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Shropshire North – nine days to go – politicalbetting.com

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  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,781
    edited December 2021
    @kinabalu

    License fee is optional though.

    And supports my point - it should be funded through our progressive income tax system, rather than a regressive (proportionally) license fee that excludes the poorest.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Lol looks like Omicron has already mutated to evade PCRs:

    9m ago
    16:15
    Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron not identifiable with PCR test

    Does that really matter? It's detectable with the big sequencing program anyway.
    This is more of an issue in countries not doing much sequencing, particularly if they are now concentrating their sequencing on the S-gene target failure PCR samples.
    Every country is going to get the OMICRON, and it's going to crush the other variants into extinction. I'm not sure it's necessary that they are able to identify which variant they have.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    Hospitals

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  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021

    Hurrah for the BBC.

    The BBC will have digital in-play clips for UK users within its live coverage of the men's Ashes when the iconic cricketing battle between England and Australia resumes on Wednesday, 8 December.

    In addition to ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary, the BBC has also secured rights to a daily highlights show.

    The highlights show, which will be available on BBC iPlayer, will bring UK viewers all of the latest from the series daily at 17:00 GMT as England try to end the decade-long stretch since their last series win down under.

    In addition to the digital clips, the BBC Sport website and app will have a short catch-up service when UK-based fans wake each morning.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59443111

    Will Michael Vaughan commentary be censored out or are they overlaying the test match special commentary onto the highlight package?
    For the first two test matches not an issue as he isn't out in Australia yet, not sure what they do after that.
    No idea what BT are going to do with their live coverage? Just go to bird song every time he opens his mouth?
    They are planning to do the the last three tests, if Vaughan is there, off tube, ie with their own commentary team based in London.
    All just so Vaughan's voice can't be heard. Absolutely ridiculous.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    OGH has done a proper Streisand Effect on this thread
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489
    Sandpit said:

    BigRich said:

    HYUFD said:

    Should Britain boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics?

    Diplomatic boycott
    For - 43%
    Against - 18%

    Athletic boycott
    For - 33%
    Against - 30%
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1468250012089991174?s=20

    I'm quite surprised that the don't knows are not larger, but pleased that so many support the diplomatic boycott?

    I'm guessing most on here would be for a (Diplomatic) boycott? by the UK
    The diplomatic boycott is a no-brainer. If they don’t find that young lady tennis player, there’s going to be severe pressure building for a sporting boycott too, horrible as that would be for the athletes who have spent years training for the event.
    They have found her, and did a video, she looked very scared, but was opstataly visiting a school and talking to kids learning about tennis. and by chance she dropped in to the conversation the date, so we know it was not pre-recorded. why there where so many men in the background, is not mentioned.

    She has been so scared/torcherd that she is now helping with propaganda to deny that there is a problem.

    CCP is an abomination! CCP are the people we should be comparing to the NAZI to not the TORYS, SNP EU or anybody else!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    Case summary

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  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    Its not clear from this article, is it that PCR will still find a positive COVID, but not that it is omicron variant? or that it just totally misses that it is COVID?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/07/scientists-find-stealth-version-of-omicron-not-identifiable-with-pcr-test-covid-variant

    I read it as the first, but not 100% clear.

    The PCR tests will still give +ve for Covid, but this variant of Omicron doesn't have the S-gene target failure (SGTF), so you'd have to be sequencing a sample of all +ve Covid cases to pick up its spread, and not rely on the SGTF results.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    edited December 2021

    Hurrah for the BBC.

    The BBC will have digital in-play clips for UK users within its live coverage of the men's Ashes when the iconic cricketing battle between England and Australia resumes on Wednesday, 8 December.

    In addition to ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary, the BBC has also secured rights to a daily highlights show.

    The highlights show, which will be available on BBC iPlayer, will bring UK viewers all of the latest from the series daily at 17:00 GMT as England try to end the decade-long stretch since their last series win down under.

    In addition to the digital clips, the BBC Sport website and app will have a short catch-up service when UK-based fans wake each morning.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59443111

    Will Michael Vaughan commentary be censored out or are they overlaying the test match special commentary onto the highlight package?
    For the first two test matches not an issue as he isn't out in Australia yet, not sure what they do after that.
    No idea what BT are going to do with their live coverage? Just go to bird song every time he opens his mouth?
    They are planning to do the the last three tests, if Vaughan is there, off tube, ie with their own commentary team based in London.
    All just so Vaughan's voice can't be heard. Absolutely ridiculous.
    Like the new Gerry Adams :D
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    Deaths

    image
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
    That really shouldn't be the case - if you want to automate and track an approval process (no matter how complex you wish it to be) I can set that up for you within a day or 2. It's one of the easiest things to configure on a Microsoft platform (that every LA will have).
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Eabhal said:

    BigRich said:

    dixiedean said:

    I am always intrigued by the argument that the BBC shouldn't have anything popular or profitable on it.
    Suppose that was mandatory.
    What if they accidentally commissioned a roaring, worldwide success?
    Would that be grounds for all concerned to be dismissed?

    Don’t be intrigued.

    The argument is a mendacious attempt to close down the BBC because some people don’t want to pay taxes for it. But rather than say that, they try various specious side arguments.
    If it was funded by taxes and open to all it would actually be a public good.

    It isn't though. Its a corporation that is only legally allowed to be watch via its subscribers, but people are legally obliged to subscribe to it even if they want to only watch other subscriptions like Sky Sports.
    Still wrong.
    And you personal beef also has no bearing on the question.

    Move on to more comfortable territory for you, like your claim that all houses should be built with enough parking for 2.5 cars.
    Philip is correct, but this conversations getting as boring as much of the BBC programming.
    He really isn’t.
    It’s a mendacious argument put about by right wing ultras.

    Edit: even the IEA don’t claim that the BBC is *not* a public good. Just that, given digital technology, it should go subscription only.
    I,
    kinabalu said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?

    A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.

    David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/07/david-tennant-around-world-80-days-shows-alarming-side-british/

    I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
    I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.

    As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
    You should stop paying your taxes, too.
    You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
    Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.

    If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
    Public service broadcasting is a public good.
    The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.

    In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.

    Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
    You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
    Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
    No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
    He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
    On the definition yes.
    However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.

    I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
    Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.

    Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
    The BBC is a public service broadcaster, by textbook definition and indeed by charter.

    I’m sorry you are willing to lie on here because you don’t like Strictly.
    You are conflating a public service with a public good.
    I’m really not.

    The text book definition of a public good is that it is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and the classic example given is public service broadcasting (presuming that broadcasting is free to air).

    If the BBC ever went to a subscription only service it would no longer be a public good.
    I agree with you on your definition, but not the example (cos license fee).

    At uni I was given stuff like parks, clean air, as best examples.
    If you think of the LF as a tax this objection falls away. And it is pretty close to being a tax.
    Still optional though.

    And supports my point - it should be funded through our progressive income tax system, rather than a regressive (proportionally) license fee that excludes the poorest.
    Fund the genuine public interest stuff (e.g. documentaries, the news) via taxation. Fund the entertainment stuff through subscription. Also, other organizations should be able to bid for funds from the public money pot for worthy, freely available documentaries of their own.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
    The change has been truly staggering. For cash flow it was great working for a LA as you knew they would pay on time, now they are a disaster. For example we finished a £200,000.00 lighting project at the end of August. We still have not been paid a penny and have had to start legal proceedings against the LA involved. The delay is all due to WFH.
  • Hurrah for the BBC.

    The BBC will have digital in-play clips for UK users within its live coverage of the men's Ashes when the iconic cricketing battle between England and Australia resumes on Wednesday, 8 December.

    In addition to ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary, the BBC has also secured rights to a daily highlights show.

    The highlights show, which will be available on BBC iPlayer, will bring UK viewers all of the latest from the series daily at 17:00 GMT as England try to end the decade-long stretch since their last series win down under.

    In addition to the digital clips, the BBC Sport website and app will have a short catch-up service when UK-based fans wake each morning.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59443111

    Will Michael Vaughan commentary be censored out or are they overlaying the test match special commentary onto the highlight package?
    For the first two test matches not an issue as he isn't out in Australia yet, not sure what they do after that.
    No idea what BT are going to do with their live coverage? Just go to bird song every time he opens his mouth?
    They are planning to do the the last three tests, if Vaughan is there, off tube, ie with their own commentary team based in London.
    All just so Vaughan's voice can't be heard. Absolutely ridiculous.
    The fear is that that Aussie broadcasters will ask Vaughan about it and he'll talk shite as usual.

    Makes BT Sport look bad.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    Age related data

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  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598

    Pulpstar said:

    Lol looks like Omicron has already mutated to evade PCRs:

    9m ago
    16:15
    Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron not identifiable with PCR test

    Oh goodie...the COVID now has an invisibility cloak.
    So what? You either get poorly or you don’t.

    I don’t understand why it’s necessary to know what brand of covid one is wearing - it’s not bloody fancy perfume.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    This site appears overwhelmed with former rugby players.
    Me too.

    League, in your case, I presume?
    Played Union as well. Saturday RU for school. Sundays RU till age 13 then League. I don't know how old you are, but we may have crossed paths.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612

    Hurrah for the BBC.

    The BBC will have digital in-play clips for UK users within its live coverage of the men's Ashes when the iconic cricketing battle between England and Australia resumes on Wednesday, 8 December.

    In addition to ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary, the BBC has also secured rights to a daily highlights show.

    The highlights show, which will be available on BBC iPlayer, will bring UK viewers all of the latest from the series daily at 17:00 GMT as England try to end the decade-long stretch since their last series win down under.

    In addition to the digital clips, the BBC Sport website and app will have a short catch-up service when UK-based fans wake each morning.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59443111

    Will Michael Vaughan commentary be censored out or are they overlaying the test match special commentary onto the highlight package?
    For the first two test matches not an issue as he isn't out in Australia yet, not sure what they do after that.
    No idea what BT are going to do with their live coverage? Just go to bird song every time he opens his mouth?
    They are planning to do the the last three tests, if Vaughan is there, off tube, ie with their own commentary team based in London.
    All just so Vaughan's voice can't be heard. Absolutely ridiculous.
    The fear is that that Aussie broadcasters will ask Vaughan about it and he'll talk shite as usual.

    Makes BT Sport look bad.
    Is the chap who did the voiceovers for Gerry The Schoolteacher still with us?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Seems the Lib Dems have had to release a clarification on that total non-story about reporting on postal ballots.

    https://order-order.com/2021/12/07/libdems-try-wriggling-off-the-hook-over-north-shropshire-postal-vote-reporting
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    dixiedean said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?

    A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.

    David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/07/david-tennant-around-world-80-days-shows-alarming-side-british/

    I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
    I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.

    As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
    You should stop paying your taxes, too.
    You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
    Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.

    If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
    Public service broadcasting is a public good.
    The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.

    In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.

    Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
    You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
    Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
    No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
    He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
    On the definition yes.
    However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.

    I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
    Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.

    Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
    So it's a subscription service then?
    In which case, why the constant moaning about it from many quarters?
    Yes it is a subscription service and not a public good.

    The constant moaning is because it is against the law to watch other services like Sky Sports, ITV or Channel 4 for instance without paying the BBC subscription fee. It is as if saying you could not subscribe to Disney unless you also subscribe to Netflix, by law.

    There are many public good public service broadcasters that meet the textbook definition around the world. Any public broadcaster that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous meets the definition. As much as Gardenwalker wants to mislead about it, the BBC is not one of those broadcasters since it is legally excludable.
    It's not a subscription service. It's a hypothecated tax.

    My favoured reform of BBC funding would be to abolish the licence fee and instead hypothecate VAT revenues (or a similar percentage levy) from subscriptions to Sky/Netflix, TV sales, etc, to the BBC.

    Consequently, if you were poor, and watched TV on a donated old CRT set, then you wouldn't pay anything, and the BBC would have an incentive to be part of a successful wider broadcasting industry, rather than seeing themselves in a struggle to the death with Sky et al.
    Its not a hypothecated tax since you have the choice whether to subscribe to it or not. I don't have a choice whether to pay my Income Tax, National Insurance or Council Tax because they're applied to everyone. The licence fee is only charged to its subscribers.

    I don't see why Netflix subscribers should be charged more to pay for a rival service.
    The tax on tobacco is a tax, despite the fact that I've never paid it, because I've never purchased tobacco.

    The tax on watching live TV broadcasts is a tax, even though I didn't pay it for more than a decade because I didn't watch live broadcasts of TV during that time.

    Income Tax is a tax, even though I didn't pay income tax when I was out of work and didn't have an income.
    Fair point, well made. But the BBC is still legally excludable if you haven't paid the fee so by definition can not be a public good. Unlike other public service broadcasters around the globe which are non-excludable.
    And under my proposed reform it would become a public good, if that is important to you.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Pulpstar said:

    Hurrah for the BBC.

    The BBC will have digital in-play clips for UK users within its live coverage of the men's Ashes when the iconic cricketing battle between England and Australia resumes on Wednesday, 8 December.

    In addition to ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary, the BBC has also secured rights to a daily highlights show.

    The highlights show, which will be available on BBC iPlayer, will bring UK viewers all of the latest from the series daily at 17:00 GMT as England try to end the decade-long stretch since their last series win down under.

    In addition to the digital clips, the BBC Sport website and app will have a short catch-up service when UK-based fans wake each morning.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59443111

    Will Michael Vaughan commentary be censored out or are they overlaying the test match special commentary onto the highlight package?
    For the first two test matches not an issue as he isn't out in Australia yet, not sure what they do after that.
    No idea what BT are going to do with their live coverage? Just go to bird song every time he opens his mouth?
    They are planning to do the the last three tests, if Vaughan is there, off tube, ie with their own commentary team based in London.
    All just so Vaughan's voice can't be heard. Absolutely ridiculous.
    Like the new Gerry Adams :D
    Ooh, well remembered.

    Imagine how our kids will react if we told them there were people regularly in the news who had their voices banned from TV and their words were spoken by actors. The pictures of them were fine, just not their voices.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    COVID summary

    - Cases are going up. Signs that this is reaching the older groups up to the 50s.
    - Admissions are pretty much flatline - may head up soon.
    - Deaths are still falling
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    HYUFD said:

    Should Britain boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics?

    Diplomatic boycott
    For - 43%
    Against - 18%

    Athletic boycott
    For - 33%
    Against - 30%
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1468250012089991174?s=20

    We had this years ago with the Moscow Games. Caused a lot of trouble. Eventually as I recall UK athletes competed. I think just as well. Although I loathe the PRC regime, I think it better to use the Olympics spotlight to shine a light on the CCP and its activities. Don't think athletes should be the ones to sacrifice.
  • dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    GIN1138 said:

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
    That really shouldn't be the case - if you want to automate and track an approval process (no matter how complex you wish it to be) I can set that up for you within a day or 2. It's one of the easiest things to configure on a Microsoft platform (that every LA will have).
    Sure, but it still requires someone to actually do it. Software is much easier to ignore than Jane from Accounts tapping her biro on your desk until you sign off the payment.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)
  • moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Sky TV football packages say hello...
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183
    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    This site appears overwhelmed with former rugby players.
    Me too.

    League, in your case, I presume?
    Played Union as well. Saturday RU for school. Sundays RU till age 13 then League. I don't know how old you are, but we may have crossed paths.
    46, and for school and clubs in the Stockport area (Stockport/Davenport and Burnage).
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited December 2021

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
    That really shouldn't be the case - if you want to automate and track an approval process (no matter how complex you wish it to be) I can set that up for you within a day or 2. It's one of the easiest things to configure on a Microsoft platform (that every LA will have).
    Sure, but it still requires someone to actually do it. Software is much easier to ignore than Jane from Accounts tapping her biro on your desk until you sign off the payment.
    It actually isn't - because it tracks everything so unless a council is intentionally trying to avoid money going out approvals are usually incredibly quick - as it's literally click 1 of 2 button on a page or email and the other (refuse) button takes you to a text field you need to fill in.

    Hidden in the paragraph above is what I suspect the real issue is (a local of councils are virtually bankrupt).
  • Voters in Britain continue to be divided over the merits and consequences of Brexit according to a new poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for UK in a Changing Europe released today. It suggests that in a referendum on whether Britain should join or stay out of the EU, 47% would vote to join and 53% to stay out.

    As in the 2016 referendum, there is a sharp division by age. Among those aged under 45, 63% would vote to join. In contrast, 64% of those aged 45 and over would back staying out.

    Those who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum would back staying out rather than joining by 89% to 11%. Most of those who voted Remain (79%) would vote to rejoin, but there is a notable minority (21%) who now say that Britain should stay out.


    https://ukandeu.ac.uk/voters-still-divided-over-brexit-but-back-uk-government-in-battles-with-brussels/
  • moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Nah, it makes it cheaper for the viewer.

    In the open market only ITV and Channel 4 would be able to bid for it (Channel 5 don't have the requisite coverage.)

    Because these tournaments are Crown Jewel events which must be on FTA TV.

    If they went to the open market then the price for those rights would be much higher on Sky, Discovery, Amazon Prime, etc and the consumer would pay more. Sky contracts for example are on a 12 month minimum.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Hurrah for the BBC.

    The BBC will have digital in-play clips for UK users within its live coverage of the men's Ashes when the iconic cricketing battle between England and Australia resumes on Wednesday, 8 December.

    In addition to ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary, the BBC has also secured rights to a daily highlights show.

    The highlights show, which will be available on BBC iPlayer, will bring UK viewers all of the latest from the series daily at 17:00 GMT as England try to end the decade-long stretch since their last series win down under.

    In addition to the digital clips, the BBC Sport website and app will have a short catch-up service when UK-based fans wake each morning.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59443111

    Will Michael Vaughan commentary be censored out or are they overlaying the test match special commentary onto the highlight package?
    For the first two test matches not an issue as he isn't out in Australia yet, not sure what they do after that.
    No idea what BT are going to do with their live coverage? Just go to bird song every time he opens his mouth?
    They are planning to do the the last three tests, if Vaughan is there, off tube, ie with their own commentary team based in London.
    All just so Vaughan's voice can't be heard. Absolutely ridiculous.
    Like the new Gerry Adams :D
    Ooh, well remembered.

    Imagine how our kids will react if we told them there were people regularly in the news who had their voices banned from TV and their words were spoken by actors. The pictures of them were fine, just not their voices.
    My eldest daughter couldn't believe that was all that happened to Gerry and Co... Why weren't they in Belmarsh etc...

    She's grown up in the world where downloading one video can get you detained.

    Officiating at one of the Republican funerals with the fat boys in military pull overs and terrible berets show up and demonstrate bad gun handling? I showed her a video and she couldn't believe that he hand't been locked up for one of those....
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
    Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Sky TV football packages say hello...
    And if you get sky package you still need to pay the bbc extortion racket
  • Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Hurrah for the BBC.

    The BBC will have digital in-play clips for UK users within its live coverage of the men's Ashes when the iconic cricketing battle between England and Australia resumes on Wednesday, 8 December.

    In addition to ball-by-ball Test Match Special commentary, the BBC has also secured rights to a daily highlights show.

    The highlights show, which will be available on BBC iPlayer, will bring UK viewers all of the latest from the series daily at 17:00 GMT as England try to end the decade-long stretch since their last series win down under.

    In addition to the digital clips, the BBC Sport website and app will have a short catch-up service when UK-based fans wake each morning.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59443111

    Will Michael Vaughan commentary be censored out or are they overlaying the test match special commentary onto the highlight package?
    For the first two test matches not an issue as he isn't out in Australia yet, not sure what they do after that.
    No idea what BT are going to do with their live coverage? Just go to bird song every time he opens his mouth?
    They are planning to do the the last three tests, if Vaughan is there, off tube, ie with their own commentary team based in London.
    All just so Vaughan's voice can't be heard. Absolutely ridiculous.
    Like the new Gerry Adams :D
    Ooh, well remembered.

    Imagine how our kids will react if we told them there were people regularly in the news who had their voices banned from TV and their words were spoken by actors. The pictures of them were fine, just not their voices.
    My eldest daughter couldn't believe that was all that happened to Gerry and Co... Why weren't they in Belmarsh etc...

    She's grown up in the world where downloading one video can get you detained.

    Officiating at one of the Republican funerals with the fat boys in military pull overs and terrible berets show up and demonstrate bad gun handling? I showed her a video and she couldn't believe that he hand't been locked up for one of those....
    I hope you didn't show her the one where Army chaps were murdered.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,848

    kinabalu said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?

    A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.

    David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/07/david-tennant-around-world-80-days-shows-alarming-side-british/

    I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
    I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.

    As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
    You should stop paying your taxes, too.
    You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
    Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.

    If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
    Public service broadcasting is a public good.
    The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.

    In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.

    Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
    You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
    Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
    No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
    He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
    On the definition yes.
    However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.

    I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
    Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.

    Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
    The BBC is a public service broadcaster, by textbook definition and indeed by charter.

    I’m sorry you are willing to lie on here because you don’t like Strictly.
    You are conflating a public service with a public good.
    I’m really not.

    The text book definition of a public good is that it is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and the classic example given is public service broadcasting (presuming that broadcasting is free to air).

    If the BBC ever went to a subscription only service it would no longer be a public good.
    I agree with you on your definition, but not the example (cos license fee).

    At uni I was given stuff like parks, clean air, as best examples.
    If you think of the LF as a tax this objection falls away. And it is pretty close to being a tax.
    But its not a tax. If it was a tax that all had to pay, then it would be a public good, I agree on that, but it isn't so its not.

    If you don't have a licence fee you are legally excluded from watching the BBC's TV therefore by definition the BBC's TV is not a public good since it is legally excludable. That is the definition.

    If its to be a subscription service paid for by a fee, then it should be a voluntary fee not related to unrelated services like Sky Sports. If its to be a tax, make the case for that, but that's not what we have.
    I said it's pretty close to being a tax. Why does everything have to be 0 or 1 with you. This isn't a 0 or 1 matter. As it happens I'd be happy to see the LF abolished and the BBC funded from general taxation. You could pay to not watch it whenever you like then. Just as I paid to not use the M62 this year.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Voters in Britain continue to be divided over the merits and consequences of Brexit according to a new poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for UK in a Changing Europe released today. It suggests that in a referendum on whether Britain should join or stay out of the EU, 47% would vote to join and 53% to stay out.

    As in the 2016 referendum, there is a sharp division by age. Among those aged under 45, 63% would vote to join. In contrast, 64% of those aged 45 and over would back staying out.

    Those who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum would back staying out rather than joining by 89% to 11%. Most of those who voted Remain (79%) would vote to rejoin, but there is a notable minority (21%) who now say that Britain should stay out.


    https://ukandeu.ac.uk/voters-still-divided-over-brexit-but-back-uk-government-in-battles-with-brussels/

    So a swing to Leave, despite all the old biddies shuffling off their respective mortal coils?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Nah, it makes it cheaper for the viewer.

    In the open market only ITV and Channel 4 would be able to bid for it (Channel 5 don't have the requisite coverage.)

    Because these tournaments are Crown Jewel events which must be on FTA TV.

    If they went to the open market then the price for those rights would be much higher on Sky, Discovery, Amazon Prime, etc and the consumer would pay more. Sky contracts for example are on a 12 month minimum.
    Would they really be higher? In much of the world you buy a one off World Cup sub, I used to pay about $50 for it.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Nah, it makes it cheaper for the viewer.

    In the open market only ITV and Channel 4 would be able to bid for it (Channel 5 don't have the requisite coverage.)

    Because these tournaments are Crown Jewel events which must be on FTA TV.

    If they went to the open market then the price for those rights would be much higher on Sky, Discovery, Amazon Prime, etc and the consumer would pay more. Sky contracts for example are on a 12 month minimum.
    18 months minimum now.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
    That really shouldn't be the case - if you want to automate and track an approval process (no matter how complex you wish it to be) I can set that up for you within a day or 2. It's one of the easiest things to configure on a Microsoft platform (that every LA will have).
    Sure, but it still requires someone to actually do it. Software is much easier to ignore than Jane from Accounts tapping her biro on your desk until you sign off the payment.
    It actually isn't - because it tracks everything so unless a council is intentionally trying to avoid money going out approvals are usually incredibly quick - as it's literally click 1 of 2 button on a page or email and the other (refuse) button takes you to a text field you need to fill in.

    Hidden in the paragraph above is what I suspect the real issue is (a local of councils are virtually bankrupt).
    I disagree. Humans are far better at exerting pressure than software. The slowest holiday approvals ‘system’ I ever witnessed was an ‘automated’ one. Most of us abandoned it after a year and simply asked the boss verbally and if he vacillated, asked him again. Talking was incredibly effective. The computerised system was useless - people just ignored it.
  • moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Nah, it makes it cheaper for the viewer.

    In the open market only ITV and Channel 4 would be able to bid for it (Channel 5 don't have the requisite coverage.)

    Because these tournaments are Crown Jewel events which must be on FTA TV.

    If they went to the open market then the price for those rights would be much higher on Sky, Discovery, Amazon Prime, etc and the consumer would pay more. Sky contracts for example are on a 12 month minimum.
    Would they really be higher? In much of the world you buy a one off World Cup sub, I used to pay about $50 for it.
    Yup, compare it to the full Discovery sub for the Olympics then double it, on a minimum 12 month subscription deal.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited December 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.

    Some of this will be down to rights issues (so a local channel here has bought the rights to Top Gear, for example), but they’d likely be better off with digital subscriptions for overseas viewers.
  • Pagan2 said:

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Sky TV football packages say hello...
    And if you get sky package you still need to pay the bbc extortion racket
    Yes, because sky broadcast the FTA channels.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited December 2021
    moonshine said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
    Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
    What the BBC needs to do, partly, is to rediscover a way to make more demanding dramas and documentaries popular ; it learnt this over many decades. If it rediscovers its distinctiveness, it can easily still do well, even against Netflixes, Amazon Plays, Apple TV's of today.

    It lost a huge amount of accumulated knowledge during the mid-to-late - ' 90s, as large numbers of peoples, structures and expertise honed since the 1960's were unceremoniously thrown out, at the whim of a solely management philosophy, but that's not insurmountable - expertise can be regained.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183
    stodge said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Why won't they put some effort in then?
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?

    A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.

    David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/07/david-tennant-around-world-80-days-shows-alarming-side-british/

    I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
    I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.

    As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
    You should stop paying your taxes, too.
    You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
    Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.

    If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
    Public service broadcasting is a public good.
    The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.

    In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.

    Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
    You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
    Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
    No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
    He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
    On the definition yes.
    However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.

    I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
    Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.

    Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
    The BBC is a public service broadcaster, by textbook definition and indeed by charter.

    I’m sorry you are willing to lie on here because you don’t like Strictly.
    You are conflating a public service with a public good.
    I’m really not.

    The text book definition of a public good is that it is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and the classic example given is public service broadcasting (presuming that broadcasting is free to air).

    If the BBC ever went to a subscription only service it would no longer be a public good.
    I agree with you on your definition, but not the example (cos license fee).

    At uni I was given stuff like parks, clean air, as best examples.
    If you think of the LF as a tax this objection falls away. And it is pretty close to being a tax.
    But its not a tax. If it was a tax that all had to pay, then it would be a public good, I agree on that, but it isn't so its not.

    If you don't have a licence fee you are legally excluded from watching the BBC's TV therefore by definition the BBC's TV is not a public good since it is legally excludable. That is the definition.

    If its to be a subscription service paid for by a fee, then it should be a voluntary fee not related to unrelated services like Sky Sports. If its to be a tax, make the case for that, but that's not what we have.
    I said it's pretty close to being a tax. Why does everything have to be 0 or 1 with you. This isn't a 0 or 1 matter. As it happens I'd be happy to see the LF abolished and the BBC funded from general taxation. You could pay to not watch it whenever you like then. Just as I paid to not use the M62 this year.
    BBC is entertainment

    Why should I be forced to pay for your entertainement
    I dont ask you to fund mine, so what makes you think its fair to demand I fund yours. No don't have a tv licence and havent in almost 20 years
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    When i was overseas, the answer was no. Don’t know about now. The bbc has no business sense. They should have been the key global competitor to Netflix with the head start they got form early investment in iplayer, and decades worth of content.

    They should have ipo’d years ago and used half of the proceeds to build an international new content empire. And used the other half of the proceeds to reduce the national debt by a massive percentage. As it is, with each passing year it’s value becomes less and less. One day it will be privatised but too late, like the Ordnance Survey. A former crown jewel worth bugger all.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    I didn't say it was necessarily fine. I said it was a tax. Some taxes are regressive and unfair, but they're still taxes.

    I argue to reform the tax, raise the money in a better way. Others argue to abolish the tax. This is normal politics.

    The arguments that it isn't a tax, and so is uniquely bad, is a bit strange.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    stodge said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    I don't agree with that, as a Labour person. I, and others I know, would much prefer a LD win to a Tory win. Our dislike of the Tories is much, much stronger than any dislike of the LDs, which is generally mild. And we don't really see the LDs as a serious opponent, except in by-elections.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    I think it's a licensing issue, they don't have the necessary rights to show it overseas.
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,410
    RobD said:

    Voters in Britain continue to be divided over the merits and consequences of Brexit according to a new poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for UK in a Changing Europe released today. It suggests that in a referendum on whether Britain should join or stay out of the EU, 47% would vote to join and 53% to stay out.

    As in the 2016 referendum, there is a sharp division by age. Among those aged under 45, 63% would vote to join. In contrast, 64% of those aged 45 and over would back staying out.

    Those who voted Leave in the 2016 referendum would back staying out rather than joining by 89% to 11%. Most of those who voted Remain (79%) would vote to rejoin, but there is a notable minority (21%) who now say that Britain should stay out.


    https://ukandeu.ac.uk/voters-still-divided-over-brexit-but-back-uk-government-in-battles-with-brussels/

    So a swing to Leave, despite all the old biddies shuffling off their respective mortal coils?
    A swing to apathy would seem more accurate.
  • moonshine said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
    Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
    I don't think we are comparing like with like here. It costs bugger-all to make a programme about glass blowing, so obviously Netflix are gonna show it because it's printing money for them. It's like Homes under the Hammer, costs very little to make, fills the daytime schedules. We're discussing primetime TV or Saturday evening, no comparison.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Nah, it makes it cheaper for the viewer.

    In the open market only ITV and Channel 4 would be able to bid for it (Channel 5 don't have the requisite coverage.)

    Because these tournaments are Crown Jewel events which must be on FTA TV.

    If they went to the open market then the price for those rights would be much higher on Sky, Discovery, Amazon Prime, etc and the consumer would pay more. Sky contracts for example are on a 12 month minimum.
    18 months minimum now.
    Bullshit. You can sign up to sky sports for 24 hrs if you want through Now TV
  • Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    It's a rights issue.

    For example BeIN pay lots of money for exclusive content in country X.

    You can undercut them with an iplayer package (for a small amount), they are going to be pissed.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,848

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    It is mind boggling and really does indicate the civil service is not fit for purpose
    Do I sense 'Sort Whitehall Out!' coming soon to the 'Boris' lexicon?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
    That really shouldn't be the case - if you want to automate and track an approval process (no matter how complex you wish it to be) I can set that up for you within a day or 2. It's one of the easiest things to configure on a Microsoft platform (that every LA will have).
    Sure, but it still requires someone to actually do it. Software is much easier to ignore than Jane from Accounts tapping her biro on your desk until you sign off the payment.
    It actually isn't - because it tracks everything so unless a council is intentionally trying to avoid money going out approvals are usually incredibly quick - as it's literally click 1 of 2 button on a page or email and the other (refuse) button takes you to a text field you need to fill in.

    Hidden in the paragraph above is what I suspect the real issue is (a local of councils are virtually bankrupt).
    I disagree. Humans are far better at exerting pressure than software. The slowest holiday approvals ‘system’ I ever witnessed was an ‘automated’ one. Most of us abandoned it after a year and simply asked the boss verbally and if he vacillated, asked him again. Talking was incredibly effective. The computerised system was useless - people just ignored it.
    And here we have the single biggest drawback of WFH. The small tasks like approvals which are easily done but nobody's top priority don't get done.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    One has a zero chance of winning, the other doesn’t.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    You normally can't access iPlayer from abroad (this will be because they've sold the rights to various programmes in that country to a local broadcaster).
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629

    Pagan2 said:

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Sky TV football packages say hello...
    And if you get sky package you still need to pay the bbc extortion racket
    Yes, because sky broadcast the FTA channels.
    Even if it didn't broadcast them you would still have to pay the licence as they broadcast live tv. It has nothing to do with whether or not it broadcasts fta channels. The licence is required if you watch live tv
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited December 2021
    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    This site appears overwhelmed with former rugby players.
    Me too.

    League, in your case, I presume?
    Played Union as well. Saturday RU for school. Sundays RU till age 13 then League. I don't know how old you are, but we may have crossed paths.
    46, and for school and clubs in the Stockport area (Stockport/Davenport and Burnage).
    Played Davenport and Burnage as regular club fixtures as a youngster. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) nearly ten years before your time.
    Had a very bad year out injury in Canada aged 18.
    And discovered smoking, drinking, girls and dope to fill my time.
    Returned only briefly, to find I was out of shape, and suddenly surrounded by younger, fitter and much bigger rivals.

    ISTR we won the Burnage under 11's Sevens.
    But we had Shaun Edwards. And 2 other future GB internationals and one other pro in our side
  • .
    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    They can't. They don't have the rights for it.

    If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?

    Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    Pagan2 said:

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Sky TV football packages say hello...
    And if you get sky package you still need to pay the bbc extortion racket
    Yes, because sky broadcast the FTA channels.
    Even if Sky only broadcast their own stuff you still need to pay the license fee, it covers ALL live broadcast. Any Prem match is covered by the license fee, as are all repeats. It's only if you're watching SKy's VOD stuff exclusively that you might not need one. 10 seconds of Sky News ? License fee needed.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Cookie said:

    stodge said:


    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Why won't they put some effort in then?
    I'm not sure what Labour are doing in North Shropshire - we're told they aren't doing anything but I suspect since Old Bexley they've started a little activity as a spoiler and especially as they see the possibility of an LD gain.

    The difference in political impact of an LD gain by 1000 versus a Con hold by 1000 is obvious.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    stodge said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Maybe. Trouble is, if it is a Tory hold (which to the media is a non-story) then the focus of the by-election reporting will likely become the collapse in the Labour vote.

    Combine that with less than impressive performance in OBS and you have a not terribly helpful end-of-year outcome for Sir Keir.

    Labour might actually be better off with LibDem Gain.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Pulpstar said:

    Lol looks like Omicron has already mutated to evade PCRs:

    9m ago
    16:15
    Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron not identifiable with PCR test

    Oh goodie...the COVID now has an invisibility cloak.
    That must have been what Leon had. It couldn’t have been an ordinary cold, after all, could it?
  • moonshine said:

    eek said:

    moonshine said:

    My personal gripe with the bbc funding model is that they have by law a monopoly over things like the summer football tournies. Which would be fine if it was to keep costs low in the public interest, but they make you subscribe for a whole year just to watch a 4 week event, meaning it costs the consumer multiples what it would if sold in the open market.

    Someone above was saying it was all justifiable as a “live tv tax”. Which would be fine if the state had costs it needed to recoup from me watching YouTube live events online, but they don’t. It’s like most of our state machine. A massive fucking gravy train paid for by us mugs.

    Nah, it makes it cheaper for the viewer.

    In the open market only ITV and Channel 4 would be able to bid for it (Channel 5 don't have the requisite coverage.)

    Because these tournaments are Crown Jewel events which must be on FTA TV.

    If they went to the open market then the price for those rights would be much higher on Sky, Discovery, Amazon Prime, etc and the consumer would pay more. Sky contracts for example are on a 12 month minimum.
    18 months minimum now.
    Bullshit. You can sign up to sky sports for 24 hrs if you want through Now TV
    I thought NOW was a monthly at least.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    stodge said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Maybe. Trouble is, if it is a Tory hold (which to the media is a non-story) then the focus of the by-election reporting will likely become the collapse in the Labour vote.

    Combine that with less than impressive performance in OBS and you have a not terribly helpful end-of-year outcome for Sir Keir.

    Labour might actually be better off with LibDem Gain.
    Tory hold and Labour vote collapse sounds like the worst of all worlds for Labour to me. Lib Dem gain, the focus is on the Tories.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    HYUFD said:

    Should Britain boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics?

    Diplomatic boycott
    For - 43%
    Against - 18%

    Athletic boycott
    For - 33%
    Against - 30%
    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1468250012089991174?s=20

    We had this years ago with the Moscow Games. Caused a lot of trouble. Eventually as I recall UK athletes competed. I think just as well. Although I loathe the PRC regime, I think it better to use the Olympics spotlight to shine a light on the CCP and its activities. Don't think athletes should be the ones to sacrifice.
    I agree. The months of training and preparation our crack squad of elite skiers and ski-jumpers have been putting in would otherwise be wasted.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183
    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    This site appears overwhelmed with former rugby players.
    Me too.

    League, in your case, I presume?
    Played Union as well. Saturday RU for school. Sundays RU till age 13 then League. I don't know how old you are, but we may have crossed paths.
    46, and for school and clubs in the Stockport area (Stockport/Davenport and Burnage).
    Played Davenport and Burnage as regular club fixtures as a youngster. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) nearly ten years before your time.
    Had a very bad year out injury in Canada aged 18.
    And discovered smoking, drinking, girls and dope to fill my time.
    Returned only briefly, to find I was out of shape, and suddenly surrounded by younger, fitter and much bigger rivals.
    Certainly played various clubs in the Wigan area (which I think is where you are?) in the juniors section. Wigan itself, Orrell, of course (always strong), and Aspull (always huge). And Newton-le-Willows, usually twice a year.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    They can't. They don't have the rights for it.

    If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?

    Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
    They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that

    1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it.
    2) They would get the UK rights.
    3) The company commissioned would get the international rights

    A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
  • moonshine said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
    Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
    What the BBC needs to do, partly, is to rediscover a way to make more demanding dramas and documentaries popular ; it learnt this over many decades. If it rediscovers its distinctiveness, it can easily still do well, even against Netflixes, Amazon Plays, Apple TV's of today.

    It lost a huge amount of accumulated knowledge during the mid-to-late -90s, as large numbers of peoples, structures and expertise honed since the 1960's were unceremoniously thrown out, at the whim of a solely management philosophy, but that's not insurmountable - expertise can be regained.
    The problem is that dramas and documentaries are popular, but the BBC is no good at them.

    Hence why I can watch a quality drama or documentary on Netflix or Disney while the BBC broadcasts it's latest edition of Celebrity Dance Sew Chef Bake Would I Lie To You.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    stodge said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Maybe. Trouble is, if it is a Tory hold (which to the media is a non-story) then the focus of the by-election reporting will likely become the collapse in the Labour vote.

    Combine that with less than impressive performance in OBS and you have a not terribly helpful end-of-year outcome for Sir Keir.

    Labour might actually be better off with LibDem Gain.
    But this new sort of intelligent Labour Party - i.e. one that might have reflected prior on the long-term consequences of junking its promise to introduce a fairer voting system, when it had the chance - hasn’t yet been invented.
  • stodge said:

    Cookie said:

    stodge said:


    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Why won't they put some effort in then?
    I'm not sure what Labour are doing in North Shropshire - we're told they aren't doing anything but I suspect since Old Bexley they've started a little activity as a spoiler and especially as they see the possibility of an LD gain.

    The difference in political impact of an LD gain by 1000 versus a Con hold by 1000 is obvious.
    LD taking shire rural seats off Cons is how Starmer gets into a minority governing position.

    How else is he going to come close?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    They can't. They don't have the rights for it.

    If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?

    Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
    They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that

    1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it.
    2) They would get the UK rights.
    3) The company commissioned would get the international rights

    A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
    Christ what a poor bunch of negotiators. The BBC brand is worth £££ abroad.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    moonshine said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
    Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
    What the BBC needs to do, partly, is to rediscover a way to make more demanding dramas and documentaries popular ; it learnt this over many decades. If it rediscovers its distinctiveness, it can easily still do well, even against Netflixes, Amazon Plays, Apple TV's of today.

    It lost a huge amount of accumulated knowledge during the mid-to-late -90s, as large numbers of peoples, structures and expertise honed since the 1960's were unceremoniously thrown out, at the whim of a solely management philosophy, but that's not insurmountable - expertise can be regained.
    The problem is that dramas and documentaries are popular, but the BBC is no good at them.

    Hence why I can watch a quality drama or documentary on Netflix or Disney while the BBC broadcasts it's latest edition of Celebrity Dance Sew Chef Bake Would I Lie To You.
    Nah. Some of the top dramas on Netflix were made for the BBC.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,848

    stodge said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Just looking at the Wiki entry for North Shropshire.

    At Peak Corbyn (2017 GE), Labour got 17,287 votes. The LibDems got 2,948.

    Seems extraordinary that Labour have thrown in the towel and handed the campaign over to Sir Ed Davey's mob. What a lack of ambition.

    Can't make it Keir!

    (blast from the past :open_mouth: )
    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    I don't agree with that, as a Labour person. I, and others I know, would much prefer a LD win to a Tory win. Our dislike of the Tories is much, much stronger than any dislike of the LDs, which is generally mild. And we don't really see the LDs as a serious opponent, except in by-elections.
    Same. I'm rooting for a Lib Dem gain here and I'll be rooting for them to win a bunch of seats off the Cons at the general. Johnson out is the priority. It has to be.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489
    IanB2 said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Lol looks like Omicron has already mutated to evade PCRs:

    9m ago
    16:15
    Scientists find ‘stealth’ version of Omicron not identifiable with PCR test

    Oh goodie...the COVID now has an invisibility cloak.
    That must have been what Leon had. It couldn’t have been an ordinary cold, after all, could it?
    LOL
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    They can't. They don't have the rights for it.

    If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?

    Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
    They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that

    1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it.
    2) They would get the UK rights.
    3) The company commissioned would get the international rights

    A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
    BBC Good Food being a good example. Not just the magazine, but website and app, I bet most people think that is the BBC.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741


    Maybe. Trouble is, if it is a Tory hold (which to the media is a non-story) then the focus of the by-election reporting will likely become the collapse in the Labour vote.

    Combine that with less than impressive performance in OBS and you have a not terribly helpful end-of-year outcome for Sir Keir.

    Labour might actually be better off with LibDem Gain.

    An LD gain puts Davey and the party in the spotlight and reminds voters they are still there and a potential "home" for disaffected southern conservative voters. It gives the party a boost in its campaigning in those marginal Conservative seats it will be looking to gain next time.

    Looking ahead to the next GE, on the assumption @Philip_Thompson isn't right and it's not a landslide for Boris Johnson, if the Conservatives lose enough seats to be forced into opposition, the incoming minority Labour administration will have both the SNP and LDs as powers with which they will need to deal.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    moonshine said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
    Are you familiar with Blown Away? A Netflix contest about eccentric people seeing who can blow glass the best? Originally commissioned by a Canadian pay tv station. If there’s a market for things, they’ll get made. This is triply true these days where Silicon Valley money is chasing original content. Don’t need the bbc for that.
    What the BBC needs to do, partly, is to rediscover a way to make more demanding dramas and documentaries popular ; it learnt this over many decades. If it rediscovers its distinctiveness, it can easily still do well, even against Netflixes, Amazon Plays, Apple TV's of today.

    It lost a huge amount of accumulated knowledge during the mid-to-late -90s, as large numbers of peoples, structures and expertise honed since the 1960's were unceremoniously thrown out, at the whim of a solely management philosophy, but that's not insurmountable - expertise can be regained.
    The problem is that dramas and documentaries are popular, but the BBC is no good at them.

    Hence why I can watch a quality drama or documentary on Netflix or Disney while the BBC broadcasts it's latest edition of Celebrity Dance Sew Chef Bake Would I Lie To You.
    You might not like it, but "Celebrity Dance Sew Chef Bake Would I Lie To You." is worth a few bob. BBC's efforts abroad seem to be focussed on a poor rehash of Spitting Image on Britbox now though.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    stodge said:

    Cookie said:

    stodge said:


    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Why won't they put some effort in then?
    I'm not sure what Labour are doing in North Shropshire - we're told they aren't doing anything but I suspect since Old Bexley they've started a little activity as a spoiler and especially as they see the possibility of an LD gain.

    The difference in political impact of an LD gain by 1000 versus a Con hold by 1000 is obvious.
    LD taking shire rural seats off Cons is how Starmer gets into a minority governing position.

    How else is he going to come close?
    The sad truth is that a spell once every generation of absolute majority power, in between long periods of Tory rule, is worth more to the current Labour Party than an enduring chance to play a leading role in shaping a better future for our country.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    The Norwegians seem cautiously optimistic about Omicron.

    (Apologies for Daily Mail link - the Torygraph original is paywalled)

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10283743/120-partygoers-caught-Omicron-super-strain-Norwegian-Xmas-work-night-MILD-symptoms.html
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,612
    Pulpstar said:

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    They can't. They don't have the rights for it.

    If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?

    Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
    They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that

    1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it.
    2) They would get the UK rights.
    3) The company commissioned would get the international rights

    A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
    Christ what a poor bunch of negotiators. The BBC brand is worth £££ abroad.
    Well, when you realise that the circularity of the UK Lovie system - you have people commissioning programs from companies that do work for other companies that the commissioning person's sister works for part time....

    It's not hard to work out why the foreign rights were being given away.....
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    Cookie said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    This is bloody rivetting

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    https://news.sky.com/story/watch-sky-news-live-10315632

    Alicia Kearns saying never mind the time the whistleblower was on his own, there were 2 night sessions where no one at all turned out. FO bods say they will have to check and come back.

    Surely it was obvious that the committee would be asking how many people were working and when?

    This seems to be very similar to the huge problems that my company now has dealing with people working from home for Local Authorities etc. All previous protocals & procedures that were in place have all disappeared. It is impossible to get hold of anyone and there are huge delays in everything. WFH in the Public Sector simply does not work.
    If you are talking planning - every planner my wife knows has close to double their usual workload at the moment. The number of applications everywhere is utterly insane.
    No, Local Authority Building/Maintenance Work. As I have mentioned before it now takes 6 months to get paid rather than the previous 10 days as no one can be bothered to do anything.

    LAs used to be our Blue Chip clients, we don't bother quoting to them at the moment as they are such a nightmare
    Anecdotally there does seem to be a link between pandemic/WFH and payment regimens. I suspect it’s practicality - when everyone was in the office, Accounts would simply stand over the signatories until they had collected the necessary autographs to clear the payment, send the money, and spike the bill. Job done. Now they have to send an email, which inevitably gets ignored by the higher-ups, then they have to chase and chase when they get clients on the phone saying: “um, your fees are 15 days late…”
    That really shouldn't be the case - if you want to automate and track an approval process (no matter how complex you wish it to be) I can set that up for you within a day or 2. It's one of the easiest things to configure on a Microsoft platform (that every LA will have).
    Sure, but it still requires someone to actually do it. Software is much easier to ignore than Jane from Accounts tapping her biro on your desk until you sign off the payment.
    It actually isn't - because it tracks everything so unless a council is intentionally trying to avoid money going out approvals are usually incredibly quick - as it's literally click 1 of 2 button on a page or email and the other (refuse) button takes you to a text field you need to fill in.

    Hidden in the paragraph above is what I suspect the real issue is (a local of councils are virtually bankrupt).
    I disagree. Humans are far better at exerting pressure than software. The slowest holiday approvals ‘system’ I ever witnessed was an ‘automated’ one. Most of us abandoned it after a year and simply asked the boss verbally and if he vacillated, asked him again. Talking was incredibly effective. The computerised system was useless - people just ignored it.
    And here we have the single biggest drawback of WFH. The small tasks like approvals which are easily done but nobody's top priority don't get done.
    Yes, I WFH a fair bit (not exclusively) but I think that’s one of its biggest flaws.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    They can't. They don't have the rights for it.

    If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?

    Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
    They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that

    1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it.
    2) They would get the UK rights.
    3) The company commissioned would get the international rights

    A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
    Netflix have managed to very quickly turn local and regional media rights markets into a global market, and many of the established players have been caught sleeping and stuck in contracts that now make little sense.
  • stodge said:

    Cookie said:

    stodge said:


    We know Labour would prefer a Conservative hold than a Lib Dem gain and that's pretty obvious politics which doesn't need any more explanation.

    To paraphrase, as far as Labour are concerned, the Conservatives are simply the opposition, the Lib Dems (and Greens and SNP) are the enemy. Oddly enough, with only a little juxtaposition, you have the Conservative position. The two parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship and as we see in Scotland, when faced with an existential threat to them both, the Conservative and Labour parties find they have much more that unites them rather than divides them.

    Why won't they put some effort in then?
    I'm not sure what Labour are doing in North Shropshire - we're told they aren't doing anything but I suspect since Old Bexley they've started a little activity as a spoiler and especially as they see the possibility of an LD gain.

    The difference in political impact of an LD gain by 1000 versus a Con hold by 1000 is obvious.
    LD taking shire rural seats off Cons is how Starmer gets into a minority governing position.

    How else is he going to come close?
    Labour taking those seats?

    Like the Tories have taken Hartlepool and Leigh etc
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021

    Pulpstar said:

    .

    Pulpstar said:

    Sandpit said:

    Pulpstar said:

    I think the BBC could raise more cash from abroad. Ex pat PBers - is iPlayer a pay to play subscription service from outside the UK (Yes yes I know about VPNs but they're not free either)

    They don’t let you pay, even if you want to, unless you have paid a licence fee on a UK address.

    They could raise a small fortune from it, given the number of people using various ‘other’ ways of watching BBC content.
    Ridiculous, that's a massive source of monetisation going completely AWOL. Loads of people abroad love the BBC and would happily pay for iPlayer.
    They can't. They don't have the rights for it.

    If they have shows broadcast on the BBC that aren't licenced to the BBC in other nations then what can they do?

    Even many BBC shows they don't own the rights to. Let alone imported ones.
    They are slowly improving on that front. It used to be that

    1) The BBC would commission a program and pay for it.
    2) They would get the UK rights.
    3) The company commissioned would get the international rights

    A chap I know works at the BBC and has helped crack down on this nonsense - they were using the BBC name to print money.
    Christ what a poor bunch of negotiators. The BBC brand is worth £££ abroad.
    Well, when you realise that the circularity of the UK Lovie system - you have people commissioning programs from companies that do work for other companies that the commissioning person's sister works for part time....

    It's not hard to work out why the foreign rights were being given away.....
    And of course all done in the most tax efficient manner possible....while smacked off their tits on coke.
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,282

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    AlistairM said:

    Eabhal said:

    I think the BBC should be a public good (no license fee), but I appreciate that would make it difficult to retain independence from Gov.

    Also strip out all the stuff that would work for a commercial channel (like strictly).

    There is no reason for Strictly to be on the BBC. It is probably the most commercially viable programme in the country.

    The BBC should be there for programmes which would not be commercially viable. I think the quality of documentaries on the BBC has declined quite dramatically. For example there used to be a constant stream of decent historical documentaries, C4 and C5 now both have better content. If I had more time I would get a subscription to HistoryHit.
    Remove the likes of Strictly and its most popular programmes then the BBC would be the equivalent of PBS in the US. An entirely license fee or tax funded broadcaster making highbrow programmes with a fraction of its current audience but still no adverts which would help fund the likes of Strictly license or taxpayer free
    Yes, and once the audience starts to decline there will be the usual calls to scrap it because no one watches it anymore. It's a vicious circle. The BBC took a hell of a chance building on a moribund product from the 50s called "Come Dancing" I suspect none of the commercial channels would have touched it.
    It was, of course, entirely open to any commercial channel to have launched a celebrity ballroom dance show on Saturday nights at any time. Or indeed an amateur baking competition.
    They chose not to.
    Free choice.
    It's not a case of being "free" to make TV programmes. I'm not sure of why your comment is relevant. The BBC has a history of trying out new concepts or TV series/comedies etc. They are able to do it because the commercial channels wouldn't or couldn't afford it. The likes of Only Fools.., and Have I got news for you, and Strictly or The Voice, or Who do you think you are to name but a few started at the BBC and wouldn't have flown on the commercial channels. The Voice, and Bake Off jumped channels after showing their success. I can't imagine Bake Off starting off on Channel 5.
    Take your point in general but The Voice was an import from Holland via the US, where it was a hit for the very much commercial NBC. It was devised by John de Mol - the bloke who created Big Brother. It wasn't a good idea to buy it in, either, by the BBC because it was rubbish and expensive when they should've been much more experimental at a time when The X Factor had begun to lose its sheen and people wanted something different.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited December 2021
    The big dilemma with the BBC at the moment is they ultimately need to be commercial to compete with Netflix, Disney, etc, and are doing so quietly e.g. BBC Studios, but any suggestion of going commercial and the pearl clutching comes out.

    Even adverts...their foreign facing website has ads, and they fully own UKTV Media Limited i.e. Dave etc, which is a commercial ad revenue business.

    But we can't have ads on the BBC...we must stick to our totally unenforceable and outdated telly tax.
  • The UK government has been arguing that these checks [between GB & NI] are too onerous and infringe the UK’s sovereignty.

    Remain and Leave voters are at one on this issue – 43% of Remain and 42% of Leave voters say that there should not be any checks on either the Irish border or across the Irish Sea, while only 15% of Remain and 18% of Leave voters support the current position of having checks across the Irish Sea.


    https://ukandeu.ac.uk/voters-still-divided-over-brexit-but-back-uk-government-in-battles-with-brussels/
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183

    The Norwegians seem cautiously optimistic about Omicron.

    (Apologies for Daily Mail link - the Torygraph original is paywalled)

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10283743/120-partygoers-caught-Omicron-super-strain-Norwegian-Xmas-work-night-MILD-symptoms.html

    Many people have gripes about the Daily Mail. My biggest gripe is their insistence on almost randomly capitalising one word in its URLs. They always do it and it goes through me like a Donald Trump Tweet.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,569
    IshmaelZ said:

    Foreign Affairs select Committee hearing on Afghanistan live now on Sky

    Worth watching - brutal. I doubt they'll enjoy reading the Committee's report.
    Sir Philip Barton, top civil servant at the FO, is having a car crash
    Stewart Malcolm McDonald is a hard man

    Barton is a disaster. His takeaway from the whistleblower's report is He alleged a breach of the civil service code, but there wasn't one, so phew.
    Which fncking stupid response is already addressed in the whistleblowers report.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,848
    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Aslan said:

    Aslan said:

    Sigh...can the BBC ever make any program these days without having to change it to include identity politics / evils of imperialism etc?

    A new BBC One adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days will highlight the “alarming” nature of the British Empire, according to its star.

    David Tennant said the eight-part drama, which begins on Boxing Day and is aimed at a family audience, will explore “the racial and sexual politics” of Victorian England.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/07/david-tennant-around-world-80-days-shows-alarming-side-british/

    I get tired of this tedious BBC-bashing. Get a life.
    I get tired of paying a licence fee towards BBC shite.

    As soon as the BBC stops taxing those of us who don't watch their shit, they can produce whatever they feel like as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what they produce, so long as I'm not expected to pay for it.
    You should stop paying your taxes, too.
    You clearly benefit very little from government spend.
    Taxes should be for public goods, not entertainment.

    If you want to watch Eastenders or Strictly or any of that stuff then why not pay voluntarily for it?
    Public service broadcasting is a public good.
    The BBC literally isn't a public good, it fails to meet the definition.

    In economics, a public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.

    Since watching the BBC is illegal without a licence fee it is excludable and therefore not a public good.
    You claim to be an economist, but Jesus Christ, where the fuck did you study? Mr Blobby world?
    Resorting to cheap insults is always a good sign someone doesn't have an argument left.
    No, but I have low tolerance for bad faith bullshit.
    He is entirely correct on the definition of a public good.
    On the definition yes.
    However he is 100% wrong in his additional claim.

    I get he doesn’t like the BBC, but he can’t just make stuff up.
    Not making anything up. It is against the law to watch the BBC without paying the licence fee, therefore its not a public good, since it is legally excludable.

    Plenty of countries have genuine public service broadcasters which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The UK does not. The BBC is not a public service broadcaster however much it might like to claim to be one.
    The BBC is a public service broadcaster, by textbook definition and indeed by charter.

    I’m sorry you are willing to lie on here because you don’t like Strictly.
    You are conflating a public service with a public good.
    I’m really not.

    The text book definition of a public good is that it is non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and the classic example given is public service broadcasting (presuming that broadcasting is free to air).

    If the BBC ever went to a subscription only service it would no longer be a public good.
    I agree with you on your definition, but not the example (cos license fee).

    At uni I was given stuff like parks, clean air, as best examples.
    If you think of the LF as a tax this objection falls away. And it is pretty close to being a tax.
    But its not a tax. If it was a tax that all had to pay, then it would be a public good, I agree on that, but it isn't so its not.

    If you don't have a licence fee you are legally excluded from watching the BBC's TV therefore by definition the BBC's TV is not a public good since it is legally excludable. That is the definition.

    If its to be a subscription service paid for by a fee, then it should be a voluntary fee not related to unrelated services like Sky Sports. If its to be a tax, make the case for that, but that's not what we have.
    I said it's pretty close to being a tax. Why does everything have to be 0 or 1 with you. This isn't a 0 or 1 matter. As it happens I'd be happy to see the LF abolished and the BBC funded from general taxation. You could pay to not watch it whenever you like then. Just as I paid to not use the M62 this year.
    BBC is entertainment

    Why should I be forced to pay for your entertainement
    I dont ask you to fund mine, so what makes you think its fair to demand I fund yours. No don't have a tv licence and havent in almost 20 years
    So we can stick with the LF. Both of us happy. What I don't want is tv and radio going 100% profit motive. That will lead to a loss of something important and valuable. Only market absolutists wish to see that, which isn't me.
This discussion has been closed.