Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
London in the Spring is hard to beat.
Devon in the spring beats it. And comes a couple of weeks earlier. Snowdrops nearly over, daffs out, tulips bursting through.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
One thing I've noticed that is quite common amongst some educated Westerners though is the argument about how we'd feel if a Russian military alliance expanded to the doorstep of the USA. Which is exactly the Kremlin line. The anachronistic 'spheres of influence' argument cuts across the self-determination of any country small or unlucky enough to be in the way.
NATO is wholly defensive and doesn't conquer or annex territory by force; it's entirely rational for the Baltic States to join or exactly the same thing would have happened to them as has happened to Ukraine.
Would you care if Ireland entered into a military alliance with China and the PLAAF put a J-16 division into Casement?
If there were Chinese troops in Ireland, that would worry me a great deal. If there were America troops in Ireland, it would not. I wonder if you can work out why I feel very differently about the two scenarios.
It is because Ireland is not in the Middle East or South America or anywhere else that has been on the sharp end of regime change?
Sorry, my unspoken assumption is that in either case the troops were there by the express invitation of the Irish. Obviously if Ireland were invaded by America, I would certainly not be happy about it.
Speaking of Ireland, President Biden's Irish heritage mother supposedly hated England so much she refused to even sleep in the same bed as the Queen had once slept in at the White House
My (Irish) mother refused to shake Prince Charles' hand when he visited the school at which she was Head of Music. She said he could pat her poodle (called Josh) instead so he did.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
One thing I've noticed that is quite common amongst some educated Westerners though is the argument about how we'd feel if a Russian military alliance expanded to the doorstep of the USA. Which is exactly the Kremlin line. The anachronistic 'spheres of influence' argument cuts across the self-determination of any country small or unlucky enough to be in the way.
NATO is wholly defensive and doesn't conquer or annex territory by force; it's entirely rational for the Baltic States to join or exactly the same thing would have happened to them as has happened to Ukraine.
Would you care if Ireland entered into a military alliance with China and the PLAAF put a J-16 division into Casement?
I would because China is an aggressive expansionist power, with a demonstrable record as such, and the UK isn't threatening Ireland, so I'd be concerned Ireland were under its thumb as China would have no real interest in its defence or welfare - just in intimidating the UK.
The two situations aren't remotely comparable: there's a massive difference between democratic nations clubbing together for their own defence in the face of potential non-democratic aggressors versus "belt & road" - so your whatabouttery falls flat I'm afraid.
You don't think the US has a record as an aggressive expansionist power? There is a publicly available audio recording of the US representatives in Ukraine discussing between themselves who they are going to put in place as President there you know. Let's be real please.
Definitely so. The sun never sets on the US military bases overseas. They are the inheritors of the British Empire.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Jonathan's point is a valid one that you have completely misunderstood.
My interpretation of his point is how have we unwittingly empowered Putin, given him the confidence, to reach this point?
It's nothing to do with your racial fixation. It might be however to do with the traditional "World Policemen" doing little about Putin's escalating outrageous behaviour. Maybe sequestering property from the Putin shills who own London after Salisbury, the Malaysian Airlines flight, and the invasion of Crimea, among other things might have focused minds.
I have now FORMALLY APOLOGISED to Jonathan for being a bit snippy. if he wants someone to blame (other than me) blame the Galle Face Hotel which has ill-advisedly gifted me a free stay with limitless free food and booze. Are they not aware of the risks?
In a way this is a good metaphor for our dealings with Putin, maybe. We offered him the all-you-can-eat curry buffet of ex-Soviet Republics and said Help Yourself, and have a beer as well (but the Baltics are like fine wines that carry a premium)
But, did we have much choice? I’m not sure. Russia is a great power with that intrinsic self belief and self confidence. It has a muscle memory of empire. I reckon we’ve done about as best we could with a Russia determined on expansion and with a clever and cunning military guy at the helm. We have contained it within the USSR as was
The time to stand up and physically fight will be if he he attacks NATO or - maybe - places outside the old Soviet Union
Russia is NOT a great power. It’s a corrupt and fragile kleptocracy. It has a hollowed out and vulnerable economy which is dependent on fossil fuels and a declining population.
It is a regional power with serious strategic limitations imposed on it by geography.
Putin is throwing his weight around to gain internal domestic political advantage. But the whole thing is a house of cards.
The challenge is we can’t give up on Ukraine - it’s too important compared to a Georgia or a Syria. But failure isn’t an option for Putin. My concern is he misread the situation and overreached in his demands (perhaps as a negotiating tactic, perhaps because he thought he’d really get it). But the west (apart from Germany and France & Germany is coming into line) have stood firm… how does Putin backdown without losing his grip in Russia?
Russia is not a great power in economic terms, Russia is a great power in military terms.
The Russian military is the third most powerful in the world after the US and Chinese militaries. Hence NATO remains so vital to all NATO member states in Europe to keep Putin out and not moving beyond Ukraine
They have limited ability to project power. Lots of bodies and tanks. Makes them a regional power not a global one
Yes well they are the strongest military power in Europe, that is our region
They are not a military threat to France of Germany or the UK. Old Soviet territories and at a stretch the Baltics and CEE yes.
They are. Russia could beat the French, German or UK militaries one on one. Only the European NATO nations acting together can hold off Russia
Russia is not going to invade Germany, France or the UK. They are not a threat.
People said the same about Hitler after he invaded Czechoslovakia
The latest Alastair Meeks, on AI. I don't agree with this one (I care about beings that can experience joy and suffering, I don't care about the feelings of artificial constructs), but it's interesting, as always!
Interesting as always. But Mr Meeks, I think, misses out the hard question. Can we create beings which not only have the simulacra of knowledge and intelligence (as my copy of War and Peace or my computer or the internet does) but have the consciousness to be aware that they do so.
If they don't then AI machines are glorified machines. But if in fact consciousness is an emergent property of matter in particular configurations (eg the way our brains are formed) the matter is different. In particular the artificial manufacture of consciousness machines is open to the same objections as cloning humans.
But the issue of how consciousness arises and what it is is both heavily contested, and surrounded by almost total ignorance. Which is why it is called by philosophers 'the hard question'.
I'm far from convinced that AI is actually "AI". As far as I can tell they are just very fast and sophisticated super computers that are very good at processing huge quantities of data and doing analysis and pattern detection and representing that back in a more coherently human way through clever programming.
They are very far from self-learning or self-development, yet alone self-awareness.
Rather agree. As to 'rights', if they are conscious and aware AI could have intrinsic rights. I don't think we can create consciousness mechanically, but who knows. I am absolutely sure that we should not. The problem arises if and when we realise we have done it unaware.
If AI don't have awareness, then their rights are actually rights of others - like the right of 'The Girl with the pearl earring' not to be destroyed for fun is actually the right of humans metaphorically transferred.
We are never going to know whether anything else has awareness, because how do we know that even about each other? We sort of assume we do because we are made of pretty much the same kind of meat, but I only have your word for it that you are conscious, and you may just be programmed:
print('I am self aware')
The Turing test tests only for a necessary condition. We just won't ever know.
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
Offering you weird free syllabubs that you do want? Proffered on the tight flat stomach of a .....
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
What matters is not who she is or what she's doing, but whether her customers are happy.
When I was younger and living in Edinburgh, I worked as a waiter in a steakhouse. Apparently someone had been murdered in the upstairs flat few years back, before the current restaurant opened, and from day one there were strange apparitions, things moving on their own, lights flicking on and off. Customers noticed and it was affecting business. I had a friend, someone I've now lost touch with, who was into the spiritual arts and when I told her about what was happening at work she was really confident she could help. The manager was really sceptical, but I brought her in to chat and she convinced him. After the place closed one evening she did some weird mumbo-jumbo, burned some sage and other strange stuff. And from that day on, the flickering lights stopped, the moving objects moved no more. Nobody saw any more ghosts.
Now, it's not for me to say whether that steakhouse was really haunted, but even the most sceptical of the staff and management agree that it was a rare job well done by a medium
Never have a well done steak, medium rare all the time.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
I don't know about "we". But in the spirit of honest enquiry I'd like to understand something. I despise Russian expansionist nationalism just as I despise it in anyone else, and I don't have any sympathy with Putin throwing his weight around, let alone invading. But I don't understand the Ukrainian position either. They agreed to regional autonomy for the pro-Russian east and fresh elections there, but are now reluctant as they don't want an additional bunch of pro-Putin MPs in Kiev. OK, but what what they like to happen apart from Putin buggering off? Presumably not an unrepresented eastern sector forever. Perhaps a confederation where neither part gets to run the other, or what?
The agreed to that under the threat of military invasion and annexation of a second part of their country.
Yes, I know. And I'm not saying they need to deliver. But they presumably have an idea of what they would like to happen to the pro-Russian east in the long term, beyond "accept our rule, and you don't get a say". Confederation?
I wonder if the usual suspects will be lining up to condemn this totally irresponsible policy:
France: overnight, the demand for pre-departure tests has been dropped. Competitive reopening – nations desperate to rescue their travel industries – is accelerating. A day-trip from London to Paris. Thursday: two tests Friday: one test Saturday: no test
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
The govt gave her a new contract only a few months ago, when it was clear that they didn't really have any confidence in her. Just a waste of public money.
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
London in the Spring is hard to beat.
Devon in the spring beats it. And comes a couple of weeks earlier. Snowdrops nearly over, daffs out, tulips bursting through.
How lovely. I love the South Downs. Wherever you are, its important to take time away from screens shouting dire warnings of war to experience that first hint of warm sun.
What matters is not who she is or what she's doing, but whether her customers are happy.
When I was younger and living in Edinburgh, I worked as a waiter in a steakhouse. Apparently someone had been murdered in the upstairs flat few years back, before the current restaurant opened, and from day one there were strange apparitions, things moving on their own, lights flicking on and off. Customers noticed and it was affecting business. I had a friend, someone I've now lost touch with, who was into the spiritual arts and when I told her about what was happening at work she was really confident she could help. The manager was really sceptical, but I brought her in to chat and she convinced him. After the place closed one evening she did some weird mumbo-jumbo, burned some sage and other strange stuff. And from that day on, the flickering lights stopped, the moving objects moved no more. Nobody saw any more ghosts.
Now, it's not for me to say whether that steakhouse was really haunted, but even the most sceptical of the staff and management agree that it was a rare job well done by a medium
Never have a well done steak, medium rare all the time.
Same.
“How would you like your steak cooked?”
“Tell the chef that if it arrives cooked, it’ll get sent back”.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
One thing I've noticed that is quite common amongst some educated Westerners though is the argument about how we'd feel if a Russian military alliance expanded to the doorstep of the USA. Which is exactly the Kremlin line. The anachronistic 'spheres of influence' argument cuts across the self-determination of any country small or unlucky enough to be in the way.
NATO is wholly defensive and doesn't conquer or annex territory by force; it's entirely rational for the Baltic States to join or exactly the same thing would have happened to them as has happened to Ukraine.
Would you care if Ireland entered into a military alliance with China and the PLAAF put a J-16 division into Casement?
If there were Chinese troops in Ireland, that would worry me a great deal. If there were America troops in Ireland, it would not. I wonder if you can work out why I feel very differently about the two scenarios.
It is because Ireland is not in the Middle East or South America or anywhere else that has been on the sharp end of regime change?
Sorry, my unspoken assumption is that in either case the troops were there by the express invitation of the Irish. Obviously if Ireland were invaded by America, I would certainly not be happy about it.
Speaking of Ireland, President Biden's Irish heritage mother supposedly hated England so much she refused to even sleep in the same bed as the Queen had once slept in at the White House
My (Irish) mother refused to shake Prince Charles' hand when he visited the school at which she was Head of Music. She said he could pat her poodle (called Josh) instead so he did.
I hope it bit him
Why do you hope that?
It was just a joke. I don't really hope the dog bit him. Not unless the dog had been vaccinated.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The latest Alastair Meeks, on AI. I don't agree with this one (I care about beings that can experience joy and suffering, I don't care about the feelings of artificial constructs), but it's interesting, as always!
Interesting as always. But Mr Meeks, I think, misses out the hard question. Can we create beings which not only have the simulacra of knowledge and intelligence (as my copy of War and Peace or my computer or the internet does) but have the consciousness to be aware that they do so.
If they don't then AI machines are glorified machines. But if in fact consciousness is an emergent property of matter in particular configurations (eg the way our brains are formed) the matter is different. In particular the artificial manufacture of consciousness machines is open to the same objections as cloning humans.
But the issue of how consciousness arises and what it is is both heavily contested, and surrounded by almost total ignorance. Which is why it is called by philosophers 'the hard question'.
I'm far from convinced that AI is actually "AI". As far as I can tell they are just very fast and sophisticated super computers that are very good at processing huge quantities of data and doing analysis and pattern detection and representing that back in a more coherently human way through clever programming.
They are very far from self-learning or self-development, yet alone self-awareness.
Rather agree. As to 'rights', if they are conscious and aware AI could have intrinsic rights. I don't think we can create consciousness mechanically, but who knows. I am absolutely sure that we should not. The problem arises if and when we realise we have done it unaware.
If AI don't have awareness, then their rights are actually rights of others - like the right of 'The Girl with the pearl earring' not to be destroyed for fun is actually the right of humans metaphorically transferred.
We are never going to know whether anything else has awareness, because how do we know that even about each other? We sort of assume we do because we are made of pretty much the same kind of meat, but I only have your word for it that you are conscious, and you may just be programmed:
print('I am self aware')
The Turing test tests only for a necessary condition. We just won't ever know.
Mostly agree of course. This should lead us to a degree of humility and uncertainty. But as soon as anyone raises the issue of rights, (octopus, higher primates, AI etc) the question of awareness, capacity for a first person perspective, becomes the key question without which you can't make progress.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
The govt gave her a new contract only a few months ago, when it was clear that they didn't really have any confidence in her. Just a waste of public money.
Agreed. Both the HS and the Mayor expressed confidence her only a few months ago, after the Couzens case, and it’s really not clear what’s changed since then.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
It is also mostly our money in the private sector through share ownership and pensions but the underlying rationale is the same. It is in the interests of the people who write the contracts to make them as generous as possible because it is not their own money being spent and it creates pay inflation for their own jobs. Different structures and mechanisms in public and private sectors but same underlying root causes.
Differential turnout absolutely critical. Looking likely a lot of soft Con voters will be reluctant to vote. And a lot of Lab and SNP who abstained last time might turn up. If they’re still on the Electoral Registers?
Agreed. I won in 1997 in Broxtowe primarily because Tory voters abstained - the number who crossed over to vote for me was small (though it actually got bigger after I'd been there for a while), and I believe that was true nationally too.
Probably what I'm going to do next time if things continue as they are now to be fair.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
One thing I've noticed that is quite common amongst some educated Westerners though is the argument about how we'd feel if a Russian military alliance expanded to the doorstep of the USA. Which is exactly the Kremlin line. The anachronistic 'spheres of influence' argument cuts across the self-determination of any country small or unlucky enough to be in the way.
NATO is wholly defensive and doesn't conquer or annex territory by force; it's entirely rational for the Baltic States to join or exactly the same thing would have happened to them as has happened to Ukraine.
Would you care if Ireland entered into a military alliance with China and the PLAAF put a J-16 division into Casement?
I would because China is an aggressive expansionist power, with a demonstrable record as such, and the UK isn't threatening Ireland, so I'd be concerned Ireland were under its thumb as China would have no real interest in its defence or welfare - just in intimidating the UK.
The two situations aren't remotely comparable: there's a massive difference between democratic nations clubbing together for their own defence in the face of potential non-democratic aggressors versus "belt & road" - so your whatabouttery falls flat I'm afraid.
You don't think the US has a record as an aggressive expansionist power? There is a publicly available audio recording of the US representatives in Ukraine discussing between themselves who they are going to put in place as President there you know. Let's be real please.
Definitely so. The sun never sets on the US military bases overseas. They are the inheritors of the British Empire.
There's an exhaustive list online somewhere of all the attacks, coups, invasions, bombings, covert operations (not disputed ones) etc. that the USA has conducted outside it's borders over the past few decades. It is longer by orders of magnitude than any other country's list.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
The govt gave her a new contract only a few months ago, when it was clear that they didn't really have any confidence in her. Just a waste of public money.
Agreed. Both the HS and the Mayor expressed confidence her only a few months ago, after the Couzens case, and it’s really not clear what’s changed since then.
WhatsApp messages from Charing Cross and the investigation into Partying at number 10.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Over a decade ago:
A disgraced former chief constable who admitted gross misconduct for helping a relative get a job has walked away from the force with a £250,000 golden goodbye, it emerged yesterday.
Grahame Maxwell, 51, narrowly escaped the sack over the claims of nepotism and was given a final written warning at a secret disciplinary hearing last May.
But after the police authority refused to extend his £133,000-a-year contract a controversial clause legally entitling Mr Maxwell to £247,636 in compensation was activated.
The clause enables Mr Maxwell to receive 85 per cent of the difference between the pension lump sum he is now eligible for after serving 28-and-a-half years and the amount he would have received had he continued for another 18 months.
It is believed to be the first time the compensation clause has ever been activated following a decision not to renew a chief constable's contract.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
Proles get nothing. It is the upper middle who get a month or two off with full pay. And the top who get a year or twos pay.
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
London in the Spring is hard to beat.
Devon in the spring beats it. And comes a couple of weeks earlier. Snowdrops nearly over, daffs out, tulips bursting through.
How lovely. I love the South Downs. Wherever you are, its important to take time away from screens shouting dire warnings of war to experience that first hint of warm sun.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
One thing I've noticed that is quite common amongst some educated Westerners though is the argument about how we'd feel if a Russian military alliance expanded to the doorstep of the USA. Which is exactly the Kremlin line. The anachronistic 'spheres of influence' argument cuts across the self-determination of any country small or unlucky enough to be in the way.
NATO is wholly defensive and doesn't conquer or annex territory by force; it's entirely rational for the Baltic States to join or exactly the same thing would have happened to them as has happened to Ukraine.
Would you care if Ireland entered into a military alliance with China and the PLAAF put a J-16 division into Casement?
I would because China is an aggressive expansionist power, with a demonstrable record as such, and the UK isn't threatening Ireland, so I'd be concerned Ireland were under its thumb as China would have no real interest in its defence or welfare - just in intimidating the UK.
The two situations aren't remotely comparable: there's a massive difference between democratic nations clubbing together for their own defence in the face of potential non-democratic aggressors versus "belt & road" - so your whatabouttery falls flat I'm afraid.
You don't think the US has a record as an aggressive expansionist power? There is a publicly available audio recording of the US representatives in Ukraine discussing between themselves who they are going to put in place as President there you know. Let's be real please.
Definitely so. The sun never sets on the US military bases overseas. They are the inheritors of the British Empire.
There's an exhaustive list online somewhere of all the attacks, coups, invasions, bombings, covert operations (not disputed ones) etc. that the USA has conducted outside it's borders over the past few decades. It is longer by orders of magnitude than any other country's list.
But it’s okay when they do it as they’re the good guys !!
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
I was in meeting after meeting with the PM when he went row by row through what was and was not to be allowed. What does it say about us as a Party if what we write in law in minute detail is just for 'others' and by slight of hand we try and make that a 'trivial' thing?
That is damning. The first hint in Johnson's career that he has conscientiously gone row by row through, anything, actually, and it blows away the one faint mitigation that he is not a details guy and left it to others to know the minutiae.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
But it was your FIRST reaction. It’s OUR fault
“Somewhere along the line we screwed up”
We? We??? Who the fuck is “we”???
Me? You? Mike Smithson on an off day?
It’s absurd. This is now a crippling intellectual reflex. You guys thrive on self hatred and guilt, esp if that guilt can be slightly shifted to “someone more right wing than me”. Grow up
Leon with the greatest respect you are a fool. YOUR reaction was to talk about “our fault” and rant about lefties like a teenager trying to escape blame.
In my view, our security is our responsibility. No one else’s. We used to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. Somewhere along the line we forgot that.
Our big stick is Trident. A stick we can never wield.
Some times a big stick standing quietly on the corner is sufficient
How is our having Trident impacting on a US/NATO response to Ukraine.
"Yay guys, we just nuked Volgograd! Hope that helps the combined effort at applying pressure..."
If Ukraine still had nukes do think Russia would be behaving like this?
Russia wouldn't be behaving like THIS. But they would have used every possible covert method to install a pro-Moscow government there - and had the nukes shipped back to Mother Russia.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
One curious aspect of this Ukraine situation is the role of social media. If action does proceed it perhaps would be our first social media conflict in Europe. Assuming some limited connectivity exists, uncensored pictures from the front will not be in short supply.
CNN and 24 tv news influenced our perception of 90s/80s conflict. It made war Hollywood or XBox. I wonder what social media will do and how that will impact events.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
Proles get nothing. It is the upper middle who get a month or two off with full pay. And the top who get a year or twos pay.
Not in any business I’ve worked in that has made redundancies and there have been a few. The proles, like me, always got their notice period paid in full.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
And if you are self employed, like me, there is literally nothing at all. Hey ho.
The rest of the Mail story shows the problem I highlighted yesterday. Patel is allegedly "furious" that Kahn has landed this mess on her doorstep. She is not speaking to him and its mutual. The salary is fantastic and the pension almost beyond belief but who would want to put themselves between those two when they both want to score political points off the other at your expense?
The current structure of a large number national resources being administered by the Met really doesn't work. They should be hived off and the HS should be directly accountable for them whilst the Met is accountable to the Mayor.
It would be bad manners to comment on decisions of my estimable successors at the @EHRC David Isaac and Kishwer Falkner, both appointed in much the same way as I was.But I served a three full terms at CRE/EHRC under both Labour administrations and Tory/Lib Dem coalition…..1/5
…so being the only other person to go through the proposed UN process may I respectfully suggest to @EHRC critics that they consider the irony of arraigning Falkner before a body whose expert committee recently appointed as its rapporteur a longtime representative from….2/5
……Uganda, where homosexual acts get you life in prison; or demanding that a Pakistani heritage Muslim woman be judged by a body whose advisory group proudly features representatives from Saudi Arabia, China and Russia given their records on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights….3/5
It would be bad manners to comment on decisions of my estimable successors at the @EHRC David Isaac and Kishwer Falkner, both appointed in much the same way as I was.But I served a three full terms at CRE/EHRC under both Labour administrations and Tory/Lib Dem coalition…..1/5
…so being the only other person to go through the proposed UN process may I respectfully suggest to @EHRC critics that they consider the irony of arraigning Falkner before a body whose expert committee recently appointed as its rapporteur a longtime representative from….2/5
……Uganda, where homosexual acts get you life in prison; or demanding that a Pakistani heritage Muslim woman be judged by a body whose advisory group proudly features representatives from Saudi Arabia, China and Russia given their records on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights….3/5
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
I don't know about "we". But in the spirit of honest enquiry I'd like to understand something. I despise Russian expansionist nationalism just as I despise it in anyone else, and I don't have any sympathy with Putin throwing his weight around, let alone invading. But I don't understand the Ukrainian position either. They agreed to regional autonomy for the pro-Russian east and fresh elections there, but are now reluctant as they don't want an additional bunch of pro-Putin MPs in Kiev. OK, but what what they like to happen apart from Putin buggering off? Presumably not an unrepresented eastern sector forever. Perhaps a confederation where neither part gets to run the other, or what?
The agreed to that under the threat of military invasion and annexation of a second part of their country.
Yes, I know. And I'm not saying they need to deliver. But they presumably have an idea of what they would like to happen to the pro-Russian east in the long term, beyond "accept our rule, and you don't get a say". Confederation?
I am not sure how Pro-Russian the Donets was. The Russians didn't find it as welcoming as they expected, and since then the demographics have shifted. A lot of ethnic Russians have moved from poorer Ukraine to slightly richer Russia. East Ukraine, outside the Donbas is more Ukranian than it used to be. Khakis is a good example of this.
The Minsk agreement was forced on Ukraine, but there is no realistic chance of Ukraine regaining control of Crimea and the Donbas.
I think Putin wants to consolidate these, hence the building of a bridge over the Kerch strait, but still feels that a rather tenuous supply line, and would want to control the oblasts along the North shore of the Sea of Azov and the Crimean isthmus. Perhaps Odesa and the remainder of the Black Sea coast too.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
And if you are self employed, like me, there is literally nothing at all. Hey ho.
The rest of the Mail story shows the problem I highlighted yesterday. Patel is allegedly "furious" that Kahn has landed this mess on her doorstep. She is not speaking to him and its mutual. The salary is fantastic and the pension almost beyond belief but who would want to put themselves between those two when they both want to score political points off the other at your expense?
The current structure of a large number national resources being administered by the Met really doesn't work. They should be hived off and the HS should be directly accountable for them whilst the Met is accountable to the Mayor.
The job seems to be a nightmare. You cannot please both Patel and Khan so someone is going to be pissed off.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
Proles get nothing. It is the upper middle who get a month or two off with full pay. And the top who get a year or twos pay.
Not in any business I’ve worked in that has made redundancies and there have been a few. The proles, like me, always got their notice period paid in full.
She is not being made redundant, there will still be a head of the Met. She is resigning because her boss told her to step up. If you resign for that reason do you get a payoff?
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
And if you are self employed, like me, there is literally nothing at all. Hey ho.
The rest of the Mail story shows the problem I highlighted yesterday. Patel is allegedly "furious" that Kahn has landed this mess on her doorstep. She is not speaking to him and its mutual. The salary is fantastic and the pension almost beyond belief but who would want to put themselves between those two when they both want to score political points off the other at your expense?
The current structure of a large number national resources being administered by the Met really doesn't work. They should be hived off and the HS should be directly accountable for them whilst the Met is accountable to the Mayor.
I don't think there is anyone on here that has spent more than 30 seconds looking at the Met and not decided that the best approach would be to split it in 2.
The question is where do you put all the non-London bits, direct to the Home Office, a new police force(s) or attach it to the Transport Police or a combination of all 3.
But you are right the responsibility for the Met Police should sit with London's mayor and everything that changes that rule should go.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
But it was your FIRST reaction. It’s OUR fault
“Somewhere along the line we screwed up”
We? We??? Who the fuck is “we”???
Me? You? Mike Smithson on an off day?
It’s absurd. This is now a crippling intellectual reflex. You guys thrive on self hatred and guilt, esp if that guilt can be slightly shifted to “someone more right wing than me”. Grow up
Leon with the greatest respect you are a fool. YOUR reaction was to talk about “our fault” and rant about lefties like a teenager trying to escape blame.
In my view, our security is our responsibility. No one else’s. We used to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. Somewhere along the line we forgot that.
Our big stick is Trident. A stick we can never wield.
Some times a big stick standing quietly on the corner is sufficient
How is our having Trident impacting on a US/NATO response to Ukraine.
"Yay guys, we just nuked Volgograd! Hope that helps the combined effort at applying pressure..."
If Ukraine still had nukes do think Russia would be behaving like this?
Russia wouldn't be behaving like THIS. But they would have used every possible covert method to install a pro-Moscow government there - and had the nukes shipped back to Mother Russia.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
We have nukes as a defence of last resort.
If Putin invaded most of Eastern Europe, the low countries and Germany he would hesitate about invading France and us as we have nuclear weapons. If Ukraine still had nuclear weapons Putin would not be threatening it now.
Putin also knows if he launched a nuclear strike on us we would respond with a nuclear strike on Moscow using Trident
Vaguely on topic, South Korea isn't the only election where "the right" are likely to do well this weekend. The regional election in Castile & Leon (I wouldn't vote for him) should be another step forward for VOX at the expense of PSOE, PP and Citizens.
I'm wary of these late polls as they tend to badly underestimate PP - the latest small sample panel poll has them down two points and no change in seat numbers. PSOE is down more (eight points) with VOX up twelve and Citizens down ten. Other winners are United Podemos and Empty Spain who look set to win six seats between them.
In terms of seats, PP (29) and VOX (13) combined will have a majority in the regional Cortes with a projected 42 of 81 seats leaving PSOE on 28 and other parties on 11.
I'm not entirely convinced but we'll know tomorrow evening.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
Top jobs pay less in the public than private sector but you get a better pension. Fair enough
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Good news for those facing increased energy bills you'd think.
I fear we will pay for this down the line - I'm putting my neck on the line and predicting a wet start to summer and soggy Platinum Jubilee celebrations I fear.
Putin is a Russian imperialist, and as mad as a March hare, I daresay he is quite content to leave the Kremlin feet first in a box as a Russian hero and patriot. How can one counter that attitude?
Putin serves at the pleasure of the 100 people who own 35% of the Russian economy. Completely fuck their economy and he'll be gone.
I have a better idea that avoids hurting ordinary people. We target the kleptos (inc Putin) who've been taking the Russian people to the cleaners ever since they were freed from Communism. Joe Biden has decided to give billions of the Afghan government's money to the 9/11 victims right? Ok, so what we can do, seizing on that precedent, is not just freeze Russian robber baron assets but commandeer them for good causes. Many uses for the money spring to mind - eg reversing the cuts to overseas aid (my choice) or if we want to keep it domestic I'd suggest paying the energy bills of everyone on a low income.
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Is the British winter ever NOT a drag?
A ‘drag” seems to be the minimum. A relatively OK winter. Lots of relentlessly grey, dark, overcast weather. But hints of sun and mild, so more tolerable
That’s the British winter at its best. Draggy. Really goes on at least a month too long. Maybe 2 months, What is the fucking point of February?
Far worse are the cold, rainy winters, which chase you indoors even in the brief hours of daylight
Or the occasional fierce snowy winters, which we are not prepared for, and which are fun for 36 hours then horrible
Lockdown 3 was a uniquely hellish combo of all these with extra extra dystopia. No pubs. Nuffink
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
Top jobs pay less in the public than private sector but you get a better pension. Fair enough
Oldies putting their costs on the never never again, and leaving it for their grand kids to pay off later on. Lovely jubbly.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
Top jobs pay less in the public than private sector but you get a better pension. Fair enough
I disagree. Once upon a time that might have been true, but now a public sector pension is worth so much more and I have much more sympathy with @Sandpit on this. The value of the pension if added to the salary instead will usually completely and utterly outstrip a private sector salary as it is worth so much. I really don't think public sector workers appreciate the value of their pension. If it is £106K per year that is absolutely mind boggling in terms of the contributions to buy that in the private sector especially in relation to her salary.
Also why do these people get 2 year contracts that result in such a big payoff. The longest contract I have ever received is 3 months.
Dearie dearie me. Con MPs really are a spineless bunch.
Not actually true and malicious of the police
“Equivalent to being interviewed under caution” means “not being interviewed under caution”.
But the media runs with a different story which is not actually true.
Yes, a bit like women being tried for witchcraft by holding them under water.
“Equivalent to being drowned” means “not being drowned”. You’re a jurisprudence genius.
The police are a bunch of cowards. Drag the useless oaf in and give him the full works. I recommend “Bad cop; bad cop”.
Comparing the 'stories' could be 'interesting'. Word for word all the same or wildly different. I would expect the former, TBH.
That is exactly what crossed my mind. Those forms are going to be littered with glaring inconsistencies.
If they’re not, then the witnesses are coordinating their responses, which I assume in itself breaks the law? @DavidL or any other lawyers about?
I still find these questionnaires an utterly bizarre way of going about this investigation.
Given how important it is, the Met really should pull their finger out and arrange 50 interviews (or whatever the number is) of the people involved. This is not difficult to do. I can tell them how to do it, if they're really stuck.
An interview of a potential suspect should comply with the provisions of PACE. A suspect is entitled to have a lawyer present and, critically, is not obliged to provide any answers at all.
Even if the questionnaire has the relevant PACE caution written at the top of it, a person receiving it has no obligation whatsoever to answer it. They are also entitled to take advice from a lawyer before sending in any sort of reply.
It is also worth noting that there is no law preventing people who were at the same event from talking to each other about it though they would have to be careful not to stray into behaviour which might amount to perverting the course of justice. This, though, is quite hard to prove and simply talking to another person present is not sufficient.
I certainly would not answer such a questionnaire. Nor would I advise a client of mine to do so. The very minimum I would want is to see the evidence the police claim to have and to ask them specifically what offence and on which dates and by reference to the specific Regulations (name, date, clause) they suspect me of having committed.
There is much talk of the rule of law. Well, it applies - much as I may dislike them politically - to the PM and his advisors and the No 10 staff etc, both with regard to the rules they have to follow and to how the police investigate any breaches by them.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
But it was your FIRST reaction. It’s OUR fault
“Somewhere along the line we screwed up”
We? We??? Who the fuck is “we”???
Me? You? Mike Smithson on an off day?
It’s absurd. This is now a crippling intellectual reflex. You guys thrive on self hatred and guilt, esp if that guilt can be slightly shifted to “someone more right wing than me”. Grow up
Leon with the greatest respect you are a fool. YOUR reaction was to talk about “our fault” and rant about lefties like a teenager trying to escape blame.
In my view, our security is our responsibility. No one else’s. We used to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. Somewhere along the line we forgot that.
Our big stick is Trident. A stick we can never wield.
Some times a big stick standing quietly on the corner is sufficient
How is our having Trident impacting on a US/NATO response to Ukraine.
"Yay guys, we just nuked Volgograd! Hope that helps the combined effort at applying pressure..."
If Ukraine still had nukes do think Russia would be behaving like this?
Russia wouldn't be behaving like THIS. But they would have used every possible covert method to install a pro-Moscow government there - and had the nukes shipped back to Mother Russia.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
But that’s the advantage of using them - it saving an estimated 1m US lives. Morally people would not be comfortable with that.
The reality is that if Russia had them and the West did not we would be in a bad place. So given the technology exists we need to have them.
It’s like insurance- you pay a fortune and hope you never need it
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
But it was your FIRST reaction. It’s OUR fault
“Somewhere along the line we screwed up”
We? We??? Who the fuck is “we”???
Me? You? Mike Smithson on an off day?
It’s absurd. This is now a crippling intellectual reflex. You guys thrive on self hatred and guilt, esp if that guilt can be slightly shifted to “someone more right wing than me”. Grow up
Leon with the greatest respect you are a fool. YOUR reaction was to talk about “our fault” and rant about lefties like a teenager trying to escape blame.
In my view, our security is our responsibility. No one else’s. We used to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. Somewhere along the line we forgot that.
Our big stick is Trident. A stick we can never wield.
Some times a big stick standing quietly on the corner is sufficient
How is our having Trident impacting on a US/NATO response to Ukraine.
"Yay guys, we just nuked Volgograd! Hope that helps the combined effort at applying pressure..."
If Ukraine still had nukes do think Russia would be behaving like this?
Russia wouldn't be behaving like THIS. But they would have used every possible covert method to install a pro-Moscow government there - and had the nukes shipped back to Mother Russia.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
We have nukes as a defence of last resort.
If Putin invaded most of Eastern Europe, the low countries and Germany he would hesitate about invading France and us as we have nuclear weapons. If Ukraine still had nuclear weapons Putin would not be threatening it now.
Putin also knows if he launched a nuclear strike on us we would respond with a nuclear strike on Moscow using Trident
The reason Putin wouldn't invade most of Eastern Europe is because of NATO and the US nuclear arsenal. It has nothing to do with what weapons we or France hold. You think any US President wants us firing off nukes on our own? They would give us reassurances that the job of reversing Russian aggression would be done by using conventional forces.
The only time we need nuclear weapons for deterrent is where NATO folds and the US becomes isolationist. Neither of those look to be scenarios that will come about. Meanwhile, we could be making a far better contribution to our national security by having a force that could play havoc with Russia - from a desktop.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
I don't know about "we". But in the spirit of honest enquiry I'd like to understand something. I despise Russian expansionist nationalism just as I despise it in anyone else, and I don't have any sympathy with Putin throwing his weight around, let alone invading. But I don't understand the Ukrainian position either. They agreed to regional autonomy for the pro-Russian east and fresh elections there, but are now reluctant as they don't want an additional bunch of pro-Putin MPs in Kiev. OK, but what what they like to happen apart from Putin buggering off? Presumably not an unrepresented eastern sector forever. Perhaps a confederation where neither part gets to run the other, or what?
The agreed to that under the threat of military invasion and annexation of a second part of their country.
Yes, I know. And I'm not saying they need to deliver. But they presumably have an idea of what they would like to happen to the pro-Russian east in the long term, beyond "accept our rule, and you don't get a say". Confederation?
I am not sure how Pro-Russian the Donets was. The Russians didn't find it as welcoming as they expected, and since then the demographics have shifted. A lot of ethnic Russians have moved from poorer Ukraine to slightly richer Russia. East Ukraine, outside the Donbas is more Ukranian than it used to be. Khakis is a good example of this.
The Minsk agreement was forced on Ukraine, but there is no realistic chance of Ukraine regaining control of Crimea and the Donbas.
I think Putin wants to consolidate these, hence the building of a bridge over the Kerch strait, but still feels that a rather tenuous supply line, and would want to control the oblasts along the North shore of the Sea of Azov and the Crimean isthmus. Perhaps Odesa and the remainder of the Black Sea coast too.
If he achieved that then Ukraine is finished as a meaningfully independent state. It would become like Belorussia.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
I don't know about "we". But in the spirit of honest enquiry I'd like to understand something. I despise Russian expansionist nationalism just as I despise it in anyone else, and I don't have any sympathy with Putin throwing his weight around, let alone invading. But I don't understand the Ukrainian position either. They agreed to regional autonomy for the pro-Russian east and fresh elections there, but are now reluctant as they don't want an additional bunch of pro-Putin MPs in Kiev. OK, but what what they like to happen apart from Putin buggering off? Presumably not an unrepresented eastern sector forever. Perhaps a confederation where neither part gets to run the other, or what?
The agreed to that under the threat of military invasion and annexation of a second part of their country.
Yes, I know. And I'm not saying they need to deliver. But they presumably have an idea of what they would like to happen to the pro-Russian east in the long term, beyond "accept our rule, and you don't get a say". Confederation?
I am not sure how Pro-Russian the Donets was. The Russians didn't find it as welcoming as they expected, and since then the demographics have shifted. A lot of ethnic Russians have moved from poorer Ukraine to slightly richer Russia. East Ukraine, outside the Donbas is more Ukranian than it used to be. Khakis is a good example of this.
The Minsk agreement was forced on Ukraine, but there is no realistic chance of Ukraine regaining control of Crimea and the Donbas.
I think Putin wants to consolidate these, hence the building of a bridge over the Kerch strait, but still feels that a rather tenuous supply line, and would want to control the oblasts along the North shore of the Sea of Azov and the Crimean isthmus. Perhaps Odesa and the remainder of the Black Sea coast too.
If he achieved that then Ukraine is finished as a meaningfully independent state. It would become like Belorussia.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
Proles get nothing. It is the upper middle who get a month or two off with full pay. And the top who get a year or twos pay.
Not in any business I’ve worked in that has made redundancies and there have been a few. The proles, like me, always got their notice period paid in full.
She is not being made redundant, there will still be a head of the Met. She is resigning because her boss told her to step up. If you resign for that reason do you get a payoff?
Avoids a constructive dismissal claim which would likely succeed
It would be bad manners to comment on decisions of my estimable successors at the @EHRC David Isaac and Kishwer Falkner, both appointed in much the same way as I was.But I served a three full terms at CRE/EHRC under both Labour administrations and Tory/Lib Dem coalition…..1/5
…so being the only other person to go through the proposed UN process may I respectfully suggest to @EHRC critics that they consider the irony of arraigning Falkner before a body whose expert committee recently appointed as its rapporteur a longtime representative from….2/5
……Uganda, where homosexual acts get you life in prison; or demanding that a Pakistani heritage Muslim woman be judged by a body whose advisory group proudly features representatives from Saudi Arabia, China and Russia given their records on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights….3/5
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Is the British winter ever NOT a drag?
A ‘drag” seems to be the minimum. A relatively OK winter. Lots of relentlessly grey, dark, overcast weather. But hints of sun and mild, so more tolerable
That’s the British winter at its best. Draggy. Really goes on at least a month too long. Maybe 2 months, What is the fucking point of February?
Far worse are the cold, rainy winters, which chase you indoors even in the brief hours of daylight
Or the occasional fierce snowy winters, which we are not prepared for, and which are fun for 36 hours then horrible
Lockdown 3 was a uniquely hellish combo of all these with extra extra dystopia. No pubs. Nuffink
Oh my lord
The worst bit is this: you count down to the earliest nightfall/shortest day and when that is past you think Yay, made it! Survived great war 1914-17. Then you get to now with 2 hours more daylight, and what the daylight reveals is so bleak you think it would look better shrouded in night
Vaguely on topic, South Korea isn't the only election where "the right" are likely to do well this weekend. The regional election in Castile & Leon (I wouldn't vote for him) should be another step forward for VOX at the expense of PSOE, PP and Citizens.
I'm wary of these late polls as they tend to badly underestimate PP - the latest small sample panel poll has them down two points and no change in seat numbers. PSOE is down more (eight points) with VOX up twelve and Citizens down ten. Other winners are United Podemos and Empty Spain who look set to win six seats between them.
In terms of seats, PP (29) and VOX (13) combined will have a majority in the regional Cortes with a projected 42 of 81 seats leaving PSOE on 28 and other parties on 11.
I'm not entirely convinced but we'll know tomorrow evening.
Interesting polling here on the shift away from Trump to Republican in US polling.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
Proles get nothing. It is the upper middle who get a month or two off with full pay. And the top who get a year or twos pay.
Not in any business I’ve worked in that has made redundancies and there have been a few. The proles, like me, always got their notice period paid in full.
She is not being made redundant, there will still be a head of the Met. She is resigning because her boss told her to step up. If you resign for that reason do you get a payoff?
Yes I know she is resigning and if it is in the contract then it is in the contract. Unfair as it is and it is not right. But won’t change.
Branagh is one of the most talented actors of our times, but he can't do Poirot and he insists on doing Poirot.
And he can sort-of do humour e.g. Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter which he did passably well. Still not a patch on the brilliant Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney though.
He was good in Wallender, not quite as good as Krister Henriksson in the Swedish version but pretty good.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
But it was your FIRST reaction. It’s OUR fault
“Somewhere along the line we screwed up”
We? We??? Who the fuck is “we”???
Me? You? Mike Smithson on an off day?
It’s absurd. This is now a crippling intellectual reflex. You guys thrive on self hatred and guilt, esp if that guilt can be slightly shifted to “someone more right wing than me”. Grow up
Leon with the greatest respect you are a fool. YOUR reaction was to talk about “our fault” and rant about lefties like a teenager trying to escape blame.
In my view, our security is our responsibility. No one else’s. We used to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. Somewhere along the line we forgot that.
Our big stick is Trident. A stick we can never wield.
Some times a big stick standing quietly on the corner is sufficient
How is our having Trident impacting on a US/NATO response to Ukraine.
"Yay guys, we just nuked Volgograd! Hope that helps the combined effort at applying pressure..."
If Ukraine still had nukes do think Russia would be behaving like this?
Russia wouldn't be behaving like THIS. But they would have used every possible covert method to install a pro-Moscow government there - and had the nukes shipped back to Mother Russia.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
But that’s the advantage of using them - it saving an estimated 1m US lives. Morally people would not be comfortable with that.
The reality is that if Russia had them and the West did not we would be in a bad place. So given the technology exists we need to have them.
It’s like insurance- you pay a fortune and hope you never need it
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in that narrow window when the US had no risk of equivalent destruction. Once every major power had them, that went away. And so did the ability to use nukes.
America and its nuclear weapons arsenal is the backbone of NATO. It pays the insurance. Why would we have our own insurance in place? We are paying a fortune - for some policy we can never claim on.
Dearie dearie me. Con MPs really are a spineless bunch.
Not actually true and malicious of the police
“Equivalent to being interviewed under caution” means “not being interviewed under caution”.
But the media runs with a different story which is not actually true.
Yes, a bit like women being tried for witchcraft by holding them under water.
“Equivalent to being drowned” means “not being drowned”. You’re a jurisprudence genius.
The police are a bunch of cowards. Drag the useless oaf in and give him the full works. I recommend “Bad cop; bad cop”.
Comparing the 'stories' could be 'interesting'. Word for word all the same or wildly different. I would expect the former, TBH.
That is exactly what crossed my mind. Those forms are going to be littered with glaring inconsistencies.
If they’re not, then the witnesses are coordinating their responses, which I assume in itself breaks the law? @DavidL or any other lawyers about?
I still find these questionnaires an utterly bizarre way of going about this investigation.
Given how important it is, the Met really should pull their finger out and arrange 50 interviews (or whatever the number is) of the people involved. This is not difficult to do. I can tell them how to do it, if they're really stuck.
An interview of a potential suspect should comply with the provisions of PACE. A suspect is entitled to have a lawyer present and, critically, is not obliged to provide any answers at all.
Even if the questionnaire has the relevant PACE caution written at the top of it, a person receiving it has no obligation whatsoever to answer it. They are also entitled to take advice from a lawyer before sending in any sort of reply.
It is also worth noting that there is no law preventing people who were at the same event from talking to each other about it though they would have to be careful not to stray into behaviour which might amount to perverting the course of justice. This, though, is quite hard to prove and simply talking to another person present is not sufficient.
I certainly would not answer such a questionnaire. Nor would I advise a client of mine to do so. The very minimum I would want is to see the evidence the police claim to have and to ask them specifically what offence and on which dates and by reference to the specific Regulations (name, date, clause) they suspect me of having committed.
There is much talk of the rule of law. Well, it applies - much as I may dislike them politically - to the PM and his advisors and the No 10 staff etc, both with regard to the rules they have to follow and to how the police investigate any breaches by them.
It's the optics innit, photo of PM voluntarily attending police station
Actually PACE interviews can be anywhere, but interviewing copper entering 10 DS looks equally bad
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
I don't know about "we". But in the spirit of honest enquiry I'd like to understand something. I despise Russian expansionist nationalism just as I despise it in anyone else, and I don't have any sympathy with Putin throwing his weight around, let alone invading. But I don't understand the Ukrainian position either. They agreed to regional autonomy for the pro-Russian east and fresh elections there, but are now reluctant as they don't want an additional bunch of pro-Putin MPs in Kiev. OK, but what what they like to happen apart from Putin buggering off? Presumably not an unrepresented eastern sector forever. Perhaps a confederation where neither part gets to run the other, or what?
The agreed to that under the threat of military invasion and annexation of a second part of their country.
Yes, I know. And I'm not saying they need to deliver. But they presumably have an idea of what they would like to happen to the pro-Russian east in the long term, beyond "accept our rule, and you don't get a say". Confederation?
I am not sure how Pro-Russian the Donets was. The Russians didn't find it as welcoming as they expected, and since then the demographics have shifted. A lot of ethnic Russians have moved from poorer Ukraine to slightly richer Russia. East Ukraine, outside the Donbas is more Ukranian than it used to be. Khakis is a good example of this.
The Minsk agreement was forced on Ukraine, but there is no realistic chance of Ukraine regaining control of Crimea and the Donbas.
I think Putin wants to consolidate these, hence the building of a bridge over the Kerch strait, but still feels that a rather tenuous supply line, and would want to control the oblasts along the North shore of the Sea of Azov and the Crimean isthmus. Perhaps Odesa and the remainder of the Black Sea coast too.
If he achieved that then Ukraine is finished as a meaningfully independent state. It would become like Belorussia.
Yes, Odesa would be the big prize. It would cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea, and give Russia control of Ukraines major avenue of trade. Most of the coastal oblasts are relatively small populations so easier to occupy.
Branagh is one of the most talented actors of our times, but he can't do Poirot and he insists on doing Poirot.
And he can sort-of do humour e.g. Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter which he did passably well. Still not a patch on the brilliant Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney though.
He was good in Wallender, not quite as good as Krister Henriksson in the Swedish version but pretty good.
He played the ending of Wallender exceptionally well, I thought.
I saw him on the stage in the 80s with his Shakespeare company and he was one of the most mesmeric talents I have ever seen.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
One thing I've noticed that is quite common amongst some educated Westerners though is the argument about how we'd feel if a Russian military alliance expanded to the doorstep of the USA. Which is exactly the Kremlin line. The anachronistic 'spheres of influence' argument cuts across the self-determination of any country small or unlucky enough to be in the way.
NATO is wholly defensive and doesn't conquer or annex territory by force; it's entirely rational for the Baltic States to join or exactly the same thing would have happened to them as has happened to Ukraine.
Would you care if Ireland entered into a military alliance with China and the PLAAF put a J-16 division into Casement?
If there were Chinese troops in Ireland, that would worry me a great deal. If there were America troops in Ireland, it would not. I wonder if you can work out why I feel very differently about the two scenarios.
It is because Ireland is not in the Middle East or South America or anywhere else that has been on the sharp end of regime change?
Sorry, my unspoken assumption is that in either case the troops were there by the express invitation of the Irish. Obviously if Ireland were invaded by America, I would certainly not be happy about it.
Speaking of Ireland, President Biden's Irish heritage mother supposedly hated England so much she refused to even sleep in the same bed as the Queen had once slept in at the White House
My (Irish) mother refused to shake Prince Charles' hand when he visited the school at which she was Head of Music. She said he could pat her poodle (called Josh) instead so he did.
I hope it bit him
Why do you hope that?
It was just a joke. I don't really hope the dog bit him. Not unless the dog had been vaccinated.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
And if you are self employed, like me, there is literally nothing at all. Hey ho.
The rest of the Mail story shows the problem I highlighted yesterday. Patel is allegedly "furious" that Kahn has landed this mess on her doorstep. She is not speaking to him and its mutual. The salary is fantastic and the pension almost beyond belief but who would want to put themselves between those two when they both want to score political points off the other at your expense?
The current structure of a large number national resources being administered by the Met really doesn't work. They should be hived off and the HS should be directly accountable for them whilst the Met is accountable to the Mayor.
I don't think there is anyone on here that has spent more than 30 seconds looking at the Met and not decided that the best approach would be to split it in 2.
The question is where do you put all the non-London bits, direct to the Home Office, a new police force(s) or attach it to the Transport Police or a combination of all 3.
But you are right the responsibility for the Met Police should sit with London's mayor and everything that changes that rule should go.
While I do expect a government power grab, I'm by no means convinced one is desirable.
Yes I know she is resigning and if it is in the contract then it is in the contract. Unfair as it is and it is not right. But won’t change.
The view on here seems to be that if you contribute to your pension via an in-house scheme and then you are dismissed from your post, you forfeit any benefits accrued into a scheme into which you paid?
It's not true of all public sector pension schemes but certainly for local Government (and I believe civil service though I may be wrong) both employee and employer make contributions into the scheme. Recently, the level of employee contributions has been rising and for those higher up the salary level, the amount added each month is considerable (though as a proportion of salary not so much).
The more the higher paid staff put in, the more it's affordable for those further down the food chain but everyone is contributing up to 7.5% of salary each month and for those higher up, even more.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
Top jobs pay less in the public than private sector but you get a better pension. Fair enough
I disagree. Once upon a time that might have been true, but now a public sector pension is worth so much more and I have much more sympathy with @Sandpit on this. The value of the pension if added to the salary instead will usually completely and utterly outstrip a private sector salary as it is worth so much. I really don't think public sector workers appreciate the value of their pension. If it is £106K per year that is absolutely mind boggling in terms of the contributions to buy that in the private sector especially in relation to her salary.
Also why do these people get 2 year contracts that result in such a big payoff. The longest contract I have ever received is 3 months.
Especially as well-paid people in the private sector can't put anything into their pension tax-free now. So assuming they are taxed at 45% when they are earning and 40% when they receive their pension, they face a marginal tax rate of 67%.
Yes I know she is resigning and if it is in the contract then it is in the contract. Unfair as it is and it is not right. But won’t change.
The view on here seems to be that if you contribute to your pension via an in-house scheme and then you are dismissed from your post, you forfeit any benefits accrued into a scheme into which you paid?
It's not true of all public sector pension schemes but certainly for local Government (and I believe civil service though I may be wrong) both employee and employer make contributions into the scheme. Recently, the level of employee contributions has been rising and for those higher up the salary level, the amount added each month is considerable (though as a proportion of salary not so much).
The more the higher paid staff put in, the more it's affordable for those further down the food chain but everyone is contributing up to 7.5% of salary each month and for those higher up, even more.
I don't think you can lose your accrued pension entitlement whatever goes on. iirc it is pension law that the accrued benefits are locked in. I think that is right, but happy to be corrected.
Opinium has changed their methodology so tonight's poll could show a considerably reduced Labour lead of about 4% which should boost Johnson massively.
Biden is so fucked the GOP are starting to realise that anybody could beat him and they don't need Trump to fire up the deplorable base. They are starting to think they can win with a MAGA adjacent candidate who doesn't come with Trump's considerable baggage.
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Is the British winter ever NOT a drag?
A ‘drag” seems to be the minimum. A relatively OK winter. Lots of relentlessly grey, dark, overcast weather. But hints of sun and mild, so more tolerable
That’s the British winter at its best. Draggy. Really goes on at least a month too long. Maybe 2 months, What is the fucking point of February?
Far worse are the cold, rainy winters, which chase you indoors even in the brief hours of daylight
Or the occasional fierce snowy winters, which we are not prepared for, and which are fun for 36 hours then horrible
Lockdown 3 was a uniquely hellish combo of all these with extra extra dystopia. No pubs. Nuffink
Oh my lord
I would happily forsake the ludicrously long summer evenings for more daylight in winter.
The trouble is, I've lived most of my life in warmer climes and you never really get over just how godawful British winter is.
When my youngest child finally flies the nest I'm off out of this country. I have nothing in common with it anymore. So you can wallow in your Brexit misery into your dotage, Leon my friend. If you've got any sense, like most ardent Brexiteers you won't actually live in the Britain you created.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Same reason people in the private sector are compensated for "loss of office" (or at least the ones well above my paygrade). Because it is the boss class who write the contracts.
But it is our money she is beiing loaded up with.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
The price of failure and mediocrity when you reach a certain level is a very good pay off. It is not her but the whole system. Sadly it is just us proles who get a month or two in lieu of notice and off you go.
Proles get nothing. It is the upper middle who get a month or two off with full pay. And the top who get a year or twos pay.
Not in any business I’ve worked in that has made redundancies and there have been a few. The proles, like me, always got their notice period paid in full.
She is not being made redundant, there will still be a head of the Met. She is resigning because her boss told her to step up. If you resign for that reason do you get a payoff?
Avoids a constructive dismissal claim which would likely succeed
Avoids a constructive dismissal claim which would be embarrassing for the Home Sec and Mayor more like.
Horrifically poor voter retention for the Liberal Democrats. Lots of LDs planning on voting Labour, but no reciprocation.
2019 UK GE voters - how they’ll vote next time:
Con: Con 84% Lab 5% LD 3% Grn 1%
Lab: Lab 91% Grn 9% Con 0 LD 0
LD: LD 58% Lab 36% Grn 3% Con 0
Grn: Grn 87% Lab 4% LD 3% Con 1%
(Techne; 8-9 February; 1,631)
There will be lots of reciprocation where there's a marginal seat in which the LibDems are unquestionably 2nd to the Tories. But in a national poll on "who would you support?" it doesn't show up. Similarly, I suspect only some of the 9% of 2019 Labour voters now saying "Green" will actually refuse to vote Labour in a marginal where Labour is close to the Tories.
The bloc pattern is striking and a bit depressing for those of us who like dialogue. How many 2019 Tories will vote for a centre-left party? 9%. How many Lab/LibDem voters will vote Tory? 0%. That means that the election, if held tomorrow, would depend almost entirely on tactical voting and differential abstention.
This is the inevitable consequence of a significant part of one side swing the other as evil, once it gets noticed by the public. Why should voters switch to you when your deputy leader thinks you are "scum"?
Opinium has changed their methodology so tonight's poll could show a considerably reduced Labour lead of about 4% which should boost Johnson massively.
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Good news for those facing increased energy bills you'd think.
I fear we will pay for this down the line - I'm putting my neck on the line and predicting a wet start to summer and soggy Platinum Jubilee celebrations I fear.
Would not give a monkey's about the Jubilee but having had wet and soggy winter one can only hope we don't continue in that vein.
Biden is so fucked the GOP are starting to realise that anybody could beat him and they don't need Trump to fire up the deplorable base. They are starting to think they can win with a MAGA adjacent candidate who doesn't come with Trump's considerable baggage.
Sure, not convinced that Desantis would be a good President, but from the betting perspective the polling tide is running against Trump, albeit with him in pole position still.
Dearie dearie me. Con MPs really are a spineless bunch.
Not actually true and malicious of the police
“Equivalent to being interviewed under caution” means “not being interviewed under caution”.
But the media runs with a different story which is not actually true.
Yes, a bit like women being tried for witchcraft by holding them under water.
“Equivalent to being drowned” means “not being drowned”. You’re a jurisprudence genius.
The police are a bunch of cowards. Drag the useless oaf in and give him the full works. I recommend “Bad cop; bad cop”.
Comparing the 'stories' could be 'interesting'. Word for word all the same or wildly different. I would expect the former, TBH.
That is exactly what crossed my mind. Those forms are going to be littered with glaring inconsistencies.
If they’re not, then the witnesses are coordinating their responses, which I assume in itself breaks the law? @DavidL or any other lawyers about?
I still find these questionnaires an utterly bizarre way of going about this investigation.
Given how important it is, the Met really should pull their finger out and arrange 50 interviews (or whatever the number is) of the people involved. This is not difficult to do. I can tell them how to do it, if they're really stuck.
An interview of a potential suspect should comply with the provisions of PACE. A suspect is entitled to have a lawyer present and, critically, is not obliged to provide any answers at all.
Even if the questionnaire has the relevant PACE caution written at the top of it, a person receiving it has no obligation whatsoever to answer it. They are also entitled to take advice from a lawyer before sending in any sort of reply.
It is also worth noting that there is no law preventing people who were at the same event from talking to each other about it though they would have to be careful not to stray into behaviour which might amount to perverting the course of justice. This, though, is quite hard to prove and simply talking to another person present is not sufficient.
I certainly would not answer such a questionnaire. Nor would I advise a client of mine to do so. The very minimum I would want is to see the evidence the police claim to have and to ask them specifically what offence and on which dates and by reference to the specific Regulations (name, date, clause) they suspect me of having committed.
There is much talk of the rule of law. Well, it applies - much as I may dislike them politically - to the PM and his advisors and the No 10 staff etc, both with regard to the rules they have to follow and to how the police investigate any breaches by them.
What about the idea, from the mound of Sue Gray evidence and photo’s (checked for fake news) they have a picture for each suspect. If the suspect fesses up on the questionnaire that matches the picture, quick win for a fine. If answers back point to lying, they can interview those under caution? Which would probably be fun for the officers, knowing they got suspect over a barrel.
Boris will say he was in the flat where ‘ding dong the Dom is gone’ party took place, but was working in a separate part of it. Because of silly answers like that IMO things have very much changed in the last few weeks, with no one now believing he can survive, including himself.
Tick tock - seems to be a PB meme. Not believing he can survive is the most fatal thing so I am sticking to prediction he is gone in less than a fortnight from today.
Yours, Inspector Jade Investigates (not played by Kenneth Branagh) 🎭
Well I’m back from the ban. 😇 I still don’t know why I was banned, but my horse tipping leading up to it was a terrible tale of WHOA! for sure and couldn’t have done me any favours.
You haven’t missed anythin, over last two Saturdays had just one winner, at Cheltenham, though I was on Champ and thought I had a double. The Cheltenham meeting was great to watch wasn’t it?
4 horses I am backing today on a Lucky 15 slip.
NEWBURY 13:50 Risk And Roll When people ask me what is the hardest thing about learning to ride a horse, my answer is the ground. It’s a risk and all that for sure. It was height of summer, rock hard ground, we were taking it in turns to gallop Overalls across the field, I had a short skirt on that quickly went up my back, and my knickers disappearing in both cracks I took my hands off to sort it all out and the horse left me behind. I couldn’t breath or move, but it didn’t stop them gathering round me giggling their heads off.
WARWICK 14:05 Brave Seasca Betting against a strong favourite here. Obviously my lucky15 is a win bet, but I am tipping this 7 year old as an each way bet.
NEWBURY 14:25 De Rasher Counter The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay - beloved, let your eyes half close and your heart beat over my heart, your hair fall over my breast, drowning love's lonely hour, in deep twilight of rest…
NEWBURY 15:35 Tritonic Last week I had a long shot that came in at twenty-five to one. But all the other horses had already finished at twelve thirty. Whatever warning Stodge gives you this week about backing his tips, copy and paste that against mine as well.
Well I’m back from the ban. 😇 I still don’t know why I was banned, but my horse tipping leading up to it was a terrible tale of WHOA! for sure and couldn’t have done me any favours.
You haven’t missed anythin, over last two Saturdays had just one winner, at Cheltenham, though I was on Champ and thought I had a double. The Cheltenham meeting was great to watch wasn’t it?
4 horses I am backing today on a Lucky 15 slip.
NEWBURY 13:50 Risk And Roll When people ask me what is the hardest thing about learning to ride a horse, my answer is the ground. It’s a risk and all that for sure. It was height of summer, rock hard ground, we were taking it in turns to gallop Overalls across the field, I had a short skirt on that quickly went up my back, and my knickers disappearing in both cracks I took my hands off to sort it all out and the horse left me behind. I couldn’t breath or move, but it didn’t stop them gathering round me giggling their heads off.
WARWICK 14:05 Brave Seasca Betting against a strong favourite here. Obviously my lucky15 is a win bet, but I am tipping this 7 year old as an each way bet.
NEWBURY 14:25 De Rasher Counter The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay - beloved, let your eyes half close and your heart beat over my heart, your hair fall over my breast, drowning love's lonely hour, in deep twilight of rest…
NEWBURY 15:35 Tritonic Last week I had a long shot that came in at twenty-five to one. But all the other horses had already finished at twelve thirty. Whatever warning Stodge gives you this week about backing his tips, copy and paste that against mine as well.
Good Luck PB 🐎 punters 🙋♀️
I avoid the gee-gees as I don't know what I'm doing but it's really nice to see a betting post.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
But it was your FIRST reaction. It’s OUR fault
“Somewhere along the line we screwed up”
We? We??? Who the fuck is “we”???
Me? You? Mike Smithson on an off day?
It’s absurd. This is now a crippling intellectual reflex. You guys thrive on self hatred and guilt, esp if that guilt can be slightly shifted to “someone more right wing than me”. Grow up
Leon with the greatest respect you are a fool. YOUR reaction was to talk about “our fault” and rant about lefties like a teenager trying to escape blame.
In my view, our security is our responsibility. No one else’s. We used to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. Somewhere along the line we forgot that.
Our big stick is Trident. A stick we can never wield.
Some times a big stick standing quietly on the corner is sufficient
How is our having Trident impacting on a US/NATO response to Ukraine.
"Yay guys, we just nuked Volgograd! Hope that helps the combined effort at applying pressure..."
If Ukraine still had nukes do think Russia would be behaving like this?
Russia wouldn't be behaving like THIS. But they would have used every possible covert method to install a pro-Moscow government there - and had the nukes shipped back to Mother Russia.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
But that’s the advantage of using them - it saving an estimated 1m US lives. Morally people would not be comfortable with that.
The reality is that if Russia had them and the West did not we would be in a bad place. So given the technology exists we need to have them.
It’s like insurance- you pay a fortune and hope you never need it
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in that narrow window when the US had no risk of equivalent destruction. Once every major power had them, that went away. And so did the ability to use nukes.
America and its nuclear weapons arsenal is the backbone of NATO. It pays the insurance. Why would we have our own insurance in place? We are paying a fortune - for some policy we can never claim on.
America is a friendly nation. But it has not always been so. And it may not be so in future.
Dearie dearie me. Con MPs really are a spineless bunch.
Not actually true and malicious of the police
“Equivalent to being interviewed under caution” means “not being interviewed under caution”.
But the media runs with a different story which is not actually true.
Yes, a bit like women being tried for witchcraft by holding them under water.
“Equivalent to being drowned” means “not being drowned”. You’re a jurisprudence genius.
The police are a bunch of cowards. Drag the useless oaf in and give him the full works. I recommend “Bad cop; bad cop”.
Comparing the 'stories' could be 'interesting'. Word for word all the same or wildly different. I would expect the former, TBH.
That is exactly what crossed my mind. Those forms are going to be littered with glaring inconsistencies.
If they’re not, then the witnesses are coordinating their responses, which I assume in itself breaks the law? @DavidL or any other lawyers about?
I still find these questionnaires an utterly bizarre way of going about this investigation.
Given how important it is, the Met really should pull their finger out and arrange 50 interviews (or whatever the number is) of the people involved. This is not difficult to do. I can tell them how to do it, if they're really stuck.
An interview of a potential suspect should comply with the provisions of PACE. A suspect is entitled to have a lawyer present and, critically, is not obliged to provide any answers at all.
Even if the questionnaire has the relevant PACE caution written at the top of it, a person receiving it has no obligation whatsoever to answer it. They are also entitled to take advice from a lawyer before sending in any sort of reply.
It is also worth noting that there is no law preventing people who were at the same event from talking to each other about it though they would have to be careful not to stray into behaviour which might amount to perverting the course of justice. This, though, is quite hard to prove and simply talking to another person present is not sufficient.
I certainly would not answer such a questionnaire. Nor would I advise a client of mine to do so. The very minimum I would want is to see the evidence the police claim to have and to ask them specifically what offence and on which dates and by reference to the specific Regulations (name, date, clause) they suspect me of having committed.
There is much talk of the rule of law. Well, it applies - much as I may dislike them politically - to the PM and his advisors and the No 10 staff etc, both with regard to the rules they have to follow and to how the police investigate any breaches by them.
What about the idea, from the mound of Sue Gray evidence and photo’s (checked for fake news) they have a picture for each suspect. If the suspect fesses up on the questionnaire that matches the picture, quick win for a fine. If answers back point to lying, they can interview those under caution? Which would probably be fun for the officers, knowing they got suspect over a barrel.
Boris will say he was in the flat where ‘ding dong the Dom is gone’ party took place, but was working in a separate part of it. Because of silly answers like that IMO things have very much changed in the last few weeks, with no one now believing he can survive, including himself.
Tick tock - seems to be a PB meme. Not believing he can survive is the most fatal thing so I am sticking to prediction he is gone in less than a fortnight from today.
Yours, Inspector Jade Investigates (not played by Kenneth Branagh) 🎭
Photos is a good point. Typically the police will disclose those at an interview under caution so you know what case you are meeting.
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
The payoff is one thing, she had a contract and the same thing would happen in the private sector.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
Top jobs pay less in the public than private sector but you get a better pension. Fair enough
I disagree. Once upon a time that might have been true, but now a public sector pension is worth so much more and I have much more sympathy with @Sandpit on this. The value of the pension if added to the salary instead will usually completely and utterly outstrip a private sector salary as it is worth so much. I really don't think public sector workers appreciate the value of their pension. If it is £106K per year that is absolutely mind boggling in terms of the contributions to buy that in the private sector especially in relation to her salary.
Also why do these people get 2 year contracts that result in such a big payoff. The longest contract I have ever received is 3 months.
Especially as well-paid people in the private sector can't put anything into their pension tax-free now. So assuming they are taxed at 45% when they are earning and 40% when they receive their pension, they face a marginal tax rate of 67%.
Same goes for the public sector. The police scheme is similar to the NHS one, though a bit more generous.
At the mooted £160 000 pa pension, the pension pot would be £3,600,000 so considerably above the lifetime allowance. About £2,500,000 would be liable to 55% tax as a result, unless the pension was protected some years ago, which does require opting out.
There would also be issues with the annual allowance at such rates and salary too, which can be quite penal, as I found out some years ago.
1. Europe 2. Europe 3. Disloyal colony 4. Europe 5. Europe 6. Europe 7. Evil Empire 1 8. Europe 9. Evil Empire 2 10. Japan
I think the BBC are going to have a breakdown of some sort, they’re reduced to talking up hard fought battles for 13th place. Someone should tell them it’s the taking part that’s important.
At least there’s a drastic reduction in dunderheids asking competitors ‘how does it feel’.
Vaguely on topic, South Korea isn't the only election where "the right" are likely to do well this weekend. The regional election in Castile & Leon (I wouldn't vote for him) should be another step forward for VOX at the expense of PSOE, PP and Citizens.
I'm wary of these late polls as they tend to badly underestimate PP - the latest small sample panel poll has them down two points and no change in seat numbers. PSOE is down more (eight points) with VOX up twelve and Citizens down ten. Other winners are United Podemos and Empty Spain who look set to win six seats between them.
In terms of seats, PP (29) and VOX (13) combined will have a majority in the regional Cortes with a projected 42 of 81 seats leaving PSOE on 28 and other parties on 11.
I'm not entirely convinced but we'll know tomorrow evening.
Interesting polling here on the shift away from Trump to Republican in US polling.
Biden is so fucked the GOP are starting to realise that anybody could beat him and they don't need Trump to fire up the deplorable base. They are starting to think they can win with a MAGA adjacent candidate who doesn't come with Trump's considerable baggage.
President Biden still tied with Trump 41% each on latest RedfieldWilton poll, while Trump leads VP Harris by 3%.
De Santis may not even be re elected as Florida governor in November, Charlie Crist beats him in some polls if he is Democratic nominee. In which case Pence would likely be the GOP nominee for President in 2024
Vaguely on topic, South Korea isn't the only election where "the right" are likely to do well this weekend. The regional election in Castile & Leon (I wouldn't vote for him) should be another step forward for VOX at the expense of PSOE, PP and Citizens.
I'm wary of these late polls as they tend to badly underestimate PP - the latest small sample panel poll has them down two points and no change in seat numbers. PSOE is down more (eight points) with VOX up twelve and Citizens down ten. Other winners are United Podemos and Empty Spain who look set to win six seats between them.
In terms of seats, PP (29) and VOX (13) combined will have a majority in the regional Cortes with a projected 42 of 81 seats leaving PSOE on 28 and other parties on 11.
I'm not entirely convinced but we'll know tomorrow evening.
Interesting polling here on the shift away from Trump to Republican in US polling.
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Is the British winter ever NOT a drag?
A ‘drag” seems to be the minimum. A relatively OK winter. Lots of relentlessly grey, dark, overcast weather. But hints of sun and mild, so more tolerable
That’s the British winter at its best. Draggy. Really goes on at least a month too long. Maybe 2 months, What is the fucking point of February?
Far worse are the cold, rainy winters, which chase you indoors even in the brief hours of daylight
Or the occasional fierce snowy winters, which we are not prepared for, and which are fun for 36 hours then horrible
Lockdown 3 was a uniquely hellish combo of all these with extra extra dystopia. No pubs. Nuffink
Oh my lord
I would happily forsake the ludicrously long summer evenings for more daylight in winter.
The trouble is, I've lived most of my life in warmer climes and you never really get over just how godawful British winter is.
When my youngest child finally flies the nest I'm off out of this country. I have nothing in common with it anymore. So you can wallow in your Brexit misery into your dotage, Leon my friend. If you've got any sense, like most ardent Brexiteers you won't actually live in the Britain you created.
Except most countries with significantly warmer climates than the UK are also more rightwing than the UK.
The countries which are more centre left than the UK eg Scandinavia and arguably Canada and Germany also have cold winters.
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Is the British winter ever NOT a drag?
A ‘drag” seems to be the minimum. A relatively OK winter. Lots of relentlessly grey, dark, overcast weather. But hints of sun and mild, so more tolerable
That’s the British winter at its best. Draggy. Really goes on at least a month too long. Maybe 2 months, What is the fucking point of February?
Far worse are the cold, rainy winters, which chase you indoors even in the brief hours of daylight
Or the occasional fierce snowy winters, which we are not prepared for, and which are fun for 36 hours then horrible
Lockdown 3 was a uniquely hellish combo of all these with extra extra dystopia. No pubs. Nuffink
Oh my lord
Britain is absurdly far north, that's the problem. Without the Gulf Stream it would be virtually uninhabitable. Only 4% of the world's population lives north of London. Less than 1% lives north of the part of Scotland I grew up in. In virtually any inhabited part of the world you will get more sunlight in winter than you do here. I don't find winters in London too bad, but that is probably because I was conditioned during childhood to experience far worse.
Partygate questionnaire recipients: If you ring round to co-ordinate your answers with fellow incredibly hard-working staff be careful you're not doing something which has a tendency to pervert the course of justice. https://twitter.com/Barristerblog/status/1492410437274640384
Why on Earth would anyone actually reply to an emailed questionnaire? Would any of the lawyers here recommend a client reply to something like this?
Don’t talk to the police, ever.
Because the subtext is we'll drag you down the station if you don't comply
Why do people who quit from senior public sector jobs always seem to qualify for a payout? According to the Mail Dick is expecting to be paid the remainder of her 2 year contract amounting to something close to £500k https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10504449/Cressida-Dick-Sadiq-Khan-war-500-000-payoff-plus-160-000-year-pension.htm She has resigned. She might look to claim that she was constructively dismissed because one of her employers expressed a lack of trust and confidence in her. He might reply for very good reasons and do you want a list?
But it will probably be resolved by a very expensive deal which will be concealed for "confidentialty" reasons. Bah.
Presumably it depends on the contractual terms. If true then it is utterly scandalous. Someone needs to ask a question in Parliament about this.
Biden is so fucked the GOP are starting to realise that anybody could beat him and they don't need Trump to fire up the deplorable base. They are starting to think they can win with a MAGA adjacent candidate who doesn't come with Trump's considerable baggage.
I've got both Trump and Biden laid. DeSantis vs a Dem yet to emerge is what I think we might see for WH24.
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Jonathan's point is a valid one that you have completely misunderstood.
My interpretation of his point is how have we unwittingly empowered Putin, given him the confidence, to reach this point?
It's nothing to do with your racial fixation. It might be however to do with the traditional "World Policemen" doing little about Putin's escalating outrageous behaviour. Maybe sequestering property from the Putin shills who own London after Salisbury, the Malaysian Airlines flight, and the invasion of Crimea, among other things might have focused minds.
I have now FORMALLY APOLOGISED to Jonathan for being a bit snippy. if he wants someone to blame (other than me) blame the Galle Face Hotel which has ill-advisedly gifted me a free stay with limitless free food and booze. Are they not aware of the risks?
In a way this is a good metaphor for our dealings with Putin, maybe. We offered him the all-you-can-eat curry buffet of ex-Soviet Republics and said Help Yourself, and have a beer as well (but the Baltics are like fine wines that carry a premium)
But, did we have much choice? I’m not sure. Russia is a great power with that intrinsic self belief and self confidence. It has a muscle memory of empire. I reckon we’ve done about as best we could with a Russia determined on expansion and with a clever and cunning military guy at the helm. We have contained it within the USSR as was
The time to stand up and physically fight will be if he he attacks NATO or - maybe - places outside the old Soviet Union
No need to apologise. It’s just an argument. Not personal. Who doesn’t enjoy being roasted by Leon?
The thing I would like to understand about this Ukraine situation is what changed. How did Putin come to the conclusion that war was possible and in his interests. Spool back 20 years and it would have been unthinkable.
Somewhere along the line we screwed up.
So, yet again, it’s OUR fault. Can’t it just be that we have a new breed of aggressive autocrats? Was Hitler OUR fault? Genghis Khan? The Roman Empire? The heat death of the Previous Universe?
At some point lefties will stop blaming whitey, the west, us, Britain, America, Israel, Western Europe, middle aged white men in particular, but I don’t expect this epiphany to happen anytime before the Chinese regime’s “Legal Enslavement of Whitey Act 2043”
Give it a rest Leon. “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” There will always be Barbarians at the gate. The trick is to have a gate and lock it.
But it was your FIRST reaction. It’s OUR fault
“Somewhere along the line we screwed up”
We? We??? Who the fuck is “we”???
Me? You? Mike Smithson on an off day?
It’s absurd. This is now a crippling intellectual reflex. You guys thrive on self hatred and guilt, esp if that guilt can be slightly shifted to “someone more right wing than me”. Grow up
Leon with the greatest respect you are a fool. YOUR reaction was to talk about “our fault” and rant about lefties like a teenager trying to escape blame.
In my view, our security is our responsibility. No one else’s. We used to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. Somewhere along the line we forgot that.
Our big stick is Trident. A stick we can never wield.
Some times a big stick standing quietly on the corner is sufficient
How is our having Trident impacting on a US/NATO response to Ukraine.
"Yay guys, we just nuked Volgograd! Hope that helps the combined effort at applying pressure..."
If Ukraine still had nukes do think Russia would be behaving like this?
Russia wouldn't be behaving like THIS. But they would have used every possible covert method to install a pro-Moscow government there - and had the nukes shipped back to Mother Russia.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
We have nukes as a defence of last resort.
If Putin invaded most of Eastern Europe, the low countries and Germany he would hesitate about invading France and us as we have nuclear weapons. If Ukraine still had nuclear weapons Putin would not be threatening it now.
Putin also knows if he launched a nuclear strike on us we would respond with a nuclear strike on Moscow using Trident
The reason Putin wouldn't invade most of Eastern Europe is because of NATO and the US nuclear arsenal. It has nothing to do with what weapons we or France hold. You think any US President wants us firing off nukes on our own? They would give us reassurances that the job of reversing Russian aggression would be done by using conventional forces.
The only time we need nuclear weapons for deterrent is where NATO folds and the US becomes isolationist. Neither of those look to be scenarios that will come about. Meanwhile, we could be making a far better contribution to our national security by having a force that could play havoc with Russia - from a desktop.
If Trump returns as US President the US would abandon NATO in all likelihood to focus on containing China. We would be on our own v Putin then
Why the fuck am I flying home tomorrow. I’m staring at the sunlit Indian Ocean from the verandah of a great British colonial Raj-era hotel. As flunkeys offer me weird free syllabubs that I do not want. Does it get better than that?
It has been delightfully sunny here. Whilst cold, there are hints of spring. That is joyous and touches the soul.
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
Is the British winter ever NOT a drag?
A ‘drag” seems to be the minimum. A relatively OK winter. Lots of relentlessly grey, dark, overcast weather. But hints of sun and mild, so more tolerable
That’s the British winter at its best. Draggy. Really goes on at least a month too long. Maybe 2 months, What is the fucking point of February?
Far worse are the cold, rainy winters, which chase you indoors even in the brief hours of daylight
Or the occasional fierce snowy winters, which we are not prepared for, and which are fun for 36 hours then horrible
Lockdown 3 was a uniquely hellish combo of all these with extra extra dystopia. No pubs. Nuffink
Oh my lord
I would happily forsake the ludicrously long summer evenings for more daylight in winter.
The trouble is, I've lived most of my life in warmer climes and you never really get over just how godawful British winter is.
When my youngest child finally flies the nest I'm off out of this country. I have nothing in common with it anymore. So you can wallow in your Brexit misery into your dotage, Leon my friend. If you've got any sense, like most ardent Brexiteers you won't actually live in the Britain you created.
Except most countries with significantly warmer climates than the UK are also more rightwing than the UK.
The countries which are more centre left than the UK eg Scandinavia and arguably Canada and Germany also have cold winters.
Long cold winters = you have to look after people and you have to make plans. I think that is conducive to a moderate social democratic outlook on life.
Comments
print('I am self aware')
The Turing test tests only for a necessary condition. We just won't ever know.
The most astonishing thing is the pension, rumoured to be over £160k per year. That would be pretty much impossible to buy outside the public sector.
France: overnight, the demand for pre-departure tests has been dropped.
Competitive reopening – nations desperate to rescue their travel industries – is accelerating.
A day-trip from London to Paris.
Thursday: two tests
Friday: one test
Saturday: no test
https://twitter.com/SimonCalder/status/1492422702333841408
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10071155/Cressida-Dicks-contract-extension-came-three-conditions-Priti-Patel-sources-say.html
We may be restarting the Cold War, let's not restart Operation Banner too, or for that matter start @HYUFDs Operation McBanner.
“How would you like your steak cooked?”
“Tell the chef that if it arrives cooked, it’ll get sent back”.
Admittedly, in her case, asking her to actually work for it would do more harm than good and we are well shot of her. But could she not be redeployed to some (very) quiet Hamlet somewhere to walk the beat for the next 2 years?
I mean, I appreciate that there is a non negligible risk someone in that Hamlet may get shot whilst going about their business, that several people will be accused of being peodophiles without a shred of credible evidence, that race relations may deterioate to a significant extent and that she would still find ways of bullying people and abusing her position whilst taking positive steps to block any inquiry into her behaviour but its the principle of the thing.
Hard to see how either could have driven this.
A disgraced former chief constable who admitted gross misconduct for helping a relative get a job has walked away from the force with a £250,000 golden goodbye, it emerged yesterday.
Grahame Maxwell, 51, narrowly escaped the sack over the claims of nepotism and was given a final written warning at a secret disciplinary hearing last May.
But after the police authority refused to extend his £133,000-a-year contract a controversial clause legally entitling Mr Maxwell to £247,636 in compensation was activated.
The clause enables Mr Maxwell to receive 85 per cent of the difference between the pension lump sum he is now eligible for after serving 28-and-a-half years and the amount he would have received had he continued for another 18 months.
It is believed to be the first time the compensation clause has ever been activated following a decision not to renew a chief constable's contract.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145807/Disgraced-chief-constable-Graham-Maxwell-gets--250-000-golden-goodbye.html
Enjoy your day.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
I'd still rather be in SE Asia, although April in Bangkok is hideously hot.
I've found this winter, whilst mild, a drag.
I was in meeting after meeting with the PM when he went row by row through what was and was not to be allowed. What does it say about us as a Party if what we write in law in minute detail is just for 'others' and by slight of hand we try and make that a 'trivial' thing?
https://twitter.com/nmdacosta/status/1492261367054798852
That is damning. The first hint in Johnson's career that he has conscientiously gone row by row through, anything, actually, and it blows away the one faint mitigation that he is not a details guy and left it to others to know the minutiae.
Let's face it, nukes are a piece of grand willy-waving once both sides have them. We can't use them against Russia to stop them invading Ukraine. Because that would invite disaster. At the other end of the scale, we can't use them in Afghanistan to stop those planning Islamic terror attacks on us. Because that would invite pariah status. They are just useless.
Ask yourself this: would America have flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese could have done the same to New York and Chicago? No, they would have ground on for a couple more years if that's what it took to defeat Japan.
Spend the money instead on special forces with their own personal drone cover, and equipping the world's best cyber warriors.
CNN and 24 tv news influenced our perception of 90s/80s conflict. It made war Hollywood or XBox. I wonder what social media will do and how that will impact events.
The rest of the Mail story shows the problem I highlighted yesterday. Patel is allegedly "furious" that Kahn has landed this mess on her doorstep. She is not speaking to him and its mutual. The salary is fantastic and the pension almost beyond belief but who would want to put themselves between those two when they both want to score political points off the other at your expense?
The current structure of a large number national resources being administered by the Met really doesn't work. They should be hived off and the HS should be directly accountable for them whilst the Met is accountable to the Mayor.
…so being the only other person to go through the proposed UN process may I respectfully suggest to @EHRC critics that they consider the irony of arraigning Falkner before a body whose expert committee recently appointed as its rapporteur a longtime representative from….2/5
……Uganda, where homosexual acts get you life in prison; or demanding that a Pakistani heritage Muslim woman be judged by a body whose advisory group proudly features representatives from Saudi Arabia, China and Russia given their records on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights….3/5
https://twitter.com/TrevorPTweets/status/1492134530089734146?s=20&t=KmPnpFThnMrBRaDObJXthQ
Yay
The Minsk agreement was forced on Ukraine, but there is no realistic chance of Ukraine regaining control of Crimea and the Donbas.
I think Putin wants to consolidate these, hence the building of a bridge over the Kerch strait, but still feels that a rather tenuous supply line, and would want to control the oblasts along the North shore of the Sea of Azov and the Crimean isthmus. Perhaps Odesa and the remainder of the Black Sea coast too.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/11/world-experts-react-to-england-ending-covid-curbs
Written before France dropped pre-arrival tests….
The question is where do you put all the non-London bits, direct to the Home Office, a new police force(s) or attach it to the Transport Police or a combination of all 3.
But you are right the responsibility for the Met Police should sit with London's mayor and everything that changes that rule should go.
If Putin invaded most of Eastern Europe, the low countries and Germany he would hesitate about invading France and us as we have nuclear weapons. If Ukraine still had nuclear weapons Putin would not be threatening it now.
Putin also knows if he launched a nuclear strike on us we would respond with a nuclear strike on Moscow using Trident
Vaguely on topic, South Korea isn't the only election where "the right" are likely to do well this weekend. The regional election in Castile & Leon (I wouldn't vote for him) should be another step forward for VOX at the expense of PSOE, PP and Citizens.
I'm wary of these late polls as they tend to badly underestimate PP - the latest small sample panel poll has them down two points and no change in seat numbers. PSOE is down more (eight points) with VOX up twelve and Citizens down ten. Other winners are United Podemos and Empty Spain who look set to win six seats between them.
In terms of seats, PP (29) and VOX (13) combined will have a majority in the regional Cortes with a projected 42 of 81 seats leaving PSOE on 28 and other parties on 11.
I'm not entirely convinced but we'll know tomorrow evening.
I fear we will pay for this down the line - I'm putting my neck on the line and predicting a wet start to summer and soggy Platinum Jubilee celebrations I fear.
https://twitter.com/ExcelPope/status/1492395784670949376
A ‘drag” seems to be the minimum. A relatively OK winter. Lots of relentlessly grey, dark, overcast weather. But hints of sun and mild, so more tolerable
That’s the British winter at its best. Draggy. Really goes on at least a month too long. Maybe 2 months, What is the fucking point of February?
Far worse are the cold, rainy winters, which chase you indoors even in the brief hours of daylight
Or the occasional fierce snowy winters, which we are not prepared for, and which are fun for 36 hours then horrible
Lockdown 3 was a uniquely hellish combo of all these with extra extra dystopia. No pubs. Nuffink
Oh my lord
Also why do these people get 2 year contracts that result in such a big payoff. The longest contract I have ever received is 3 months.
Given how important it is, the Met really should pull their finger out and arrange 50 interviews (or whatever the number is) of the people involved. This is not difficult to do. I can tell them how to do it, if they're really stuck.
An interview of a potential suspect should comply with the provisions of PACE. A suspect is entitled to have a lawyer present and, critically, is not obliged to provide any answers at all.
Even if the questionnaire has the relevant PACE caution written at the top of it, a person receiving it has no obligation whatsoever to answer it. They are also entitled to take advice from a lawyer before sending in any sort of reply.
It is also worth noting that there is no law preventing people who were at the same event from talking to each other about it though they would have to be careful not to stray into behaviour which might amount to perverting the course of justice. This, though, is quite hard to prove and simply talking to another person present is not sufficient.
I certainly would not answer such a questionnaire. Nor would I advise a client of mine to do so. The very minimum I would want is to see the evidence the police claim to have and to ask them specifically what offence and on which dates and by reference to the specific Regulations (name, date, clause) they suspect me of having committed.
There is much talk of the rule of law. Well, it applies - much as I may dislike them politically - to the PM and his advisors and the No 10 staff etc, both with regard to the rules they have to follow and to how the police investigate any breaches by them.
The reality is that if Russia had them and the West did not we would be in a bad place. So given the technology exists we need to have them.
It’s like insurance- you pay a fortune and hope you never need it
The only time we need nuclear weapons for deterrent is where NATO folds and the US becomes isolationist. Neither of those look to be scenarios that will come about. Meanwhile, we could be making a far better contribution to our national security by having a force that could play havoc with Russia - from a desktop.
Is Donald Trump losing his grip on Republican voters? from TheEconomist https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/02/12/is-donald-trump-losing-his-grip-on-republican-voters
Perhaps Trump doesn't have it in the bag at all.
America and its nuclear weapons arsenal is the backbone of NATO. It pays the insurance. Why would we have our own insurance in place? We are paying a fortune - for some policy we can never claim on.
Actually PACE interviews can be anywhere, but interviewing copper entering 10 DS looks equally bad
I saw him on the stage in the 80s with his Shakespeare company and he was one of the most mesmeric talents I have ever seen.
It's not true of all public sector pension schemes but certainly for local Government (and I believe civil service though I may be wrong) both employee and employer make contributions into the scheme. Recently, the level of employee contributions has been rising and for those higher up the salary level, the amount added each month is considerable (though as a proportion of salary not so much).
The more the higher paid staff put in, the more it's affordable for those further down the food chain but everyone is contributing up to 7.5% of salary each month and for those higher up, even more.
The trouble is, I've lived most of my life in warmer climes and you never really get over just how godawful British winter is.
When my youngest child finally flies the nest I'm off out of this country. I have nothing in common with it anymore. So you can wallow in your Brexit misery into your dotage, Leon my friend. If you've got any sense, like most ardent Brexiteers you won't actually live in the Britain you created.
Has anyone told HYUFD?
Boris will say he was in the flat where ‘ding dong the Dom is gone’ party took place, but was working in a separate part of it. Because of silly answers like that IMO things have very much changed in the last few weeks, with no one now believing he can survive, including himself.
Tick tock - seems to be a PB meme. Not believing he can survive is the most fatal thing so I am sticking to prediction he is gone in less than a fortnight from today.
Yours, Inspector Jade Investigates (not played by Kenneth Branagh) 🎭
Well I’m back from the ban. 😇 I still don’t know why I was banned, but my horse tipping leading up to it was a terrible tale of WHOA! for sure and couldn’t have done me any favours.
You haven’t missed anythin, over last two Saturdays had just one winner, at Cheltenham, though I was on Champ and thought I had a double. The Cheltenham meeting was great to watch wasn’t it?
4 horses I am backing today on a Lucky 15 slip.
NEWBURY 13:50 Risk And Roll
When people ask me what is the hardest thing about learning to ride a horse, my answer is the ground. It’s a risk and all that for sure. It was height of summer, rock hard ground, we were taking it in turns to gallop Overalls across the field, I had a short skirt on that quickly went up my back, and my knickers disappearing in both cracks I took my hands off to sort it all out and the horse left me behind. I couldn’t breath or move, but it didn’t stop them gathering round me giggling their heads off.
WARWICK 14:05 Brave Seasca
Betting against a strong favourite here. Obviously my lucky15 is a win bet, but I am tipping this 7 year old as an each way bet.
NEWBURY 14:25 De Rasher Counter
The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay - beloved, let your eyes half close and your heart beat over my heart, your hair fall over my breast, drowning love's lonely hour, in deep twilight of rest…
NEWBURY 15:35 Tritonic
Last week I had a long shot that came in at twenty-five to one. But all the other horses had already finished at twelve thirty. Whatever warning Stodge gives you this week about backing his tips, copy and paste that against mine as well.
Good Luck PB 🐎 punters 🙋♀️
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefits-of-the-police-pension-scheme-2015/the-benefits-of-your-police-pension-scheme-accessible-version
At the mooted £160 000 pa pension, the pension pot would be £3,600,000 so considerably above the lifetime allowance. About £2,500,000 would be liable to 55% tax as a result, unless the pension was protected some years ago, which does require opting out.
There would also be issues with the annual allowance at such rates and salary too, which can be quite penal, as I found out some years ago.
At least there’s a drastic reduction in dunderheids asking competitors ‘how does it feel’.
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/joe-biden-administration-approval-ratings-and-hypothetical-voting-intention-6-february-2022/
De Santis may not even be re elected as Florida governor in November, Charlie Crist beats him in some polls if he is Democratic nominee. In which case Pence would likely be the GOP nominee for President in 2024
The tide is turning.
And that's more dangerous for Biden. A bet on an un-named GOP winner might be value?
The countries which are more centre left than the UK eg Scandinavia and arguably Canada and Germany also have cold winters.
I don't find winters in London too bad, but that is probably because I was conditioned during childhood to experience far worse.