is to watch how companies/organisations can steam steadily into an iceberg and sink, with plenty of foreknowledge and warning.
It is always down to an internal system where acknowledging the reality is not an option.
Systems are not at fault. Though bad systems help people make bad choices. It is people who make mistakes. And the biggest problem is that people are very very good indeed at self-deception. How to create a culture, systems the sort of moral courage which minimises this tremendous - probably necessary - talent which each of us has is the 64 billion dollar question. Recognising that we do deceive ourselves is the first step.
Saying "I'm a good guy. It's all down to him over there" is the biggest self-deception of the lot. Until we recognise that each of us is - and can be - a sinner, we'll get nowhere.
By a system I mean the social system/structure within the company. To break such a consensus means going to war with other people around you - and above.
Hence space launch companies which internally *really believe* that SpaceX isn't eating their lunch.
Part of Musk's genius is his eccentricity playing up so he's simultaneously both taken seriously and laughed at by the right people.
For people who were in the industry too often it was an attitude of "let's all get a good laugh from the eccentric billionaire who claims he's going to Mars" - then suddenly he's got in SpaceX a company with billions in revenue per year and he's left all the others behind for dust.
People like Stéphane Israël, of Arianespace, are still telling people *internally* that SpaceX is not really low cost.
Then he's a complete idiot.
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
More like delusional, I guess it helps them sleep at night though as they haemorrhage business.
Where do SpaceX get revenue from?
Launching commercial satellites, soon NASA missions.
Currently
- Lots of revenue from NASA - Lots from US DoD - Lots from external commercial - Tons of work at a low margin for Starlink
The launch cost is one thing - they make alot of money providing the ancillary services around the actual launch.
They own Starlink, so I don't think they get to recognise any revenue from those launches. (They're not Football Index, you know.)
The Gambling Commission are utterly useless, more evidence.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
Comments
"Between Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer, 47% say they think Boris Johnson would be a better Prime Minister for the United Kingdom at this moment than Keir Starmer, a three-point decrease from last week. Conversely, 26% think Keir Starmer would be the better Prime Minister when compared to Boris Johnson, a two-point increase from last week"
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voting-intention-24-may-2021/
The main difference is of course Scottish voters still trust Sturgeon while even English voters wouldn't leave a £20 lying about if BJ came a visiting.
Actually the EU should switch off the oil and gas pipelines out of Belarus until such time as Protasevich and his companion are released to an EU country unharmed. It would the Belarus economy to its knees, as that country is totally reliant on those pipelines.
Get 'foreigners' to say nasty things about Your nation and then play that on repeat on your state TV, provoked a siege mentality and people will rally round the leader, at lest to some extent, even a leader they do not like. its one of the oldest 'plays' in the dictator hand book. in resent times its been used by Cuba, Veniszwala, and North Korea, to a greater or lesser extent.
Is that what we are seeing here? Don't know for sure but based on last years election which was heavily rigged but resulted in mass protests after. I suspect the government does fear an internal revolution.
So what to do now? stopping flights from flying over Belarus is probably sensible. but I think better if western leaders avowed making public speeches condemning 'Belarus'
@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 46% (+1)
LAB: 28% (-2)
LDEM: 8% (+1)
GRN: 8% (-)
REFUK: 2% (-)
via
@YouGov
, 19 - 20 May
Chgs. w/ 12 May
I do like the way the Belorussians are playing the aggrieved party and expelling the Latvian diplomats.
@Davewwest
BREAKING - The number of covid patients in Bolton hospital has increased to 43 this morning - up from 33 yesterday morning, and 29 on Friday. According to numbers seen by HSJ
I believe he was pooh poohing anyone who said Salmond and Alba would struggle.
In these terms I maintain that Boris is nearer to Reagan than Trump.
And anyway on the economics you ask "will Boris have similar economic good fortune" [to Reagan]. Who knows? He's been lucky so far.
In this instance it's just about possible that Belarus is being played by another nation's agents. However if that's so then they deserve their fate in that they should have spotted it, and just waved all of the passengers back on board.
Pop quiz who said?
If we all had our time again we'd look at things differently. I think there are very few people who can justifiably say that they anticipated the full extent of the financial collapse - the financial crisis.
I mean I know some people claim they did but I think if you examine the record you'll find there's very few people on the planet - and I am certainly not one of them - who anticipated it.
So, yeah, of course, if we had the benefit of hindsight we'd do things differently and I am sure that is true of lots and lots of people.
Also HSBC would like a word.
HSBC to pay $1.9 billion U.S. fine in money-laundering case.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-probe-idUSBRE8BA05M20121211
His supporters will argue this is a brave step: Salmond is a proud man. Scottish Labour disagrees: that was simply a half apology, they argue. They have been brandished the letter Salmond wrote days after winning the Scottish election in 2007 urging on the then Sir Fred Goodwin to take over the Dutch bank ABN Amro.
He offered Goodwin "any assistance my office can provide", for a take-over which toppled RBS and forced then Chancellor Alistair Darling to spend £46bn saving it from disintegration.
Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader, said Salmond's regrets were welcomed, but then came the sting:
His infamous letter to Fred Goodwin offering him the services of the government to help with the disastrous takeover of ABN Amro was ill-judged.
Apologising for that is one thing, but what Alex Salmond should really apologise for is supporting even lighter bank regulations.
Labour has already apologised for not being tough enough on the banks, and it is time the SNP did the same
Labour took great delight in quoting back Salmond's words from an article in the Times on 7 April 2007:
We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in 'gold-plated' regulation.
Happily, positive tests appear to have turned the corner and be heading back down again. So while hospitalisations may continue to rise for a bit yet, the leading indicator appears to already be declining.
Likely to be a few other districts going through a similar pattern, though possible none so steeply as Bolton - Rossendale looks like being next.
What does that make you, a...?
My favourite bit about SpaceX is that because its fuel cost per mission is less than $1m.
Literally peanuts.
SpaceX has reached the point that they are shopping around to get the best price on RP-1.
If your launch costs $500 million dollars, then a million for fuel is nothing.
If the marginal cost of a launch is heading south of $20 million.......
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
Has china put presser of the big pharma, to not sell to them? or did they miss the opportunity to buy? or something else?
PS Now checked: Glen Moray 10 Years Old 2004 58.7%, 1st Fill Sherry Butt.
In these terms I maintain that Boris is nearer to Reagan than Trump.
And anyway on the economics you ask "will Boris have similar economic good fortune" [to Reagan]. Who knows? He's been lucky so far.
Well, I would argue that Reagan became President at a time when the pendulums had really swung to an extreme against the US.
Now Boris has the advantage of Brexit, but I'd argue that on almost every cyclical measure the UK's pendulim is probably at the other extreme.
I expect that, like Australia and New Zealand, it also just seemed rather less urgent given how well they'd dealt with it up until now.
It is in my opinion overly cautious people in SAGE and the BBC/Media that love a panic story that are holding up full reopening. if there was a reasonable possibility that so many people in the biggest risk groups had tern down the vaccine that the NHS might be overrun, in the next 6 weeks then I would understand but there is not.
She's clearly a clever individual but is no better than anyone else in starting from the conclusion she wants to reach (Boris=bad, Brexit=bad, UK=bad) and trying to find a case to justify it. It's slightly worrying that people like this make it so high up the academic ladder. You'd have thought some sort of intellectual curiosity would be a pre-requisite.
Football Index has been on quite a ride, from sporting ubiquity to a hearing at England and Wales’ High Court of Justice in London.
Explosive court documents contain startling claims, including that the company appeared to be planning administration nearly a whole month before it happened, while users were piling money into a platform they thought was doing well.
The collapse of the company earlier this year was the biggest disaster to afflict British gamblers in history, with ordinary football fans losing huge sums of money overnight.
The company was marketed as a “virtual stockmarket for footballers” with player “shares” traded for money online and users earning cash dividends based on footballers’ real-life performance on the pitch.
But it hit problems after the coronavirus pandemic derailed football in March 2020, announcing a series of tweaks over several months which were intended to help keep things up and running.
Then, on March 5 of this year, in an attempt to shore things up, the company drastically cut the cash dividend payments, which sent share prices tumbling and left many customers devastated. Shortly afterwards, the company had its Gambling Commission licence suspended and then was placed in administration.
After those dramatic few days in March, the spotlight has moved on to what happens next as lawyers and insolvency practitioners pick over the wreckage to find out what can be salvaged. Last week a huge court bundle was posted online, packed with new information relating to Football Index, and on Friday a High Court hearing listened to initial arguments.
After reading hundreds of pages of legal documents and speaking to multiple people involved in the situation, The Athletic can explain:
The legal wranglings over customer funds
Claims that Football Index deliberately spelt “stockmarket” as one word to make clear it was not an investment opportunity
Player shares were valued at £124 million in total yet Football Index had only £7 million in the bank
Football Index was making losses while sounding outwardly positive
Administrators were called in just before the crash
The controversial plan to get Football Index running again
https://theathletic.com/2607345/2021/05/24/football-index-the-battle-for-cusotmers-cash/
According to his mother, Roman Protasevich is in hospital in critical condition - heart disease.
https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1396868542654566402?s=20
I get from the context she is an academic, but I have not come across her before.
Honestly, our dosing strategy was a stroke of genius and the rest of the world should have followed suit as soon as we announced it rather than tried to undermine it. The fact that people are still trying to do so despite the clear success of the strategy speaks more about their own state of mind either about Boris, Hancock, the Tories in general or maybe even brexit. All of these factors unrelated to that decision are entering people's thought process. They're starting from an end point of "I hate Boris and everything he does is wrong so this is also wrong".
It's now something like 60% SpaceX, and everyone else has been decimated.
I can't see how (absent massive government subsidies) any of the legacy players survive. They are compeltely un-cost-competitive. (Boeing SLS's fuel cost alone is more than the total cost of an entire SpaceX mission. And that is a completely unreusable rocket.)
We will not leave this unanswered.
Leaders will discuss options for additional sanctions…..
These sanctions will cover:
• Individuals involved in this hijacking
• Businesses that finance the regime
• The aviation sector
We will keep pressure on the regime until it respects the freedom of opinion and of the media.
Roman Pratasevich must be released immediately
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1396875872376967168?s=20
There was another eye-catching number in the court bundle — £9 million, which BetIndex paid to a company called Fame Ventures over the course of 2020. The Athletic understands that this is the old name of Index Labs, the parent company which built the software underwiring Football Index, and would maintain this role under insolvency plans.
Many disgruntled users have noted with surprise that Index Labs is advertising jobs on LinkedIn.
Reviving Football Index may seem fanciful for those who have had their lives ruined by the events of March, but The Athletic understands it is a serious proposition.
My God, they should be heading back to their constituencies and preparing for government. Or lunch. Not sure exactly which. But definitely one of the two.
The way I look at is that even a lying incompetent twat like Bozo gets the odd decision right. We are all fortunate whoever advised him on this did a good job and he took a really good guess based on his sound understanding of science, "er er er... whato, lets give these ere er er vaccine thingies a run shall we?"
https://www.dlapiper.com/en/uk/insights/publications/2020/12/some-comfort-for-directors-with-the-reintroduced-suspension-of-wrongful-trading/
We have a 3 billion euro economic and investment package ready to go for Belarus, when it becomes democratic.
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1396878494882275337?s=21
Where’s the stick?
- Lots of revenue from NASA
- Lots from US DoD
- Lots from external commercial
- Tons of work at a low margin for Starlink
The launch cost is one thing - they make alot of money providing the ancillary services around the actual launch.
It is very strange that only the Finns seem to be copying us on dosing strategy.
The thing about the true fanbois is that the worse the nonsense they have to justify, the more they can show their True Followership of the Great Leader by swallowing it. Think of it like an initiation ritual- the worse the initial humiliation, the greater the resulting loyalty.
Still, it leaves a *really* bad taste in the mouth.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-lift-all-covid-restrictions-on-gatherings-as-virus-fades/amp/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&__twitter_impression=true