I get the feeling that some people are deliberately orchestrating a campaign to force him to try precisely that (to try and create a vacuum to fill, or to discredit him in the public eye, I am not sure). Or at least to get him out of No 10 if he remains loyal.
The Graun had a piece last night - not so much an attack on her but a more detached assessment of the anti-Mrs Johnson campaigning. The ending in particular is pro-Mrs Johnson.
Ashcroft plugging his book on his website which claims to be about polling - naughty. It's quite a character assassination of Carrie, with a toxic mixture of unattributed comments, unproven allegations and mealy-mouthed assertions that he wants all the best for the Johnsons and the party.
tldr - he dislikes Carrie. I approve of her because of the animal welfare/environment angle, and understand that there are Tories who dislike her for the same reason, as well as the usual reservations about PMs' partners having an influence. But if it was someone I disliked, I hope I'd still be against this kind of stuff, which basically just reinforces the ferrets-in-a-sack impression of the tories.
Yes for all her foibles over interior design and love of socialising, Carrie does bring something useful to the Tories.
Her concerns over green issues, animal welfare etc and being a couple of decades younger do match a demographic that Tories are usually anathema too. She is rather a prosecco environmentalist, but does match a younger female demographic that the Tories poll extremely badly with. The flexitarian yummy mummy vote is one the Tories need.
Except she doesn't help them get that vote, she just alienates voters that they actually had.
Ashcroft plugging his book on his website which claims to be about polling - naughty. It's quite a character assassination of Carrie, with a toxic mixture of unattributed comments, unproven allegations and mealy-mouthed assertions that he wants all the best for the Johnsons and the party.
tldr - he dislikes Carrie. I approve of her because of the animal welfare/environment angle, and understand that there are Tories who dislike her for the same reason, as well as the usual reservations about PMs' partners having an influence. But if it was someone I disliked, I hope I'd still be against this kind of stuff, which basically just reinforces the ferrets-in-a-sack impression of the tories.
I'm not hugely impressed with Carrie Johnson.
But she's a vast improvement on Dominic Cummings. And I think that's what hurts him the most.
His pieces are too long for me, but has he explained why people he thinks are so useless were able to outmanuevere and sack him? I believe he attempted to explain why he was there for as long as he was when he says they were obviously so bad, but it wasn't very persuasive.
He's great at diagnosing problems, so-so at identifying workable solutions, and incapable of implementing any of them.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Hello. I haven’t posted since GE2019 as the prospect of Boris Johnson with a majority was just too ghastly to spend time discussing. Seems like a few more have now come to the same view!
As a 2005-er I’m delighted to see PB going strong and I will see if March 2nd is possible. We’ve just had a new baby so will depend on how things are at home.
Glad to see so many posters I remember on good form. And that list from Cookie brought back memories. I particularly remember the likes of SBS and Mark Senior no longer with us.
Hello tpfkar! Glad to see you. SBS no longer with us? I don't think I knew that. That's sad. I was thinking about Mark Senior the other day, oddly. Remembering that he chose to celebrate winning a prediction competition with a picture of his son smashing him over the head with a chair.
Andy Cooke dates from those days too, I think, and Stuart Dickson - and possibly malcolmg? Anyone else from back then? There must be loads of names knocking around the back of my mind.
Well remembered! I first turned up in the summer of 2004. I was a Tory supporter in those distant days; it’s fair to say that both I and the Conservative Party have been on journeys; I’m now a Lib Dem councillor.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
If @Leon and others on here are to be believed the current progress in AI means FB and Twitter could easily analyse the post and stop it being posted at the point the user presses send, and furthermore do so by assessing every post cooly and objectively against agreed criteria.
Indeed, if AI cannot do even that much now then I fear its chances of ever being able pass the Benpointer Test by loading and unloading my dishwasher are sadly rather remote.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
Hmm. I think anticipating and preventing publication does rather whiff of thought crime.
Best start at the beginning, with the threats of physical violence, racismand sexual threats that so many public figures get before to the more marginal stuff.
Mr. Doethur, I suspect not. He's an entertaining clown and will be well-remunerated, I would expect.
It's not what he deserves, of course, but such is life.
Morris, some of us don't even find him entertaining, and never have. He reminds me of a bar-leaning boor who one can't shake off on ordering a well earned pint.
Ashcroft plugging his book on his website which claims to be about polling - naughty. It's quite a character assassination of Carrie, with a toxic mixture of unattributed comments, unproven allegations and mealy-mouthed assertions that he wants all the best for the Johnsons and the party.
tldr - he dislikes Carrie. I approve of her because of the animal welfare/environment angle, and understand that there are Tories who dislike her for the same reason, as well as the usual reservations about PMs' partners having an influence. But if it was someone I disliked, I hope I'd still be against this kind of stuff, which basically just reinforces the ferrets-in-a-sack impression of the tories.
I'm not hugely impressed with Carrie Johnson.
But she's a vast improvement on Dominic Cummings. And I think that's what hurts him the most.
His pieces are too long for me, but has he explained why people he thinks are so useless were able to outmanuevere and sack him? I believe he attempted to explain why he was there for as long as he was when he says they were obviously so bad, but it wasn't very persuasive.
He's great at diagnosing problems, so-so at identifying workable solutions, and incapable of implementing any of them.
It must upsetting to have wasted months on such a book to discover it has a limited shelf life and is virtually valueless. It’s hard to be too sympathetic to anyone writing a hatchet job of a spouse.
Mad Nad truly is bonkers. Putting her in cabinet is as crazy as putting lalaland people like Shapps Green or Gavin Williamson in cabinet. And even Liar isn't that stupid.
No, wait...
I have to disagree re Shapps. I am biased against him because of his history but I have to say I have been impressed with him over the last few years. Re Wilkinson and Dorries I couldn't agree more.
Mr. Palmer, I don't mind Carrie Johnson liking animals. I do mind if that means we end up leaving behind Afghans who helped us because the limited capacity of the airport found space for dogs that could have been used for humans.
I'd agree if that's what happened, but reports, published and otherwise (I have a friend who is fairly high up up in the FCO) are mixed. As far as I can make out, the FCO did get the message that senior politicians would like the transport to happen - I've not seen a direct link to Carrie - but definitely not to give it priority over evacuating people. On the ground, it's disputed whether it had that effect - they offered to take refugees as well and it didn't happen, for reasons that aren't clear, and whether the bottleneck was airport capacity, guards, adminstration or general confusion isn't clear either. Not proven seems the fairest verdict.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Surely we already have legislation for dealing with threats, abuse, hate speech etc? Perhaps we could try using it instead of enacting yet more of the same?
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
If @Leon and others on here are to be believed the current progress in AI means FB and Twitter could easily analyse the post and stop it being posted at the point the user presses send, and furthermore do so by assessing every post cooly and objectively against agreed criteria.
Indeed, if AI cannot do even that much now then I fear its chances of ever being able pass the Benpointer Test by loading and unloading my dishwasher are sadly rather remote.
The dishwasher problem is easier because the dishes aren't constantly inventing subtle new behaviours to avoid being washed.
Thanks, Cookie - and glad to see MrEd giving a like - perhaps we can welcome you and BigG back after all?
I’m back Nick. PB.com is like a drug but fortunately not like fentanyl …
Excellent!
Good morning Nick
Have had a rough 48 hours with a double migraine so not posted very often, but feeling a wee bit better though I have to be careful as flicking lights and a computer screen do not help
I was hoping that Boris would have gone by now but it will happen
I get the feeling that some people are deliberately orchestrating a campaign to force him to try precisely that (to try and create a vacuum to fill, or to discredit him in the public eye, I am not sure). Or at least to get him out of No 10 if he remains loyal.
The Graun had a piece last night - not so much an attack on her but a more detached assessment of the anti-Mrs Johnson campaigning. The ending in particular is pro-Mrs Johnson.
A quote from, erm, Anna Soubry. Not that likely to convince her critics!
The most pertinent, and worrying, factoid in that article is the Carrie friend-since-university who describes her as "very definition of capricious". As an addition to his character that's not good news.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
And also incredibly expensive to run.
Manual moderation is blooming expensive which is why you operate a rule of post until we deem it a problem rather than nothing until checked first.
Basically the bill is being written by people who haven’t got a clue who the actual world works as you can tell by all the “ideas” within it.
And the end result won’t close the site it would just mean the companies close their UK offices and fire all their UK staff who won’t relocate.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
If @Leon and others on here are to be believed the current progress in AI means FB and Twitter could easily analyse the post and stop it being posted at the point the user presses send, and furthermore do so by assessing every post cooly and objectively against agreed criteria.
Indeed, if AI cannot do even that much now then I fear its chances of ever being able pass the Benpointer Test by loading and unloading my dishwasher are sadly rather remote.
Oh, I dunno. I reckon a quarter of the posters ERROR ERROR ERROR here are nascent AIs.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
If @Leon and others on here are to be believed the current progress in AI means FB and Twitter could easily analyse the post and stop it being posted at the point the user presses send, and furthermore do so by assessing every post cooly and objectively against agreed criteria.
Indeed, if AI cannot do even that much now then I fear its chances of ever being able pass the Benpointer Test by loading and unloading my dishwasher are sadly rather remote.
Surely AI needs to act before we even think about what we intend to post. Cuts out the internet.
Mr. Palmer, I don't mind Carrie Johnson liking animals. I do mind if that means we end up leaving behind Afghans who helped us because the limited capacity of the airport found space for dogs that could have been used for humans.
I'd agree if that's what happened, but reports, published and otherwise (I have a friend who is fairly high up up in the FCO) are mixed. As far as I can make out, the FCO did get the message that senior politicians would like the transport to happen - I've not seen a direct link to Carrie - but definitely not to give it priority over evacuating people. On the ground, it's disputed whether it had that effect - they offered to take refugees as well and it didn't happen, for reasons that aren't clear, and whether the bottleneck was airport capacity, guards, adminstration or general confusion isn't clear either. Not proven seems the fairest verdict.
The head of the @FCDOGovUK was on holiday @DominicRaab on holiday yet the #press #Media & too many #MP blame me for #Afghans left behind?? We rescued 67 people not a f*^king car #operationark PS dogs went in cargo hold of our flight & we offered spare seats What am I missing? 🤔
The shambles of the collapse of the NATO mission in Afghanistan along with the puppet government there has much more important issues around it than Pen Farthings flight out.
Ashcroft plugging his book on his website which claims to be about polling - naughty. It's quite a character assassination of Carrie, with a toxic mixture of unattributed comments, unproven allegations and mealy-mouthed assertions that he wants all the best for the Johnsons and the party.
tldr - he dislikes Carrie. I approve of her because of the animal welfare/environment angle, and understand that there are Tories who dislike her for the same reason, as well as the usual reservations about PMs' partners having an influence. But if it was someone I disliked, I hope I'd still be against this kind of stuff, which basically just reinforces the ferrets-in-a-sack impression of the tories.
There's a lot of anti-Carrie stuff on ConHome and below the line in the Mail, mostly from pro-Boris Tories looking for an excuse for the flaws of their hero. The penny doesn't seem to drop that the problem isn't her principles and views but his lack of them.
Well, quite. Even if it's true that she has too much influence, whose fault is that?
Blaming Carrie is distasteful but perhaps so is blaming the various civil servants who have been ousted in the past few days, one of whom was not even employed in Downing Street during the partygate years. Even attacking Cummings smacks of blaming anyone but the boss. If only our noble Prime Minister had not been led astray. And what's the cure? To bring in a new set of unelected apparatchiks to run the government.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
I'm not so sure. I made a post on ConHome about Boris last week, and when I clicked 'submit' I got some auto-warning message - I can't remember the precise wording but basically too many negative/critical/potentially suspect words and a request to edit it. My post contained no abuse but it was particularly critical of the PM in a way that will be familiar to PB'ers. All I had to do was substitute a couple of the adjectives with still critical but less strident words, and it got posted.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
If @Leon and others on here are to be believed the current progress in AI means FB and Twitter could easily analyse the post and stop it being posted at the point the user presses send, and furthermore do so by assessing every post cooly and objectively against agreed criteria.
Indeed, if AI cannot do even that much now then I fear its chances of ever being able pass the Benpointer Test by loading and unloading my dishwasher are sadly rather remote.
Surely AI needs to act before we even think about what we intend to post. Cuts out the internet.
A sort of duller version of Minority Report? You're about to post something offensive on the internet and the precogs roll a red ball out of the machine and they send the spiders in for you.
Dorries was put in place to own-the-libs. Drink our libtard tears and that. But now Johnson needs smart compelling loyalists around him. And he's got her.
This is a wonderful site. I’ve been lurking for years, not sure exactly when I started but I think probably 2010ish, maybe a bit earlier.
I used to work very closely with politicians, senior councillors in a large LA, and the odd MP, and I just lurked because although there was plenty I wanted to say, I didn’t want to ruin the trust my job needed by being indiscreet. I don’t have that daily exposure and access anymore so I don’t mind posting a bit here and there. But I mostly just lurk - generally someone’s already said what I think but better than I ever could!
Sometimes I pry myself away from here for a bit but I always end up coming back. The debate and analysis is superb, whether I agree with it or not. When something exciting politically is happening - Barnard Castle, the past few months generally - it is difficult to stay away.
It is like crack for political nerds - I couldn’t speak to anyone in this detail, or length, IRL, about politics really. This site gives me a forum to wallow in this stuff that 95% of people don’t, sadly, give a shit about.
What are Tory MPs waiting for? For once, decency and self-interest are aligned. At the end of a dramatic week, both support the case for removing @BorisJohnson from Downing Street. Here's my analysis for @prospect_uk
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Clegg is a smooth talking urbane sort of chap. I'm sure he can disassemble and talk nonsense with the best of them. Not convinced Boris' brand of bluster would be quite what they are looking for to kill stories.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
He gave up his citizenship to avoid their absurd tax demands I think.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Clegg is a smooth talking urbane sort of chap. I'm sure he can disassemble and talk nonsense with the best of them. Not convinced Boris' brand of bluster would be quite what they are looking for to kill stories.
I wonder if by the end of all this brand Johnson will have been so badly damaged that its potential for monetisation will be adversely affected?
‘Last year was a breakthrough time for UFOs, as a landmark government report prompted the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors to finally be taken seriously by everyone from senators, to a former president, to the Pentagon.
But 2022 could be even more profound, experts say, as the clamor for UFO disclosure and discovery continues to grow, and as new scientific projects bring us closer than ever to – potentially – discovering non-Earth life.’
Thanks, Cookie - and glad to see MrEd giving a like - perhaps we can welcome you and BigG back after all?
I’m back Nick. PB.com is like a drug but fortunately not like fentanyl …
Excellent!
Good morning Nick
Have had a rough 48 hours with a double migraine so not posted very often, but feeling a wee bit better though I have to be careful as flicking lights and a computer screen do not help
I was hoping that Boris would have gone by now but it will happen
Sorry to hear about the migraine, hope you're fully OK again soon.
Mr. Doethur, I suspect not. He's an entertaining clown and will be well-remunerated, I would expect.
It's not what he deserves, of course, but such is life.
Possibly, but I don't think he'll manage it in the UK. He may have to go to the country of his birth to make money, like his fellow right wing liar and shill David Irving.
And good riddance if he does.
Does the bumbling oaf, scruffy schoolboy act work in America? So far as I can see it doesn't even work in the UK outside England, and looking a bit over exposed even here.
I would think BJ’s main perceived post pm value would be as a conveyor of sagacious truths about the recent political age, or at least his part in it. Once everyone realises he’s incapable of that I’d imagine interest would wane fairly quickly. A career as a circus act grotesque may remain.
Has BJ ever said something interesting and profound, or has it all been shallow, risqué dog whistles? His recent assertion that the fall of the Roman Empire had been due to uncontrolled immigration put his reputation as a classical scholar into perspective.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Boris could end up back on telly. Jimmy Carr's I've Literally Just Told You might soon be looking for a new host.
But I expect he will become a moosehead professor of classics and politics at a well-endowed American university to spend a fortnight each year entertaining students with tales of Pericles and Cummings, then the rest of the year to take exotic holidays and pen columns for the Telegraph.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Clegg is a smooth talking urbane sort of chap. I'm sure he can disassemble and talk nonsense with the best of them. Not convinced Boris' brand of bluster would be quite what they are looking for to kill stories.
I suspect even in the nonsense it looks like there is valuable insight in it even where there isn’t.
Boris would change the topic to something else (Peppa Pig) which is great in a pub utterly annoying in a professional setting.
‘Last year was a breakthrough time for UFOs, as a landmark government report prompted the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors to finally be taken seriously by everyone from senators, to a former president, to the Pentagon.
But 2022 could be even more profound, experts say, as the clamor for UFO disclosure and discovery continues to grow, and as new scientific projects bring us closer than ever to – potentially – discovering non-Earth life.’
I get it now. There was evidence of non socially distanced UFOs at the Downing St parties caught in 300 photos.
Suppose I'm having DMs with someone who mentions they're scared of buttons (a rare but real phobia). If, three years later, I forget this fear and send them a photo of my snazzy new cardigan, complete with buttons, is that a criminal act?
What if I do it the very next day, but either in a drunken stupor, or when very tired, or because I thought the button fear comment was not serious?
Edited extra bit: in this examples there's no intention but my query regards how this can be proven, and upon whom is the burden of proof.
I fear a snazzy Morris Dancer cardigan may indeed be a criminal act.
Mr Meeks has a second comment that is worth looking at
Alastair Meeks @AlastairMeeks As a general theme, newer MPs seem to have been brought back into line while the old hands seem to be breaking against the PM.
If this is true than most new MPs know that levelling up is utterly dead if anyone else becomes leader (it is because of the cost of living crisis but hey it can’t be made too obvious).
After the crushing Tory general election victory that December, the PM's chief adviser Dominic Cummings was approached by a colleague for a congratulatory chat. But Cummings, convinced that Carrie had a dangerous hold over his boss, was downbeat.
'This is a disaster,' he said. 'Watch Carrie go to work on [Boris] now. I give it six months before we're out of a job.'
In fact, Cummings lasted 11 months, but throughout that time Johnson grew increasingly exasperated with Carrie's meddling.
Today, the police are investigating Partygate, in which she seems to have been a player. This comes after Wallpapergate, in which she was instrumental.
It also follows the scandal over animals from Pen Farthing's charity being rescued from Afghanistan when human lives were at stake. Some who lobbied for this have spoken openly of her involvement.
Johnson’s very public failure to be monogamous is his Achilles’ heel.
Would he chuck his wife and young children out on the streets in order to say his premiership?
I leave that question as an exercise for the reader.
I get the feeling that some people are deliberately orchestrating a campaign to force him to try precisely that (to try and create a vacuum to fill, or to discredit him in the public eye, I am not sure). Or at least to get him out of No 10 if he remains loyal.
The Graun had a piece last night - not so much an attack on her but a more detached assessment of the anti-Mrs Johnson campaigning. The ending in particular is pro-Mrs Johnson.
I’ve spoken to people with some passing knowledge of the situation who say the problem is not so much Carrie as her friends and aides mentioned in the opening to that story.
It's worth remembering Boris Johnson and Johann Hari are guilty of much the same offence. One was disgraced and now writes fictional self-help books he tries to pass off as fact while working a series of jobs to make ends meet. And Johnson's future career may be similar...
Johann Hari! I haven't heard that name in a long time. Used to read the Independent twenty years ago. Thought his stuff was reasonably good then, but I was only in my early twenties then. After his fall from grace, I've no idea what he does now......
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
I'm not so sure. I made a post on ConHome about Boris last week, and when I clicked 'submit' I got some auto-warning message - I can't remember the precise wording but basically too many negative/critical/potentially suspect words and a request to edit it. My post contained no abuse but it was particularly critical of the PM in a way that will be familiar to PB'ers. All I had to do was substitute a couple of the adjectives with still critical but less strident words, and it got posted.
I think that makes my point? It's easy to make something that works some of the time against an adversary who isn't trying to defeat it, but it's impossible to make something that works all the time or against a reasonably resourceful person who's trying to avoid the censorship.
What's worse is that on the level of a community, playing around with language to be able to say something forbidden without tripping the censors' sensors is *fun*.
Thanks, Cookie - and glad to see MrEd giving a like - perhaps we can welcome you and BigG back after all?
I’m back Nick. PB.com is like a drug but fortunately not like fentanyl …
Excellent!
Good morning Nick
Have had a rough 48 hours with a double migraine so not posted very often, but feeling a wee bit better though I have to be careful as flicking lights and a computer screen do not help
I was hoping that Boris would have gone by now but it will happen
TSE had a good argument yesterday as to why you will only see the 54/55 letter threshold being triggered on a Monday to Wednesday night.
The rules mean Boris doesn’t have enough to organise a campaign before the vote, trigger it at other times and he has 48+ hours to persuade people.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
I'm not so sure. I made a post on ConHome about Boris last week, and when I clicked 'submit' I got some auto-warning message - I can't remember the precise wording but basically too many negative/critical/potentially suspect words and a request to edit it. My post contained no abuse but it was particularly critical of the PM in a way that will be familiar to PB'ers. All I had to do was substitute a couple of the adjectives with still critical but less strident words, and it got posted.
Interesting. I'm in a few gaming sites where things like that pop up - the "Words2" pseudo-Scrabble site is particularly austere, and both ticks you off for saying "Damn" and refuses to let you play words that it deems unseemly. Pokerstars asterisks naughty words (to general amusement among the players) and sends you a warning. The problem is that it's all very subjective and as we mostly don't actually know each other it's hard to tell whether what we think is, as our deputy PM might say, the normal cut and thrust of politics, and what might make the target actually distressed. But warnings of the kind you describe sound a possible way forward - even better if they were just "Are you sure you want to post that?" warnings which you could confirm but with higher risk of prosecution if it was nasty enough.
Hello. I haven’t posted since GE2019 as the prospect of Boris Johnson with a majority was just too ghastly to spend time discussing. Seems like a few more have now come to the same view!
As a 2005-er I’m delighted to see PB going strong and I will see if March 2nd is possible. We’ve just had a new baby so will depend on how things are at home.
Glad to see so many posters I remember on good form. And that list from Cookie brought back memories. I particularly remember the likes of SBS and Mark Senior no longer with us.
Hello tpfkar! Glad to see you. SBS no longer with us? I don't think I knew that. That's sad. I was thinking about Mark Senior the other day, oddly. Remembering that he chose to celebrate winning a prediction competition with a picture of his son smashing him over the head with a chair.
Andy Cooke dates from those days too, I think, and Stuart Dickson - and possibly malcolmg? Anyone else from back then? There must be loads of names knocking around the back of my mind.
I honestly can't recall when I came across PB but it was well before the 2010 election, possibly around the time of the 2007 Scottish elections. It has been an enormous source of information and entertainment ever since. Thanks Mike and Robert for your efforts.
Mr. Doethur, I suspect not. He's an entertaining clown and will be well-remunerated, I would expect.
It's not what he deserves, of course, but such is life.
Possibly, but I don't think he'll manage it in the UK. He may have to go to the country of his birth to make money, like his fellow right wing liar and shill David Irving.
And good riddance if he does.
Does the bumbling oaf, scruffy schoolboy act work in America? So far as I can see it doesn't even work in the UK outside England, and looking a bit over exposed even here.
I would think BJ’s main perceived post pm value would be as a conveyor of sagacious truths about the recent political age, or at least his part in it. Once everyone realises he’s incapable of that I’d imagine interest would wane fairly quickly. A career as a circus act grotesque may remain.
Has BJ ever said something interesting and profound, or has it all been shallow, risqué dog whistles? His recent assertion that the fall of the Roman Empire had been due to uncontrolled immigration put his reputation as a classical scholar into perspective.
I suspect that the only way for him to monetise is pretty much what he has done before, a newspaper columnist, after dinner speaking to audiences that want comedy rather than analysis, and largely ghost written lightweight books.
He might be able to manage a (heavily edited) reality show like the Osbournes, or Clarksons Farm. The interest would be waiting for the car-crash moment.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
iirc Microsoft are working on (or bought someone working on) AI moderation for Xbox. I wonder if HMG has considered how many languages will need to be covered in multicultural Britain.
Suppose I'm having DMs with someone who mentions they're scared of buttons (a rare but real phobia). If, three years later, I forget this fear and send them a photo of my snazzy new cardigan, complete with buttons, is that a criminal act?
What if I do it the very next day, but either in a drunken stupor, or when very tired, or because I thought the button fear comment was not serious?
Edited extra bit: in this examples there's no intention but my query regards how this can be proven, and upon whom is the burden of proof.
I fear a snazzy Morris Dancer cardigan may indeed be a criminal act.
Outraging public decency is still a crime I think.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
I'm not so sure. I made a post on ConHome about Boris last week, and when I clicked 'submit' I got some auto-warning message - I can't remember the precise wording but basically too many negative/critical/potentially suspect words and a request to edit it. My post contained no abuse but it was particularly critical of the PM in a way that will be familiar to PB'ers. All I had to do was substitute a couple of the adjectives with still critical but less strident words, and it got posted.
Any appearance of ‘fat’, ‘lying’ and ‘sack’ in a post sets off the alarms.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
Morning again. I am credibly advised that we are being lurked from France. You know who you are!
As fas as the 'get together' is concerned, bearing in mind that some of us, either because we are a long way away or are decreasingly mobile, won't be able to attend, can we have some part of the evening on Zoom or similar, please.
I'm not so sure. I made a post on ConHome about Boris last week, and when I clicked 'submit' I got some auto-warning message - I can't remember the precise wording but basically too many negative/critical/potentially suspect words and a request to edit it. My post contained no abuse but it was particularly critical of the PM in a way that will be familiar to PB'ers. All I had to do was substitute a couple of the adjectives with still critical but less strident words, and it got posted.
Even if AI has advanced that far, the inability to post proper criticism will mean the death of some sites like that, or they'll just turn into CCP echo-chambers which are basically pointless.
Does anyone actually read ConHome? I certainly don't. I don't read LibDemHome or LabourList or whatever either. No point. I don't want an echo chamber. I want variety.
I asked @NASA Administrator @SenBillNelson what he sees as his agency’s role in investigating UFOs/UAPs: “It’s a natural conclusion for me as a thinking human being … 1/
“ … in a universe that is so large that I can’t even conceive how large, that there is not some form of life that maybe has evolved into intelligent beings?” 2/
Could they explain some of the recent sightings by military pilots? “I’m not limiting anything,” he responded. 3/
“I hope it’s not one of our terrestrial enemies that has that kind of technology, because that would mean that somebody is very, very advanced.” 4/
What is it? “I don’t know.” Who’s job is it? “One of NASA’s missions is to search for life,” he said, citing the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re not out there to say that there’s a UAP here or there.” 5/5
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Boris could end up back on telly. Jimmy Carr's I've Literally Just Told You might soon be looking for a new host.
But I expect he will become a moosehead professor of classics and politics at a well-endowed American university to spend a fortnight each year entertaining students with tales of Pericles and Cummings, then the rest of the year to take exotic holidays and pen columns for the Telegraph.
Head of WHO would be suitable punishment. Spending the rest of his days dealing with one pandemic after another.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
He renounced his US citizenship for tax reasons.
Can't it be 'unrenounced'? Or should that be 'nounced'?
(Had a LOT of problems with predictive text with that post!)
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Boris could end up back on telly. Jimmy Carr's I've Literally Just Told You might soon be looking for a new host.
But I expect he will become a moosehead professor of classics and politics at a well-endowed American university to spend a fortnight each year entertaining students with tales of Pericles and Cummings, then the rest of the year to take exotic holidays and pen columns for the Telegraph.
Head of WHO would be suitable punishment. Spending the rest of his days dealing with one pandemic after another.
I was against at first, thinking it would criminalise routine if unpleasant expressions of abusive opinions ("X is a twat"), but the list of specific content - "a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm" - doesn't seem to include that. The "intent to cause serious distress" bit is still a bit liable to interpretation, though.
Also, apparently FB and Twitter are supposed to stop people posting things like that before they've done so ("Previously, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had to take such content down if it was flagged to them but now they would be legally required to prevent users from being exposed to them in the first place"). How are they supposed to do that??
Sounds like a job for a decent AI, training itself up to spot anything potentially abusive and blocking it before it gets published?
No such AI exists. It's basically an impossible problem because language and culture evolve in real time to avoid censorship.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
I'm not so sure. I made a post on ConHome about Boris last week, and when I clicked 'submit' I got some auto-warning message - I can't remember the precise wording but basically too many negative/critical/potentially suspect words and a request to edit it. My post contained no abuse but it was particularly critical of the PM in a way that will be familiar to PB'ers. All I had to do was substitute a couple of the adjectives with still critical but less strident words, and it got posted.
Interesting. I'm in a few gaming sites where things like that pop up - the "Words2" pseudo-Scrabble site is particularly austere, and both ticks you off for saying "Damn" and refuses to let you play words that it deems unseemly. Pokerstars asterisks naughty words (to general amusement among the players) and sends you a warning. The problem is that it's all very subjective and as we mostly don't actually know each other it's hard to tell whether what we think is, as our deputy PM might say, the normal cut and thrust of politics, and what might make the target actually distressed. But warnings of the kind you describe sound a possible way forward - even better if they were just "Are you sure you want to post that?" warnings which you could confirm but with higher risk of prosecution if it was nasty enough.
Betfair's forum asterisks out the name Yeats, which is inconvenient since he was a great racehorse who won four Ascot Gold Cups and is an influential stallion. No-one seems to know why Betfair has taken against him, or the Irish poet and Nobel Laureate.
I've been around since the 2005 general election so pb.com has played a big part in my life. It's sharpened and clarified my understanding of politics in a way I never thought possible.
It's great that so many posters from then are still with us but sad that several are no longer with us.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
He renounced his US citizenship for tax reasons.
Can't it be 'unrenounced'? Or should that be 'nounced'?
(Had a LOT of problems with predictive text with that post!)
On the British guidance at least it says You have a right (once only) to be registered as a British citizen if you previously renounced British citizenship in order to keep or acquire another citizenship.
You have a separate right (once only) to be registered as a British citizen if you previously renounced citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies: • in order to keep or acquire the citizenship of a Commonwealth country, or • because you had reasonable cause to believe that you would be deprived of your citizenship of a Commonwealth country if you did not renounce.
If you renounced citizenship for any other reason, or if you have already renounced and resumed British citizenship (as a right), registration is at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Registration will be granted if they see fit
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
He renounced his US citizenship for tax reasons.
Is that really true? Surely most of Boris's earnings were taxed here or in Europe, and aiui we have double taxation treaties.
BTW the models for how you'd do moderation if you weren't allowed to let bad stuff through are porn sites. They tend to have constraints like the ones Nadine apparently wants to put on everyone, where if the site lets something though that breaks one of numerous vaguely-defined laws it can be in serious trouble, and it's not enough to just delete it after it's notified.
If you're an MP and you get caught putting your porn subscription on expenses, just say you're researching why their comment sections are so wholesome.
Mr. Doethur, I suspect not. He's an entertaining clown and will be well-remunerated, I would expect.
It's not what he deserves, of course, but such is life.
Possibly, but I don't think he'll manage it in the UK. He may have to go to the country of his birth to make money, like his fellow right wing liar and shill David Irving.
And good riddance if he does.
Does the bumbling oaf, scruffy schoolboy act work in America? So far as I can see it doesn't even work in the UK outside England, and looking a bit over exposed even here.
I would think BJ’s main perceived post pm value would be as a conveyor of sagacious truths about the recent political age, or at least his part in it. Once everyone realises he’s incapable of that I’d imagine interest would wane fairly quickly. A career as a circus act grotesque may remain.
Has BJ ever said something interesting and profound, or has it all been shallow, risqué dog whistles? His recent assertion that the fall of the Roman Empire had been due to uncontrolled immigration put his reputation as a classical scholar into perspective.
I suspect that the only way for him to monetise is pretty much what he has done before, a newspaper columnist, after dinner speaking to audiences that want comedy rather than analysis, and largely ghost written lightweight books.
He might be able to manage a (heavily edited) reality show like the Osbournes, or Clarksons Farm. The interest would be waiting for the car-crash moment.
Part of the question is how discredited he ends up; I wouldn't he shocked if there are further revelations to come out, which his current status as PM has kept a lid on.
Will there come a point where even The Telegraph don't want him back? The image floating in my mind is the Rector of Stiffkey, who ended up re-enacting the story of Daniel in the lions' den, until one of the lions concluded he was lowering the tone of the place and took direct action.
It's still a very low number actually public with their letters, as compared to when May faced a challenge, even considering on that occasion only about half had gone public when Brady announced.
This is a wonderful site. I’ve been lurking for years, not sure exactly when I started but I think probably 2010ish, maybe a bit earlier.
I used to work very closely with politicians, senior councillors in a large LA, and the odd MP, and I just lurked because although there was plenty I wanted to say, I didn’t want to ruin the trust my job needed by being indiscreet. I don’t have that daily exposure and access anymore so I don’t mind posting a bit here and there. But I mostly just lurk - generally someone’s already said what I think but better than I ever could!
Sometimes I pry myself away from here for a bit but I always end up coming back. The debate and analysis is superb, whether I agree with it or not. When something exciting politically is happening - Barnard Castle, the past few months generally - it is difficult to stay away.
It is like crack for political nerds - I couldn’t speak to anyone in this detail, or length, IRL, about politics really. This site gives me a forum to wallow in this stuff that 95% of people don’t, sadly, give a shit about.
Keep up the good work everyone
+1, I think I started lurking here early in the coalition years too, when politics got particularly interesting both nationally and for me personally. I think I briefly had another account and opened this one and became a more regular contributor in 2013, since when it's been downhill all the way for the liberal tendency...
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
He renounced his US citizenship for tax reasons.
Is that really true? Surely most of Boris's earnings were taxed here or in Europe, and aiui we have double taxation treaties.
DG of the BBC? Editor of the Telegraph? Secretary General of the UN? Trumps running mate?
The only thing Johnson likes more than posh 6/10s with 5 grands worth of fillers is money so I could see him following Clegg and taking the Big Tech $.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Working in a big corporate? You've got to be joking.
Where is lying valued? PR. A big merchant bank. Second hand car sales?
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
He renounced his US citizenship for tax reasons.
Is that really true? Surely most of Boris's earnings were taxed here or in Europe, and aiui we have double taxation treaties.
Yes true. Tax due on his UK house. Of course he thought that rule should not apply to him!
A point that is always missed re eligibility to stand in the US Presidential election is that the bar is only ever tested if you win. Some people say Ted Cruz is not eligible for example as born in Canada (legal opinion seems to be he most probably is). Does not stop him raising tens of millions for his Presidential campaigns every four years.
BTW the models for how you'd do moderation if you weren't allowed to let bad stuff through are porn sites. They tend to have constraints like the ones Nadine apparently wants to put on everyone, where if the site lets something though that breaks one of numerous vaguely-defined laws it can be in serious trouble, and it's not enough to just delete it after it's notified.
If you're an MP and you get caught putting your porn subscription on expenses, just say you're researching why their comment sections are so wholesome.
Porn leading the way as it has in many online technological innovations.
Why on earth any such site needs comment sections though I cannot imagine.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1h Taken by the official photographer tells us pretty unambiguously that, at the time, they hadn't the slightest inkling they might be breaking any rules.
What are Tory MPs waiting for? For once, decency and self-interest are aligned. At the end of a dramatic week, both support the case for removing @BorisJohnson from Downing Street. Here's my analysis for @prospect_uk
Leave aside whether this means they were actually sacked; the real question that the “mutual consent” statement leaves unanswered is whether the three men were deemed to have done anything seriously wrong, or are merely victims of Johnson’s desperate attempts to save his own political skin.
The unwillingness to provide an answer is understandable, because either way Johnson looks bad. If they have broken the lockdown rules, we are seeing the application of the principle that anyone at the heart of government who breaks such rules should lose their job. If that is the case, then the prime minister would find it hard to explain why he is keeping his.
On the other hand, if they are not accused of committing any sackable offences, but merely of having become a political liability to Johnson, then he has abandoned any shred of decency that should be displayed by a boss to loyal members of his staff.
One of the weirdest PB threads was the one where @bigjohnowls was posting, and getting advice while hiding out in his hotel room in Tunisia in an active shooter terrorist incident.
Yes I remember that
Only marginally less dramatic was the 'is DavidL having a heart attack' thread.
Weirdly enough, that isn't one of my happiest memories on here!
I don't think anything will ever beat the @bigjohnowls Tunisia thread though, that was remarkable. I still remember the helpful put your mattress against your door and try and fight them in the corridor because in the room you are a dead man.
Mr Meeks has a second comment that is worth looking at
Alastair Meeks @AlastairMeeks As a general theme, newer MPs seem to have been brought back into line while the old hands seem to be breaking against the PM.
If this is true than most new MPs know that levelling up is utterly dead if anyone else becomes leader (it is because of the cost of living crisis but hey it can’t be made too obvious).
How can something that has never existed be dead? The rich, the landed elite cabal they are part of, are getting richer under Johnson at a ridiculous rate whilst the majority, post covid, will start to suffer a fall in living standards.
One of the weirdest PB threads was the one where @bigjohnowls was posting, and getting advice while hiding out in his hotel room in Tunisia in an active shooter terrorist incident.
Yes I remember that
Only marginally less dramatic was the 'is DavidL having a heart attack' thread.
Weirdly enough, that isn't one of my happiest memories on here!
IIRC everyone was worried and sympathetic, though. Part of a community!
I'm not so sure. I made a post on ConHome about Boris last week, and when I clicked 'submit' I got some auto-warning message - I can't remember the precise wording but basically too many negative/critical/potentially suspect words and a request to edit it. My post contained no abuse but it was particularly critical of the PM in a way that will be familiar to PB'ers. All I had to do was substitute a couple of the adjectives with still critical but less strident words, and it got posted.
Even if AI has advanced that far, the inability to post proper criticism will mean the death of some sites like that, or they'll just turn into CCP echo-chambers which are basically pointless.
Does anyone actually read ConHome? I certainly don't. I don't read LibDemHome or LabourList or whatever either. No point. I don't want an echo chamber. I want variety.
If you read ConHome currently, it's certainly not screening out all manner of critical comments, whether about the PM, Carrie, or indeed their opponents. It seemed to me to be a fairly elementary process to try and stop the sort of strident criticism that might be seen as libellous. As a 'light touch' chance to edit the wording because of specific words, rather than the general opinion, I didn't mind too much or feel I was being censored.
I asked @NASA Administrator @SenBillNelson what he sees as his agency’s role in investigating UFOs/UAPs: “It’s a natural conclusion for me as a thinking human being … 1/
“ … in a universe that is so large that I can’t even conceive how large, that there is not some form of life that maybe has evolved into intelligent beings?” 2/
Could they explain some of the recent sightings by military pilots? “I’m not limiting anything,” he responded. 3/
“I hope it’s not one of our terrestrial enemies that has that kind of technology, because that would mean that somebody is very, very advanced.” 4/
What is it? “I don’t know.” Who’s job is it? “One of NASA’s missions is to search for life,” he said, citing the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re not out there to say that there’s a UAP here or there.” 5/5
Hello. I haven’t posted since GE2019 as the prospect of Boris Johnson with a majority was just too ghastly to spend time discussing. Seems like a few more have now come to the same view!
As a 2005-er I’m delighted to see PB going strong and I will see if March 2nd is possible. We’ve just had a new baby so will depend on how things are at home.
Glad to see so many posters I remember on good form. And that list from Cookie brought back memories. I particularly remember the likes of SBS and Mark Senior no longer with us.
Hello tpfkar! Glad to see you. SBS no longer with us? I don't think I knew that. That's sad. I was thinking about Mark Senior the other day, oddly. Remembering that he chose to celebrate winning a prediction competition with a picture of his son smashing him over the head with a chair.
Andy Cooke dates from those days too, I think, and Stuart Dickson - and possibly malcolmg? Anyone else from back then? There must be loads of names knocking around the back of my mind.
I honestly can't recall when I came across PB but it was well before the 2010 election, possibly around the time of the 2007 Scottish elections. It has been an enormous source of information and entertainment ever since. Thanks Mike and Robert for your efforts.
The 2007 Scottish GE was momentous betting-wise. I had at least two 50/1 winners. No thanks to PB! 😉
What are Tory MPs waiting for? For once, decency and self-interest are aligned. At the end of a dramatic week, both support the case for removing @BorisJohnson from Downing Street. Here's my analysis for @prospect_uk
Leave aside whether this means they were actually sacked; the real question that the “mutual consent” statement leaves unanswered is whether the three men were deemed to have done anything seriously wrong, or are merely victims of Johnson’s desperate attempts to save his own political skin.
The unwillingness to provide an answer is understandable, because either way Johnson looks bad. If they have broken the lockdown rules, we are seeing the application of the principle that anyone at the heart of government who breaks such rules should lose their job. If that is the case, then the prime minister would find it hard to explain why he is keeping his.
On the other hand, if they are not accused of committing any sackable offences, but merely of having become a political liability to Johnson, then he has abandoned any shred of decency that should be displayed by a boss to loyal members of his staff.
Surely both are true for it’s clearly the case, anyone beneath Bozo can and will be used by him in whatever way is required to save his own skin.
Mr Meeks has a second comment that is worth looking at
Alastair Meeks @AlastairMeeks As a general theme, newer MPs seem to have been brought back into line while the old hands seem to be breaking against the PM.
If this is true than most new MPs know that levelling up is utterly dead if anyone else becomes leader (it is because of the cost of living crisis but hey it can’t be made too obvious).
How can something that has never existed be dead? The rich, the landed elite cabal they are part of, are getting richer under Johnson at a ridiculous rate whilst the majority, post covid, will start to suffer a fall in living standards.
Levelling up has been something that every government of the last century has struggled with, mostly unsuccessfully.
One thing for certain is that it will be harder still in a period of inflation and declining take home incomes.
I heard a plausible theory on the Adrian Chiles radio program yesterday. There is absolutley no problem in getting to 54 but those opposed to Boris do not want to trigger a contest until they think that they can win it and they are still far from confident about that so they are holding back and waiting for him to weaken. They are concerned about giving him another full year.
I think, for all the abuse they get, we are dealing with a pretty sophisticated electorate here, well used to gaming the system.
One of the weirdest PB threads was the one where @bigjohnowls was posting, and getting advice while hiding out in his hotel room in Tunisia in an active shooter terrorist incident.
Yes I remember that
Only marginally less dramatic was the 'is DavidL having a heart attack' thread.
Weirdly enough, that isn't one of my happiest memories on here!
IIRC everyone was worried and sympathetic, though. Part of a community!
They were indeed and it was much appreciated. Being ill is never great but away from home it is miserable.
I asked @NASA Administrator @SenBillNelson what he sees as his agency’s role in investigating UFOs/UAPs: “It’s a natural conclusion for me as a thinking human being … 1/
“ … in a universe that is so large that I can’t even conceive how large, that there is not some form of life that maybe has evolved into intelligent beings?” 2/
Could they explain some of the recent sightings by military pilots? “I’m not limiting anything,” he responded. 3/
“I hope it’s not one of our terrestrial enemies that has that kind of technology, because that would mean that somebody is very, very advanced.” 4/
What is it? “I don’t know.” Who’s job is it? “One of NASA’s missions is to search for life,” he said, citing the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re not out there to say that there’s a UAP here or there.” 5/5
Over the PB tips that I spurned perhaps the biggest of my errors was not to follow @Philip_Thompson tip on Sunak at 250/1 in a header.
At the time he was best known for his fairly wooden appearance as a stand in for Johnson when the latter funked out of the leaders debate. I see him now as the most talented of a Cabinet, though in part that is because the remainder are awful.
I pretty much always get leadership contests betting wrong. I usually just cannot see what others do in the favourite.
Re the number of letters, why on earth would you go public about it? You are asking for considerable opprobrium and it's a very brave thing to do.
Silent and stealthy is the likeliest way to finish off Boris Johnson.
Yes, we really don't know. I think we should discount all the anonymous estimates too ("A senior Tory MP says..."), both because they don't know either and because they will have an agenda which we can't assess since we don't know who they are. The serial day-by-day drip of public letters is clearly intended to suggest momentum, but it'd be more convincing if there were several at once.
My guess is that we won't see 54 (or is it 55 after Southend?) until there's (1) an announcement by the Met (months away?) (2) A further statement by Sue Gray before a Met statement (unlikely) (3) Hideous May election results (might not be enough - "mid-term, meh, and we did hold X unexpectedly") or (4) A leading Cabinet Minister resigning or even defecting. (4) seems the most plausible - neither Sunak nor Javid would cause great surprise if they did walk out now.
Comments
What a sound woman!
I first turned up in the summer of 2004.
I was a Tory supporter in those distant days; it’s fair to say that both I and the Conservative Party have been on journeys; I’m now a Lib Dem councillor.
Indeed, if AI cannot do even that much now then I fear its chances of ever being able pass the Benpointer Test by loading and unloading my dishwasher are sadly rather remote.
Best start at the beginning, with the threats of physical violence, racismand sexual threats that so many public figures get before to the more marginal stuff.
What you can do that can mostly work is run everything through a moderation process before you let anyone else see it so everything shows up with a delay. That would make sites like this rather less satisfying to use though, I think most of it would just move to decentralized platforms.
Have had a rough 48 hours with a double migraine so not posted very often, but feeling a wee bit better though I have to be careful as flicking lights and a computer screen do not help
I was hoping that Boris would have gone by now but it will happen
The most pertinent, and worrying, factoid in that article is the Carrie friend-since-university who describes her as "very definition of capricious". As an addition to his character that's not good news.
Chief Mendacity Officer at Amazon or something.
Manual moderation is blooming expensive which is why you operate a rule of post until we deem it a problem rather than nothing until checked first.
Basically the bill is being written by people who haven’t got a clue who the actual world works as you can tell by all the “ideas” within it.
And the end result won’t close the site it would just mean the companies close their UK offices and fire all their UK staff who won’t relocate.
https://twitter.com/PenFarthing/status/1487354988338765824?t=C2tnjp8wlH4MRF7FTSOFAQ&s=19
The head of the @FCDOGovUK was on holiday @DominicRaab on holiday yet the #press #Media & too many #MP blame me for #Afghans left behind?? We rescued 67 people not a f*^king car #operationark PS dogs went in cargo hold of our flight & we offered spare seats What am I missing? 🤔
The shambles of the collapse of the NATO mission in Afghanistan along with the puppet government there has much more important issues around it than Pen Farthings flight out.
https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1489893265339990020
https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1489876497322197000
This is a wonderful site. I’ve been lurking for years, not sure exactly when I started but I think probably 2010ish, maybe a bit earlier.
I used to work very closely with politicians, senior councillors in a large LA, and the odd MP, and I just lurked because although there was plenty I wanted to say, I didn’t want to ruin the trust my job needed by being indiscreet. I don’t have that daily exposure and access anymore so I don’t mind posting a bit here and there. But I mostly just lurk - generally someone’s already said what I think but better than I ever could!
Sometimes I pry myself away from here for a bit but I always end up coming back. The debate and analysis is superb, whether I agree with it or not. When something exciting politically is happening - Barnard Castle, the past few months generally - it is difficult to stay away.
It is like crack for political nerds - I couldn’t speak to anyone in this detail, or length, IRL, about politics really. This site gives me a forum to wallow in this stuff that 95% of people don’t, sadly, give a shit about.
Keep up the good work everyone
https://twitter.com/PeterKellner1/status/1489893149531160576
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-downing-street-resignations-can-only-be-bad-news-for-boris-johnson
Boris’ future is in the US. Hopefully. He’ll coin it on the chat show lecture circuit.
(Unless he takes advantage of his US citizenship and runs on a Trump Johnson ticket)
Sunak should be telling him about all the money he could be earning.
Has anyone said Estrellagate yet?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/05/ufos-america-aliens-government-report?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
‘Last year was a breakthrough time for UFOs, as a landmark government report prompted the possibility of extraterrestrial visitors to finally be taken seriously by everyone from senators, to a former president, to the Pentagon.
But 2022 could be even more profound, experts say, as the clamor for UFO disclosure and discovery continues to grow, and as new scientific projects bring us closer than ever to – potentially – discovering non-Earth life.’
Has BJ ever said something interesting and profound, or has it all been shallow, risqué dog whistles? His recent assertion that the fall of the Roman Empire had been due to uncontrolled immigration put his reputation as a classical scholar into perspective.
But I expect he will become a moosehead professor of classics and politics at a well-endowed American university to spend a fortnight each year entertaining students with tales of Pericles and Cummings, then the rest of the year to take exotic holidays and pen columns for the Telegraph.
Boris would change the topic to something else (Peppa Pig) which is great in a pub utterly annoying in a professional setting.
Alastair Meeks
@AlastairMeeks
As a general theme, newer MPs seem to have been brought back into line while the old hands seem to be breaking against the PM.
If this is true than most new MPs know that levelling up is utterly dead if anyone else becomes leader (it is because of the cost of living crisis but hey it can’t be made too obvious).
Used to read the Independent twenty years ago. Thought his stuff was reasonably good then, but I was only in my early twenties then.
After his fall from grace, I've no idea what he does now......
What's worse is that on the level of a community, playing around with language to be able to say something forbidden without tripping the censors' sensors is *fun*.
The rules mean Boris doesn’t have enough to organise a campaign before the vote, trigger it at other times and he has 48+ hours to persuade people.
He might be able to manage a (heavily edited) reality show like the Osbournes, or Clarksons Farm. The interest would be waiting for the car-crash moment.
@OGH is there a way I can contribute to the festivities?
You know who you are!
As fas as the 'get together' is concerned, bearing in mind that some of us, either because we are a long way away or are decreasingly mobile, won't be able to attend, can we have some part of the evening on Zoom or similar, please.
Does anyone actually read ConHome? I certainly don't.
I don't read LibDemHome or LabourList or whatever either. No point. I don't want an echo chamber. I want variety.
“ … in a universe that is so large that I can’t even conceive how large, that there is not some form of life that maybe has evolved into intelligent beings?” 2/
Could they explain some of the recent sightings by military pilots? “I’m not limiting anything,” he responded. 3/
“I hope it’s not one of our terrestrial enemies that has that kind of technology, because that would mean that somebody is very, very advanced.” 4/
What is it? “I don’t know.” Who’s job is it? “One of NASA’s missions is to search for life,” he said, citing the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re not out there to say that there’s a UAP here or there.” 5/5
https://twitter.com/bryandbender/status/1488004083298418693?s=21
That’s the current head of NASA saying “Yeah, basically aliens”
(Had a LOT of problems with predictive text with that post!)
It's great that so many posters from then are still with us but sad that several are no longer with us.
@JohnRentoul
Letters Going In (LGI) latest tally.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1489891987851517955
You have a right (once only) to be registered as a British citizen if you previously renounced British citizenship in order to keep or acquire another citizenship.
You have a separate right (once only) to be registered as a British citizen if you previously renounced citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies:
• in order to keep or acquire the citizenship of a Commonwealth country, or
• because you had reasonable cause to believe that you would be deprived of your citizenship of a Commonwealth country if you did not renounce.
If you renounced citizenship for any other reason, or if you have already renounced and resumed British citizenship (as a right), registration is at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Registration will be granted if they see fit
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/788225/Guide_RS1.pdf
If they are similar, seems like his reason for renouncing might mean he lacks an automatic right.
If you're an MP and you get caught putting your porn subscription on expenses, just say you're researching why their comment sections are so wholesome.
Will there come a point where even The Telegraph don't want him back? The image floating in my mind is the Rector of Stiffkey, who ended up re-enacting the story of Daniel in the lions' den, until one of the lions concluded he was lowering the tone of the place and took direct action.
A point that is always missed re eligibility to stand in the US Presidential election is that the bar is only ever tested if you win. Some people say Ted Cruz is not eligible for example as born in Canada (legal opinion seems to be he most probably is). Does not stop him raising tens of millions for his Presidential campaigns every four years.
Why on earth any such site needs comment sections though I cannot imagine.
Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
·
1h
Taken by the official photographer tells us pretty unambiguously that, at the time, they hadn't the slightest inkling they might be breaking any rules.
https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico
The unwillingness to provide an answer is understandable, because either way Johnson looks bad. If they have broken the lockdown rules, we are seeing the application of the principle that anyone at the heart of government who breaks such rules should lose their job. If that is the case, then the prime minister would find it hard to explain why he is keeping his.
On the other hand, if they are not accused of committing any sackable offences, but merely of having become a political liability to Johnson, then he has abandoned any shred of decency that should be displayed by a boss to loyal members of his staff.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr Johnson!
I don't think anything will ever beat the @bigjohnowls Tunisia thread though, that was remarkable. I still remember the helpful put your mattress against your door and try and fight them in the corridor because in the room you are a dead man.
It's so so woeful it's beyond tragic. I mean, just a thousand times worse than toe-curling. Even the Mail think it's a car crash:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10479383/Nadine-Dorries-defends-fire-PM-Boris-Johnson-awkward-BBC-Breakfast-interview.html
Silent and stealthy is the likeliest way to finish off Boris Johnson.
This must be one of them
He’s saying that the probability that intelligent life has only evolved on Earth is infinitely small.
He also says that he’s not ruling out anything on what the UAPs because he doesn’t know
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-60244091
Proving quality x quantity is a constant.
One thing for certain is that it will be harder still in a period of inflation and declining take home incomes.
Might give Nerdle a go.
I think, for all the abuse they get, we are dealing with a pretty sophisticated electorate here, well used to gaming the system.
At the time he was best known for his fairly wooden appearance as a stand in for Johnson when the latter funked out of the leaders debate. I see him now as the most talented of a Cabinet, though in part that is because the remainder are awful.
I pretty much always get leadership contests betting wrong. I usually just cannot see what others do in the favourite.
My guess is that we won't see 54 (or is it 55 after Southend?) until there's (1) an announcement by the Met (months away?) (2) A further statement by Sue Gray before a Met statement (unlikely) (3) Hideous May election results (might not be enough - "mid-term, meh, and we did hold X unexpectedly") or (4) A leading Cabinet Minister resigning or even defecting. (4) seems the most plausible - neither Sunak nor Javid would cause great surprise if they did walk out now.