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A 33% return in just under two and a half years? – politicalbetting.com

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  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    David Allen Green on what Johnson’s letter on his Lebvedev meeting didn’t say:

    https://davidallengreen.com/2022/07/how-to-read-a-formal-document/
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    If Rishi hadn’t lost before, he certainly has now with his risible VAT cut promise.

    It makes a mockery of his entire platform.

    He's not as fleet of foot as he'd previously had us believe.

    His campaign pitching to MPs was quite polished. Since he got through to the final two, not so much.
    What Rishi is painfully discovering is that it's difficult to win a vote against someone prepared to say any old nonsense if it's popular.

    It's the sort of fate Roald Dhal might have come up with, had he written political novels.

    I wonder what date Date has in store for Truss? She doesn't strike me as the Charlie Bucket of the tale.
    "What Rishi is painfully discovering is that it's difficult to win a vote against someone prepared to say any old nonsense if it's popular."

    Which is what Jeremy Corbyn found out in December 2019
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    ydoethur said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Blimey, somebody’s had a *really* bad experience with the Conservatives, haven’t they?
    Carlotta’s had an epiphany about the Union?

    UNITE, UNISON or the RMT?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s a dig at Stonewall and their “nothing to do with me guv” response to the Bailey case.

  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    David Allen Green on what Johnson’s letter on his Lebvedev meeting didn’t say:

    https://davidallengreen.com/2022/07/how-to-read-a-formal-document/

    My mind always springs to the late Irish comedian whenever I see his name in twitter lights.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited July 2022
    @Driver

    Well, if you take wickets off no-balls that the umpire hasn’t seen then you’re going to struggle to lose this one.

    (That’s about the eighth he’s missed. He’s spotted one. However it’s the first one Northants have bowled that I’ve seen.)
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    edited July 2022

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    If Rishi hadn’t lost before, he certainly has now with his risible VAT cut promise.

    It makes a mockery of his entire platform.

    He's not as fleet of foot as he'd previously had us believe.

    His campaign pitching to MPs was quite polished. Since he got through to the final two, not so much.
    What Rishi is painfully discovering is that it's difficult to win a vote against someone prepared to say any old nonsense if it's popular.

    It's the sort of fate Roald Dhal might have come up with, had he written political novels.

    I wonder what date Date has in store for Truss? She doesn't strike me as the Charlie Bucket of the tale.
    That is true.

    One of the criticisms of Starmer is he can't think on his feet. That may be the case, but I didn't see it in Johnson either. Sunak, I assumed was rapier sharp, it turns out he is not. Truss, similarly has always been guided by the script or autocue. A quick glance to Sunak to see what he was doing when McCann keeled over spoke volumes.

    So in the grand scheme of things, it looks to me like one of Starmer's key failings are offset by his opponents failing even more.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    edited July 2022
    148grss said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    AIUI the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case on whether Holyrood can hold a referendum unilaterally. That's possibly a good sign for the Nats, as the government argument was that the case didn't even deserve a hearing as proper process hadn't been followed.

    It's rather difficult to see how they could rule in Sturgeon's favour under the law, but then the Supreme Court has form for bizarre judgements which bear as much relationship to the law as SeanT does to sobriety. Prorogation and Shamima Begum spring to mind.

    What the Supreme Court has done is decide the question of prematurity (since the bill has yet to be passed by Holyrood) and competency (since it is a constitutional matter) will be decided together. FWIW I think that they will still determine that the reference of the Bill is premature but they want to deal with the substantive matter too so everyone is clear where they stand.

    My very strong expectation is that they will say that this is beyond the competency of the Scottish Parliament and that a referendum cannot proceed without a s30 order. For the reasons @TSE has given no PM is going to be keen to grant a s30 order and risk losing. This raises a real question of democratic deficit in Scotland which is troubling, even for a Unionist like me.
    It is indeed troubling. Whether one thinks Scotland should leave the union or not, most reasonable people, and certainly most Scots, would say that they have the right to. If there is no legal route for that right to be exercised then there will be trouble.
    But this is not a one way matter. The UK is a joint enterprise in which Scotland has equal (arguably greater) sovereignty with England, Wales and NI

    The break-up of the UK would be a profound national trauma that would deeply impact every UK citizen. Inter alia I am sure it would cause economic depression in Scotland and severe recession in rUK as investors fled the chaos and the £ crashed

    Therefore Scotland’s right to secede must be balanced with the UK’s right to say “hang on a minute”

    It’s not like the UK is some evil colonial power forbidding democracy; the UK Parliament - in which Scotland is fully represented - granted an indyref as recently as 8 years ago

    The SNP needs to persuade its own supreme parliament at Westminster to grant a 2nd vote. I doubt that will happen before a generation has actually elapsed. 15-20 years, as in Canada
    No that is bollocks. If Scotland wants to leave the Union then of course it will affect other countries in the Union but they don't have a veto. By your argument, the EU should have had the right to refuse the Brexit referendum. England, Wales and NI should have the same unilateral right to seceed, of course.
    Truly infantile levels of analysis
    Why?

    I had the same argument with you recently and you came out with the same type of reply i.e. you stop arguing and just throw insults. The analogy is a good one.

    The bizarre thing is when we had the discussion before you actually said it mattered not one jot what trauma leaving the EU caused even if massive because we gained independence (it trumped all) and then (as above) gave the trauma of Scotland leaving the union as a reason for not allowing it.

    When called out on the inconsistency each time you stop arguing and resort to insults.
    No, I give up arguing with people whose argumentation is so clueless or stupid it is waste of my time

    And these days I care more about wasted time

    But just this once I will indulge you

    The differences between the Union of the EU and the Union of the United Kingdom are so vast they barely need explaining. But apparently they do

    The UK is 300 years old; the EU is at best 70 years old, more like 30

    The UK’s identity has been forged through 300 years of shared endeavour and pooled resources: building an empire, making a great nation, fighting existential wars; not so for the EU

    The nations of the UK have a shared and supreme parliament which creates and passes our laws; not so the EU

    The nations of the UK have a shared head of state deeply woven into our shared history and shared institutions; not true of the EU

    The nations of the UK share one common language; unlike the EU

    The nations of the UK share - with variations - a military, a seashore, a health service, a national broadcaster, a culture, a media, a demos, a character, a cuisine, a trade pattern, a climate, an architecture, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Europe, a sense of humour; not so the EU

    All of which makes leaving the UK infinitely and impossibly complex compared to the already-painful process of quitting the EU

    And finally, there are two DIFFERENT processes for leaving both. If you want to quit the EU you can trigger Article 50 unilaterally. In the UK it is different, you must get permission from Parliament at Westminster to have a referendum: as sturgeon acknowledges

    And there it is. Endex



    See how much better it is when you engage rather than insulting people?

    Some of these are good arguments. For me the question of whether Scotland should be independent is finely balanced.

    The UK in its present form is 100 years old, not 300, of course.

    The argument about whether Scotland can legally unilaterally secede is of course different from whether it can morally. We can all read the legislation. My contention is that it is a moral outrage that Scotland's moral right to self determination is not matched by a legal right to do so, as it is in the EU. Even committed unionist Scots like DavidL find this troubling. I think the idea that Scotland is on some deep level "sovereign" regardless of legal status is widely held in Scotland by those on all sides of the independence debate. It is perhaps worrying that it is not shared in England.
    But everything I said is obvious. If you need it spelled out to you then you are a cretin. I have given up explaining things to individual cretins: life is too short

    I will not engage with you again, other than to hurl squalid, excessive and unjustified abuse

    You have my word
    Hi Leon, I read this exchange with interest. I said we'd return to this one - Brexit v Sindy - middle of this week, didn't I? Rhetorical only (I did) and it's Wednesday, the exact middle of this week. And seems you're talking about it anyway.

    So, that question of mine: As somebody with such a burning love of absolutist untrammelled national sovereignty that iyo we had to have Brexit regardless of the practical consequences, how come you have zero empathy for the similar (and arguably stronger) argument for Sindy - stronger because Scotland, unlike the UK in the EU, lacks sovereign nation status - and a pretty visceral opposition to it ever happening?

    I've been able to answer this to my own satisfaction, you'll be happy to hear.

    The fact is you DO have empathy for the Sindy case. Of course you do. It'd be plain bizarre if you didn't. But the empathy you feel is swamped by your horror of what Sindy would mean. To wit no more Britain. Your love of (and pride in) Britain and its associated thing - Britishness - is real and it's bone-deep. It's not an annex to your persona it's integral. You clear Casino Royale's quite challenging bar for a Patriot with room to spare. This is why the thought of Sindy pains you so.

    Very pleased with this. Think it's both true and fair.
    Mate, this is not some startling insight. I say as much every day

    I am a Briton and I love Britain. I don't want it broken up. Is this some bizarre new emotion you've just encountered? You'll be surprised to hear I am not alone

    I am also a democrat. Scotland deserves a say. They had a say in 2014. Now for the sake of all Britain, we wait a generation to see if the mood changes, and they can have a say again

    No country can survive constant referendums on its break up, any more than a marriage can survive the husband filing for divorce every year - then changing his mind at the last moment - year after year

    I am sorry you have apparently spent days trying to work out something I could have told you in two minutes
    Now you are goalpost moving.

    This argument has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you love Briton or not.

    This argument has nothing to do with multiple referendums

    This argument has nothing to do with whether they had a say in 2014 or not and waiting a generation.

    This argument is about the inconsistency in your stance re Sindy and EU. You used the exact mirror image to argue for and against Independence in the two scenarios. That is what the argument is about. The argument is about you being irrational.
    I think what he's saying is he knows he's being irrational but that's where his 'patriotism' (ie in the hard nationalistic sense of the word) leads. I don't like it or agree with it but it's good to have it clarified.

    The Sindy Ref point is something else imo. I think the argument for having one is compelling - because of Brexit and the Holyrood mandate - and I don't think to do so is to risk a "Ref every year until it's a Yes". Think that's a nonsense since if it's another No the SNP would have to backburner the issue or lose power.
    It's not irrational at all

    I am quite sure there are many Scots who feel the same way about Scotland as I do about Britain. That Scotland has their fundamental loyalty, and needs to be free, to the extent that it must be taken out of the UK (maybe even if it is economically harmful). Just as I wanted us out of the EU

    That's fair. I understand it entirely. BECAUSE I am a patriot, like them

    However if they want to press the point home and do it - secede - they need to do it legally - via the British method (Westminster approval for a referendum) as we - the UK - did it legally in Europe, via Article 50

    Moreover, they can't do it every year or every five years, that would make a nonsense of the constitution and render Britain hideously unstable - impoverishing us all, as investors flee etc. I therefore believe in the generation argument (you don't, but this is a matter of opinion not objective fact)

    And FWIW I would have applied the generation argument to the UK in the EU. If we had voted Remain I would have said: right, we have to accept it, let's make the best of it. And I would have neither expected nor wished for us to revisit the question for 15-20 years minimum.

    My position is not irrational nor is it inconsistent, indeed I suspect it bugs you because it is the opposite
    But the assumption holding all this together is a false one. Granting this Sindy Ref (due to Brexit and the Holyrood mandate) does not open the floodgates for one every 5 years or whatever. If it's held and it's a No that is 'it' for a long time. Any solid analysis of the political calculus shows that. Sturgeon certainly knows it. Hence her cautious approach.
    As I say, this difference is a matter of opinion, not objective fact. I simply disagree with you
    But you've just said - and I agree - that if we'd voted No to Leave there's no way we Brits would have been agitating for EU Referendums on a regular basis thereafter to keep having another bash.

    Why? You said it. Because these type of Referendums are hugely divisive and are enormous drains of resource energy and emotion. That btw was why I both opposed a 2nd EU Referendum and made a lot of money betting against one happening. The idea was both wrong and absurd.

    Yet when it comes to Scotland you ditch that impeccable line of analysis and go, "hey no, we can't grant another Sindy Ref now cos if we do they'll take it as carte blanche to be having them all the time. Give em an inch, these Scots, and they'll take a mile."

    See? It's irrational, inconsistent and jaundiced.
    The second EU referendum in 2016 was 41 years after the first EEC referendum in 1975, not just 8 years
    Sure. But my objection is to the view that granting a Sindy Ref now means the Scots will be agitating for them all the time. I find this view to be irrational and jaundiced for the reasons explained.
    There is a pretty legitimate reason to be agitating for a new Sindy Ref now - a huge change in the constitutional makeup of the UK that the Scottish rejected. If the Brexit vote had occurred before the first Sindy Ref, I think we could say the Scots would have picked the EU over the UK and voted for independence. To say the Scots have to take all the harms of Brexit when they didn't want it without another say on their alignment with the UK seems unfair, especially from a movement that seemingly cares so much about so called national sovereignty. The Scots voted to stay in a UK that was in the EU by a very narrow margin.
    Yes, I agree. Brexit is what allowed the SNP to put Sindy back on the agenda with moral force and the mandate followed at the Holyrood election.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,457
    edited July 2022
    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s a dig at Stonewall and their “nothing to do with me guv” response to the Bailey case.

    Garden Court Chambers are grown ups. I think they’ll cope.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    RH1992 said:

    Driver said:

    Does anyone seriously support removing the right to strike?

    On balance, no, but some of the nonsense has to stop, like causing five days of disruption by only taking two days action.
    So what would you do?
    Have a strike ballot be for a single, continuous strike action. That could be for one day, a month, four months or indefinite if people so choose. But once the strike ends, then its finished, if you want another strike there needs to be another ballot.

    Would stop having people striking for every other day but getting paid most of the time, but they would be fully entitled to strike for the whole week if they wanted to instead.
    This seems reasonable but Liz wants to do far more than that, she wants to modify the right itself.
    It's not reasonable though really. I'm not a big fan of the RMT strikes but if a ballot is needed every time, then the company just has to ride out the first strike (be it a day, a week etc) and then they get weeks of uninterrupted service as a ballot needs to be fairly organised and new notice given.

    Yeah, you can just strike indefinitely, but the people going on strike still need to live and would receive no income. They'd be doomed to do short strikes every 8-9 weeks that the company/industry can effectively ignore so the workers' living standards would slip anyway, or the worse alternative, an indefinite strike and not being able to put food on the table at all.
    Yes, a fresh ballot every time seems excessive. That said, it's clear from what you write that the balance has swung too far against the public - a strike isn't supposed to be cost-free for the striker, and causing five days of disruption with just two days loss of pay isn't right.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    edited July 2022
    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    Stonewall offered diversity advice to organisations for an annual fee. Orgs that wanted it would get someone who would turn up for a few days & talk to people, you‘d get a report written. They might tell people you were diversity champions. That kind of thing.

    I don’t believe they ever offered “we will tell you how not to get sued for discrimination” legal advice: That’s the job of your lawyers, with which Garden Court Chambers was presumably well supplied.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630
    CD13 said:

    Mr grss,

    I think it was a little more visceral. Certainly, the Bostonians I spoke to were not talking about International neoliberal capitalists. They wouldn't know who they were, and neither would I. They were moaning about massive class sizes in the local schools because of the enormous and sudden increase in the population. "Only a few will come," the government said. They were lying.

    They're weren't predominatly racists. The immigrants were virtually all white Europeans.

    "It could be worse," I said, trying to cheer them up. "They could have been cockneys."

    You don't have to be aware of the cause to dislike, and misallocate the blame onto, the effect.

    School sizes are an effect of the neoliberal turn - in years past we would have trained more teachers, built more schools, and invested in people. Post Thatcher the vision of what the state could and would do in reaction to material changes was limited.

    The same can be said of the housing crisis, or the cost in living crisis, or the crisis in the NHS. After the Wars and before the 80s the economic consensus was - states are pretty powerful and can spend their money to the betterment of society by taxing the rich and providing a social safety net and a minimum standard of living to people, and we saw pretty good growth during that time (which was also helped by needing to rebuild after the Wars, sure). Since the 80s we have had successive governments selling off those things that the government had built, and having the profits syphoned off to private companies. So I, in the amazing technological and modern moment, find it harder and more expensive to traverse the country on a train now than my parents did, and can't buy a house because there is no commonly held housing stock for the poor that keeps rent seeking down and the market stable, and live with university debt I'll probably never pay back and an NHS crumbling to deal with my health.

    These are all outcomes that a group of elites have just gone "don't blame us, blame jonny foreigner over there" who are either taking up the resources, or preventing us from doing what we want to give you a good life, and some have bought it.

    The EU is an imperfect organisation, set up predominantly to support the flow of capital across Europe, to the benefit of the biggest economies and the elites of smaller economies. There were some benefits to the non-elites, freedom of movement being one, the supposed protection of human rights were another (especially important given the context of WW2 and the Cold War), but first and foremost it was about business, goods and competition. The banking crisis of the 08 showed the cracks in this and the EU clearly showed they cared more about business than they did any progressive view some might have had of it, most notably in the treatment of Greece.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    Presumably to stick "Stonewall approved" all over their website etc.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    If Rishi hadn’t lost before, he certainly has now with his risible VAT cut promise.

    It makes a mockery of his entire platform.

    He's not as fleet of foot as he'd previously had us believe.

    His campaign pitching to MPs was quite polished. Since he got through to the final two, not so much.
    What Rishi is painfully discovering is that it's difficult to win a vote against someone prepared to say any old nonsense if it's popular.

    It's the sort of fate Roald Dhal might have come up with, had he written political novels.

    I wonder what date Date has in store for Truss? She doesn't strike me as the Charlie Bucket of the tale.
    "What Rishi is painfully discovering is that it's difficult to win a vote against someone prepared to say any old nonsense if it's popular."

    Which is what Jeremy Corbyn found out in December 2019
    Yes, committing to a specific set of nonsense put him at a great disadvantage.

    Good to see you still posting, OKC.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753
    ydoethur said:

    Dent you idiot. He wasn’t going to drop two like that, was he?

    The loss of 2 early wickets simply proves the hopelessness of Goucestershire's position. There is no way back from this short of a flood (are you sure this is working?)
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s a dig at Stonewall and their “nothing to do with me guv” response to the Bailey case.

    Well the judgment does tend to affirm that.
    And the tweet you reposted appears to bear little connection to the facts of the case.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s a dig at Stonewall and their “nothing to do with me guv” response to the Bailey case.

    Garden Court Chambers are grown ups. I think they’ll cope.
    From the facts reported in the judgment, opinions might differ on the first part of that statement.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    ydoethur said:

    @Driver

    Well, if you take wickets off no-balls that the umpire hasn’t seen then you’re going to struggle to lose this one.

    (That’s about the eighth he’s missed. He’s spotted one. However it’s the first one Northants have bowled that I’ve seen.)

    Front foot no-ball calling has been a disgrace for years, and the move to have the third umpire call them in TV games is solving the wrong problem, as we saw in the Blast final.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Dent you idiot. He wasn’t going to drop two like that, was he?

    The loss of 2 early wickets simply proves the hopelessness of Goucestershire's position. There is no way back from this short of a flood (are you sure this is working?)
    No, it’s not working. Kerrigan is turning it square now as well. Harris is thrashing it in the apparent hope of scoring something before he gets a ball with his name on it.

    Plus, it’s actually raining, although not very hard.

    But I appreciate the effort.

  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    They asked themselves that question, and did not renew the contract.

    The whole affair does seem to have been an enormous storm in a teacup.
    (Though there were potentially very significant legal issues at stake.)
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    Presumably to stick "Stonewall approved" all over their website etc.
    That's not a protection racket then; a protection racket would require Stonewall to desist from doing some harm while paid.

    I guess Stonewall publicly badmouthing any organisation that declines to pay them might qualify (I'm not suggesting Stonewall would do this) but event that would be a stretch.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited July 2022
    Driver said:

    ydoethur said:

    @Driver

    Well, if you take wickets off no-balls that the umpire hasn’t seen then you’re going to struggle to lose this one.

    (That’s about the eighth he’s missed. He’s spotted one. However it’s the first one Northants have bowled that I’ve seen.)

    Front foot no-ball calling has been a disgrace for years, and the move to have the third umpire call them in TV games is solving the wrong problem, as we saw in the Blast final.
    To be fair to both White and the umpire he’s bowled very well. I’m looking straight down the front foot line and it’s the only time he’s overstepped that I can see. Unlike say, Ryan Higgins.

    Just a pity the one time he overstepped (to be exact, raised his heel) he took a wicket.
  • PJHPJH Posts: 442

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.

    Losing the right to strike needs to be balanced by an offer from the other side, such as pay rises guaranteed to rise in line with inflation. Otherwise it's just the same old story of the elite putting the little people in their place.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.28 Liz Truss 78%
    4.7 Rishi Sunak 21%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.26 Liz Truss 79%
    4.8 Rishi Sunak 21%

    Rishi out to 4/1.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.23 Liz Truss 81%
    4.9 Rishi Sunak 20%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.24 Liz Truss 81%
    5 Rishi Sunak 20%
    A surprising discrepancy between the two markets.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.23 Liz Truss 81%
    5.2 Rishi Sunak 19%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    5.4 Rishi Sunak 19%
    Betfair next prime minister
    1.21 Liz Truss 83%
    5.9 Rishi Sunak 17%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.2 Liz Truss 83%
    6 Rishi Sunak 17%
    Rishi's slow drift continues.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.2 Liz Truss 83%
    6.2 Rishi Sunak 16%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.19 Liz Truss 84%
    6.2 Rishi Sunak 16%
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    PJH said:

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.

    Losing the right to strike needs to be balanced by an offer from the other side, such as pay rises guaranteed to rise in line with inflation. Otherwise it's just the same old story of the elite putting the little people in their place.
    What about strikes that are not to do with pay?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753
    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Dent you idiot. He wasn’t going to drop two like that, was he?

    The loss of 2 early wickets simply proves the hopelessness of Goucestershire's position. There is no way back from this short of a flood (are you sure this is working?)
    No, it’s not working. Kerrigan is turning it square now as well. Harris is thrashing it in the apparent hope of scoring something before he gets a ball with his name on it.

    Plus, it’s actually raining, although not very hard.

    But I appreciate the effort.

    Someone doesn't, they've given me an off topic. I'll try to carry on regardless.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022
    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    It was not at all obvious Sunak would lose to Truss, until suddenly it was.

    The pivot point was when Liz announced her tax plans, and moreover, did so explicitly *in opposition* to the status quo.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    ydoethur said:

    Driver said:

    ydoethur said:

    @Driver

    Well, if you take wickets off no-balls that the umpire hasn’t seen then you’re going to struggle to lose this one.

    (That’s about the eighth he’s missed. He’s spotted one. However it’s the first one Northants have bowled that I’ve seen.)

    Front foot no-ball calling has been a disgrace for years, and the move to have the third umpire call them in TV games is solving the wrong problem, as we saw in the Blast final.
    To be fair to both White and the umpire he’s bowled very well. I’m looking straight down the front foot line and it’s the only time he’s overstepped that I can see.

    Just a pity the one time he overstepped (to be exact, raised his heel) he took a wicket.
    Ouch. Even with the umpire looking down at the crease he might not have been able to see the heel was raised?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    Many of them were also involved in the coup against Johnson.

    Portillo was probably right that they weren't thinking clearly about what would come next.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    We’re not the only country with strikes:

    81% of Lufthansa flights canceled today as ground staff belonging to ver.di trade union are on strike until 6am tomorrow.

    Currently 19 Lufthansa flights in the air (compare to 130 same time last week).

    Use Airline filter DLH to track Lufthansa flights at https://flightradar24.com


    https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1552303184462462976
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 2,720
    TOPPING said:


    In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?

    A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
    To advantage our consumers?

    You know, “voters”.
    The issue about fucking over our farmers is not that this deal might fuck them over, it is that the Cons for as long as anyone can remember have positioned themselves as being the party that would not fuck over our farmers.
    Didn't most farmers vote for Brexit?

    Would they now?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited July 2022
    Driver said:

    ydoethur said:

    Driver said:

    ydoethur said:

    @Driver

    Well, if you take wickets off no-balls that the umpire hasn’t seen then you’re going to struggle to lose this one.

    (That’s about the eighth he’s missed. He’s spotted one. However it’s the first one Northants have bowled that I’ve seen.)

    Front foot no-ball calling has been a disgrace for years, and the move to have the third umpire call them in TV games is solving the wrong problem, as we saw in the Blast final.
    To be fair to both White and the umpire he’s bowled very well. I’m looking straight down the front foot line and it’s the only time he’s overstepped that I can see.

    Just a pity the one time he overstepped (to be exact, raised his heel) he took a wicket.
    Ouch. Even with the umpire looking down at the crease he might not have been able to see the heel was raised?
    Fair question, but it was quite well over. I think it would have been seen had he been looking (which he clearly isn’t).

    TBF there is a certain karma there given what Gloucs got away with.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022

    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    Many of them were also involved in the coup against Johnson.

    Portillo was probably right that they weren't thinking clearly about what would come next.
    Or they were, and it’s why it took them so long.

    Although at the very highest level it seems obvious with hindsight that Sunak and Truss would be the “final two”, I don’t think that was actually obvious to us on here or the “most sophisticated electorate in the world”.

    There were ?11 candidates FFS, and several viables that ruled themselves out.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    CatMan said:

    TOPPING said:


    In order to get the deal you want, would you tear up all Truss's trade deals and give up on the CPTPP?

    A good idea to tear them up anyway - as the New Zealanders were observing this week, it's mysterious why we decided to disadvantage our farmers for no benefit.
    To advantage our consumers?

    You know, “voters”.
    The issue about fucking over our farmers is not that this deal might fuck them over, it is that the Cons for as long as anyone can remember have positioned themselves as being the party that would not fuck over our farmers.
    Didn't most farmers vote for Brexit?

    Would they now?
    There is some suggestion that rural discontent was behind the Honiton & Tiverton by-election loss, but it would be good to see some polling of the agricultural sector.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007
    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    PJH said:

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.

    Losing the right to strike needs to be balanced by an offer from the other side, such as pay rises guaranteed to rise in line with inflation. Otherwise it's just the same old story of the elite putting the little people in their place.
    What about strikes that are not to do with pay?
    They don't exist.

    Or at least, strikes which ostensibly aren't about pay usually seem to be resolved by a pay rise...
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    Presumably to stick "Stonewall approved" all over their website etc.
    That's not a protection racket then; a protection racket would require Stonewall to desist from doing some harm while paid.

    I guess Stonewall publicly badmouthing any organisation that declines to pay them might qualify (I'm not suggesting Stonewall would do this) but event that would be a stretch.
    Well quite. It's hard to have sympathy for any organisations that sucked up Stonewall.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,007

    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    It was not at all obvious Sunak would lose to Truss, until suddenly it was.

    The pivot point was when Liz announced her tax plans, and moreover, did so explicitly *in opposition* to the status quo.
    She's worked out that to win you need to run as the opposition.
  • PJHPJH Posts: 442

    PJH said:

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.

    Losing the right to strike needs to be balanced by an offer from the other side, such as pay rises guaranteed to rise in line with inflation. Otherwise it's just the same old story of the elite putting the little people in their place.
    What about strikes that are not to do with pay?
    I said 'such as' - there may be other factors (working conditions?) that some sectors may value too. But I bet most of the time strikes are mostly down to pay, even if other things are in the mix too.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited July 2022
    Oops. What happened there Northants? Somebody threw rather wildly.

    As against that, that was a brilliant stop by Gay, full stretch to his wrong hand.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    .@welt is reporting that EUR 3.5 billion worth of 🇺🇦 arms purchases are 'stalled' by the chancellor. This includes 100 PzH (1.7 billion EUR), 100 Marder-IFV and 88 Leopard-1-MBTs (worth 268 Million) and 11 Iris-T air-defense systems (1.2 billion). /1

    https://twitter.com/mattia_n/status/1552259340849094657
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630

    We’re not the only country with strikes:

    81% of Lufthansa flights canceled today as ground staff belonging to ver.di trade union are on strike until 6am tomorrow.

    Currently 19 Lufthansa flights in the air (compare to 130 same time last week).

    Use Airline filter DLH to track Lufthansa flights at https://flightradar24.com


    https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1552303184462462976

    Well, Covid has decimated the workforce, what with the significant death toll and the significant people just unable to work as much as they used to now they suffer with Long Covid. Workers unionising and striking makes sense when they have so much more leverage and they have so little to lose - conditions are pretty poor in general, so why not organise and strike. In the US there is a huge spike in unionisation efforts post Covid.

    In a less material sense, I also think Covid has made clear just how necessary some "menial" jobs are for the functioning of society. People who work in certain shops have been looked down on as "shelf stackers", yet they had to work through the pandemic and were integral to continuation. Even though schools were shut, teachers and nursery workers still went in to care for and teach those kids of healthcare workers and others deemed necessary workers. And we went through all that for wealth of the rich to soar, whilst standards of living for the rest of us go into steep decline. I think that has changed how many people view work, now.
  • PJHPJH Posts: 442
    Driver said:

    PJH said:

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.

    Losing the right to strike needs to be balanced by an offer from the other side, such as pay rises guaranteed to rise in line with inflation. Otherwise it's just the same old story of the elite putting the little people in their place.
    What about strikes that are not to do with pay?
    They don't exist.

    Or at least, strikes which ostensibly aren't about pay usually seem to be resolved by a pay rise...
    Put much more succinctly than my reply!
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.


    It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.

    Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?

    Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?

    The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.


  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
    It’s utterly over.
    Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.

    If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    It was not at all obvious Sunak would lose to Truss, until suddenly it was.

    The pivot point was when Liz announced her tax plans, and moreover, did so explicitly *in opposition* to the status quo.
    She's worked out that to win you need to run as the opposition.
    Take Back Control, if you like.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Why Republicans wage the culture wars (and will often win)


    https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1543448293392277504?s=20&t=Z3IuKNe9ryWJ-BuGTU573w
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
    It’s utterly over.
    Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.

    If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
    She’s screwing the crew but Sunak’s screwing the pooch.

  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755
    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    Judging by Garden Court Chambers' statement, you would think they had won the case, rather than having £22,000 damages awarded against them.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    If it had been left to MPs what do we think the final vote would have been between Rishi and Liz?

    Rishi 210
    Liz 145

    An emphatic win by Liz would put the MPs well out of line with the membership who apart from their answers to opinion polls remain an enigma.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,784
    edited July 2022
    Italy update:

    Election campaign in its phoney war stage where possible electoral list partners size each other up suspiciously and engage in brinksmanship. All lists have to be confirmed second weekend in August, when the campaign proper tries to begin even with everyone on holiday

    Every twist and turn is just too tiresome to follow, and I'll probably not return to this before the cards are marked, but highlights are:

    - Meloni pushing to be pre-selected PM candidate for the "centre right" coalition and threatening to go it alone. Rather than the long standing, "largest party of the coalition gets the PM" understanding of the centre right.

    Although I'll not put my hat up for consumption on this, I'm putting it in the "not going to happen" bucket. But, if it did, the whole complexion of the campaign transforms.

    - M5S to stand alone, having been put in the naughty corner

    - PD, the main centre left party, trying to herd the cats of numerous Centrist and Leftist parties into alliance. The Centrists are all personal vehicles of big beasts, some don't like the other Centrists (Di Maio was rude about them all in his M5S days basically), some can't work with Leftists etc.

    They were a big part of the old parliament, at least 100 MPs had defected from their originally elected parties, and a steady stream of Forza MPs have joined them since Forza's abstention in the confidence vote, but in terms of polling sit around 8% combined. Tbc.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    ydoethur said:

    Driver said:

    ydoethur said:

    @Driver

    Well, if you take wickets off no-balls that the umpire hasn’t seen then you’re going to struggle to lose this one.

    (That’s about the eighth he’s missed. He’s spotted one. However it’s the first one Northants have bowled that I’ve seen.)

    Front foot no-ball calling has been a disgrace for years, and the move to have the third umpire call them in TV games is solving the wrong problem, as we saw in the Blast final.
    To be fair to both White and the umpire he’s bowled very well. I’m looking straight down the front foot line and it’s the only time he’s overstepped that I can see. Unlike say, Ryan Higgins.

    Just a pity the one time he overstepped (to be exact, raised his heel) he took a wicket.
    What's his heel being raised got to do with anything?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-ball#Position_of_feet

    If the bowler bowls without some part of the front foot behind the popping crease (either grounded or in the air) when it lands.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442

    David Allen Green on what Johnson’s letter on his Lebvedev meeting didn’t say:

    https://davidallengreen.com/2022/07/how-to-read-a-formal-document/

    From the wording I think it is fair to surmise that Johnson probably knew there was a reasonable chance of meeting an ex? KGB spy there.

    Still not sure what the "as far as I am aware" bit is about. Best guess is it is to get people wondering and speculating about that, which can't be proved, rather than the more simple security breaches of a Foreign Sec meeting such a person alone and not reporting it, which can.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
    The problem is, by the time the market catches up and prices Sunak at 8s, you'll probably think he's not value at anything below 10s.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
    It’s utterly over.
    Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.

    If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
    I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    If it had been left to MPs what do we think the final vote would have been between Rishi and Liz?

    Rishi 210
    Liz 145

    An emphatic win by Liz would put the MPs well out of line with the membership who apart from their answers to opinion polls remain an enigma.

    More likely the other way around, surely Mordaunt voters would have broken for Truss over Sunak.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022
    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    Crikey
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited July 2022
    Another no ball missed, off Sanderson.

    But that one was dropped at slip and went for four.

    Wish I could tell Emilio Gay that, he looked rather downcast, and he’s just shelled another.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    Leon said:
    Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.

    Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    The whole thing is grotesque
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    It was not at all obvious Sunak would lose to Truss, until suddenly it was.

    The pivot point was when Liz announced her tax plans, and moreover, did so explicitly *in opposition* to the status quo.
    She's worked out that to win you need to run as the opposition.
    Which will exactly be the strategy for the general election. Propose a series of mad policies that would rip up the status quo, have Labour criticise those policies, paint Labour as defenders of the status quo.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited July 2022
    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Driver said:

    ydoethur said:

    @Driver

    Well, if you take wickets off no-balls that the umpire hasn’t seen then you’re going to struggle to lose this one.

    (That’s about the eighth he’s missed. He’s spotted one. However it’s the first one Northants have bowled that I’ve seen.)

    Front foot no-ball calling has been a disgrace for years, and the move to have the third umpire call them in TV games is solving the wrong problem, as we saw in the Blast final.
    To be fair to both White and the umpire he’s bowled very well. I’m looking straight down the front foot line and it’s the only time he’s overstepped that I can see. Unlike say, Ryan Higgins.

    Just a pity the one time he overstepped (to be exact, raised his heel) he took a wicket.
    What's his heel being raised got to do with anything?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-ball#Position_of_feet

    If the bowler bowls without some part of the front foot behind the popping crease (either grounded or in the air) when it lands.
    It wasn’t behind the line, but it would have been if his foot had been flat. I think it was his effort ball and he had snapped forward.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    IshmaelZ said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
    It’s utterly over.
    Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.

    If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
    I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
    I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.

    Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:
    Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.

    Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
    But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter

    See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe

    It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    David Allen Green on what Johnson’s letter on his Lebvedev meeting didn’t say:

    https://davidallengreen.com/2022/07/how-to-read-a-formal-document/

    From the wording I think it is fair to surmise that Johnson probably knew there was a reasonable chance of meeting an ex? KGB spy there.

    Still not sure what the "as far as I am aware" bit is about. Best guess is it is to get people wondering and speculating about that, which can't be proved, rather than the more simple security breaches of a Foreign Sec meeting such a person alone and not reporting it, which can.
    I suspect Bozo can't think of anything that he said that might have been awkward. It's 1 chat probably among many from 4 years ago. I doubt anyone can remember that far back unless you did something truly embarrassing.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    The whole thing is grotesque
    Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835

    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    It was not at all obvious Sunak would lose to Truss, until suddenly it was.

    The pivot point was when Liz announced her tax plans, and moreover, did so explicitly *in opposition* to the status quo.
    She's worked out that to win you need to run as the opposition.
    Which will exactly be the strategy for the general election. Propose a series of mad policies that would rip up the status quo, have Labour criticise those policies, paint Labour as defenders of the status quo.
    This whole running in opposition to the government you supported has to have diminishing marginal returns at some point doesn't it?
    I mean, this will be the third in succession.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    If it had been left to MPs what do we think the final vote would have been between Rishi and Liz?

    Rishi 210
    Liz 145

    An emphatic win by Liz would put the MPs well out of line with the membership who apart from their answers to opinion polls remain an enigma.

    Yes it would have been interesting to have a final MPs vote with the Mordaunts forced to choose between Sunak and Truss. Maybe they ought to have done that. Give the members a clear view of the MPs relative preference.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    edited July 2022

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 3,630

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    "Hormone treatment" related to gender identity at that age would literally just be a puberty blocker - something many cis girls take because they have early onset puberty anyway. Puberty blockers do what they say on the tin, block puberty from happening at that point, allowing a typical puberty to occur later if desired, or to have hormone replacement treatment later on if they want a puberty that is in line with their gender identity later on.

    Whilst I know people like to think this stuff is all brand new, it has been going on for literally thousands of years, we are just coming out of a very repressive era regarding gender and sexuality, and have modern media to highlight all these things and create moral panics.

    https://twitter.com/lae_laeta/status/1228982475004817408
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    The whole thing is grotesque
    Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
    it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged

    Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Leon said:

    Leon said:
    Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.

    Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
    But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter

    See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe

    It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
    One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    eek said:

    David Allen Green on what Johnson’s letter on his Lebvedev meeting didn’t say:

    https://davidallengreen.com/2022/07/how-to-read-a-formal-document/

    From the wording I think it is fair to surmise that Johnson probably knew there was a reasonable chance of meeting an ex? KGB spy there.

    Still not sure what the "as far as I am aware" bit is about. Best guess is it is to get people wondering and speculating about that, which can't be proved, rather than the more simple security breaches of a Foreign Sec meeting such a person alone and not reporting it, which can.
    I suspect Bozo can't think of anything that he said that might have been awkward. It's 1 chat probably among many from 4 years ago. I doubt anyone can remember that far back unless you did something truly embarrassing.
    I have often been to parties and come away with no recollection whatsoever of lengthy conversations I apparently had with fellow guests there.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    Mr grss,

    I suspect the locals saw a massive increase in immigration that flooded the schools, and to some extent the GPs' surgeries. The 2011 census showed Boston and South Holland experienced a growth in population between 2001 and 2011 more than double the average for England and Wales. This increase continued for some years afterwards.

    This surprised the govenment, and they pretended it was totally unexpected. The local population weren't amused. They suspected they were having their "noses rubbed in it." Farmers saw a massive increase in a young workforce, The RC Church a massive increase in attendance. The Lithuanians were young, fertile, and as many spoke Russian as a second language then, it created a problem for local schools.

    I appreciate you probably understand more art-based ology than me, but you don't need to over-comlicate matters. This was a cock-up, and the referendum suggests Bostonians saw it for what it was. "They don't matter," was the feeling. And this was not localised to Boston.

    All the fine philosophical words butter no parsnips, or in this case, cabbages.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530
    I think the changes to allow broadcasting of judges sentencing remarks are good and will help transparency and the public’s understanding of why certain sentences are given .

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    The whole thing is grotesque
    Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
    it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged

    Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
    I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    148grss said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    "Hormone treatment" related to gender identity at that age would literally just be a puberty blocker - something many cis girls take because they have early onset puberty anyway. Puberty blockers do what they say on the tin, block puberty from happening at that point, allowing a typical puberty to occur later if desired, or to have hormone replacement treatment later on if they want a puberty that is in line with their gender identity later on.

    Whilst I know people like to think this stuff is all brand new, it has been going on for literally thousands of years, we are just coming out of a very repressive era regarding gender and sexuality, and have modern media to highlight all these things and create moral panics.

    https://twitter.com/lae_laeta/status/1228982475004817408
    Did it happen before? Sure.
    Did it happen at such scale? No.

    I’ll repeat (and perhaps correct) the stat.

    Only 4 in 16 identified as cis and straight.

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
    Where is this?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    MISTY said:

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.


    It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.

    Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?

    Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?

    The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
    Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    Judging by Garden Court Chambers' statement, you would think they had won the case, rather than having £22,000 damages awarded against them.

    The Observer’s chief leader writer:

    It’s simply amazing that a chambers full of leading QCs specialising in human rights law did not stay on the right side of equalities law. It shows the extent to which institutions can be captured by false claims of transphobia to try and silence women’s free speech.

    https://twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1552253718334214145
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    The whole thing is grotesque
    Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
    I think the answer to any gender question depends on the context of the question. On medical ones I'm likely to answer it, on a consumer survey I probably wouldn't.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
    Where is this?
    UK Home Counties
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    edited July 2022
    dixiedean said:

    AlistairM said:

    I don't think they do. They just prefer her to Sunak. Kemi and Penny were the members' favourites.

    I still don't understand the logic of those who were anti-Truss supporting Sunak. They must've known that he would lose to her and they would have been better off supporting Mordaunt in the final round of MP voting.
    It was not at all obvious Sunak would lose to Truss, until suddenly it was.

    The pivot point was when Liz announced her tax plans, and moreover, did so explicitly *in opposition* to the status quo.
    She's worked out that to win you need to run as the opposition.
    Which will exactly be the strategy for the general election. Propose a series of mad policies that would rip up the status quo, have Labour criticise those policies, paint Labour as defenders of the status quo.
    This whole running in opposition to the government you supported has to have diminishing marginal returns at some point doesn't it?
    I mean, this will be the third in succession.
    You'd think so, but the Tories are testing it to destruction. It certainly worked better for them at GE2019 than the old standby of running against what happened the last time the opposition were in government.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    The whole thing is grotesque
    Was looking at a survey of 50 000 adults with long covid symptoms. Purely by the by, the breakdown by sex was 53%ish F 47 ish M, and 0.3% other/rather not say. Which as it's not what the survey was about and nobody had reason to lie seems to put a ceiling of 0.3% of adults who are not one thing or the other. 0.3% is not 75%.
    it's an absolute craze in schools. I can personally vouch for this. And some kids are being really damaged

    Perhaps you have to be a parent of teenage kids in a big city to sense it. London, NYC, LA, Sydney, etc. It will surely spread from there?
    I am sure it is, it must be absolute catnip to normal, attention seeking teenagers. If your mum took the veganism on the chin, hit her with this.
    Absolutely.

    But in this instance we have medical intervention, and a supporting ideology that society is irredeemably “phobic” toward these multiplying sexual identities.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    IshmaelZ said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
    It’s utterly over.
    Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.

    If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
    I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
    I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.

    Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.

    The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....

    Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Leon said:
    Everyday occurrence down Grantham or Chippenham high street nowadays, it really must be stopped.

    Or perhaps just in a corner of the weirdest twitterati that should not be given any oxygen.
    But it isn't some tiny weird corner of Twitter

    See @Gardenwalker's comment. This whole Trans thing is storming through schools and academe

    It is in both my kids' schools. It is the new anorexia, yet, potentially, much more dangerous
    One of the problems with teaching about this so prominently is that it forces children to treat it as an important question in how they define themselves. You end up with a generation of children who don't dream of growing up to be a nurse or a fireman, but to be non-binary or gender-queer.
    I was watching some equally outrageous video a couple of days ago, and it occurred to me that America is reasonably likely to vote full on-Fascist in the next ten years, if that is the only way of stopping the Woke insanity

    And when I mean Fascist I mean the full-fat version: beyond Trump, beyond Erdogan, an actual strong man who will ignore the Constitution and chuck whoever he likes in jail

    Now, I like a bit of drama, but this was not a happy thought. We must pray America pulls back from the brink
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,414
    HYUFD said:

    Who would you rather see become PM?"

    All voters
    Sunak 28%
    Truss 25%

    But ...

    Current conservatives
    Sunak 36%
    Truss 41%

    2019 conservatives
    Sunak 30%
    Truss 39%

    Leavers
    Sunak 24%
    Truss 38%

    YouGov, Jul 22. Released today.

    https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1552247816747188224?s=20&t=wFmNMyRptGbN0gjaDyPcaA

    Poor Rishi can’t catch a break. He’s not measurably more ‘preferred’ as PM to Truss now so he can’t even use the “the public don’t like Liz so I’m a better prospect” angle anymore.

    Every fox has been shot.

    His slick presentation style came across as patronising in the debate.

    His campaign strategy is falling to pieces.

    Liz even got some TV time going over to help a woman who fainted the other day.

    I’m almost starting to feel sorry for the guy.

    Almost.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.28 Liz Truss 78%
    4.7 Rishi Sunak 21%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.26 Liz Truss 79%
    4.8 Rishi Sunak 21%

    Rishi out to 4/1.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.23 Liz Truss 81%
    4.9 Rishi Sunak 20%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.24 Liz Truss 81%
    5 Rishi Sunak 20%
    A surprising discrepancy between the two markets.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.23 Liz Truss 81%
    5.2 Rishi Sunak 19%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    5.4 Rishi Sunak 19%
    Betfair next prime minister
    1.21 Liz Truss 83%
    5.9 Rishi Sunak 17%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.2 Liz Truss 83%
    6 Rishi Sunak 17%
    Rishi's slow drift continues.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.2 Liz Truss 83%
    6.2 Rishi Sunak 16%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.19 Liz Truss 84%
    6.2 Rishi Sunak 16%
    Just squeezes into the Run Off but wins easily - interesting outcome.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022
    AlistairM said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:
    Congrats, you found a TikTok video.

    I have some better fodder for you.

    At a BBQ last Saturday, a Brooklyn mother told me that in her 12yo daughter’s class, only 4 of 16 girls identify as “cis female”.

    One of those who doesn’t is undergoing hormone treatment.
    My 13yo daughter is genuinely concerned she is trans-phobic for finding it strange the very large number of pupils at her all-girls school who are transgender, nonbinary or some other definition. It is not something at her age that I think I would have even known about.
    Where is this?
    UK Home Counties
    Teens always struggle with their sexual identities, and now they have a wonderful and rebellious labels they can latch on to.

    It’s notable too that this seems to be much more of a girl phenomenon than a boy phenomenon, despite the “classic” image we hold of a trans person.

    I am very relaxed about teens rebelling.

    I am not relaxed at schools supporting the odd ideology that comes with it, and I am terrified by the medical intervention stuff.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Joanna Cherry QC, MP tweets:

    Lots of ill informed twitter commentary on the Allison Bailey case from the usual misogynists who can’t bear to see a gender critical lesbian vindicated. This article helps set the record straight.

    https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1552309691111428097
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    edited July 2022
    kinabalu said:

    MISTY said:

    On strikes, Truss and others seem to think that people should have the right to strike provided nobody is inconvenienced. Hm.

    This fits with the government's view on protests as well - fine, as long as nobody is inconvenienced.

    Don't know if anybody else heard Grant Shapps on the radio this morning, but he was hilarious. He repeatedly moaned, more or less word for word, "there's been some sort of industrial action going on in the railways every single day that I've been SoS for Transport". The interviewer failed to suggest this may indicate a failing of the SoS himself.


    It took a pandemic to reveal that sweatshop labour is alive and well and thriving in England thank you very much. All sorts of flagrant abuses were revealed that were hastily brushed under the carpet because the perpetrators were from areas of society that did not fit in with the left's narrative of oppressor and victim.

    Where were our unions? Isn't this what unions are meant to be about? stopping these terrible abuses? Isn't that how they came into being?

    Oh but they can go fearlessly into battle for drivers on fifty grand plus, right?

    The unions' silence on sweatshop labour in the Leicesters of this world surely shows clearly that unions are nothing to do with pay and conditions any more, and everything to do with enlisting people in the political agendas of those who run them.
    Why can you and ilk only muster concern for capitalist exploitation when there's a racial angle to mine?
    Why does the left ignore capitalist exploitation why there's a racial angle?

    Same reason it ignored trafficking in Rochdale, Telford, and a dozen other English towns, I guess.

    It does not suit the left's narrative that the white hetero man is the exploiter and the abuser. And everybody else is a victim.
  • DennisBetsDennisBets Posts: 244
    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Mr. Pulpstar, that does look prescient.

    I'd be mildly amused if the odds are just wrong, though.

    They were wrong, but they're correcting now. Remember when I said that Truss was value at odds on ?
    TBh I've been very cautious - @Casino_Royale has risked more and will make more in the final analysis.
    I'm still not seeing reason to back Rishi at current prices.

    I'd probably buy at 8s or above.

    Right now, I think I'd be throwing away profit on Truss.
    It’s utterly over.
    Rishi has nothing left, and now looks silly.

    If Truss has been “screwing the crew”, as is speculated in some quarters, nobody is yet making the case that this demonstrates questionable judgement; it is likely too late for that now anyway.
    I am making the case that her judgment is so unquestionably shit that the odd spad is merely icing on the cake
    I don’t think critics of Liz have fully figured her out yet, she clearly is capable of surprises.

    Yet a goodly proposition of her colleagues are happy to brief that she is more crackers than Lewes town centre on Bonfire Night, and this will surely out sooner or later.

    The 20% cut in crime figures is a lovely hostage to fortune that will be used against her at the next election....

    Heck it's possible to do so now - so you want the police to attend all burglaries. What should they stop doing to provide the time to do that.
    Should not be a problem with 20 000 extra police officers we were all promised should it?
  • PhilPhil Posts: 1,919
    edited July 2022

    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    Phil said:

    Imagine joining a protection racket, following the rules slavishly, but finding out that in the end there's no protection, your reputation's trashed, your bank account's empty and the racketeers just walk away saying "nothing to do with us, guv".

    https://twitter.com/TAFKAMacM/status/1552269702776471553

    Er... what's that supposed to be attacking?
    It’s another dig at Stonewall.

    The GC crowd are taking the line that Stonewall was running something like a protection racket where they got organisations to pay them for “diversity advice services”. Now an organisation that was paying Stonewall (presumably) has been ordered to pay compensation in court for discrimination against an employee. So the GC crowd imply that this was based on Stonewall’s advice & now Stonewall are washing their hands of the whole affair & leaving the employer to swing in the wind.

    That said employer is a /legal chambers/ who happens to do a lot of work in precisely this area & therefore ought to be competent in this area of law already is something of a problem with this story. Also, the sums paid to Stonewall don’t come anywhere near close to what one would expect to pay for good legal advice in this area, which even if you paid for it wouldn’t come with any kind of guarantee of legal safety - legal advice never does.
    That does rather beg the question - why were they paying them at all then?
    Judging by Garden Court Chambers' statement, you would think they had won the case, rather than having £22,000 damages awarded against them.

    The Observer’s chief leader writer:

    It’s simply amazing that a chambers full of leading QCs specialising in human rights law did not stay on the right side of equalities law. It shows the extent to which institutions can be captured by false claims of transphobia to try and silence women’s free speech.

    https://twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1552253718334214145
    I mean, just calling her “The Observer‘s Chief Leader Writer” is being /slightly/ economical with the actualité there Carlotta. Sonia Sodha has been writing Gender Crit leaders in the Observer for years at this point, so her view on this case ought to come as no surprise to anyone.

    Also, I think she’s wrong in point of fact here too: until Maya Forstarter’s case was decided the Garden Chambers tweets were not obviously discriminatory in law. Once that case had been decided, I suspect this one followed & indeed one of the justifications given by Alison Bailey for the long delay in bringing the case was that she was waiting for the outcome of Maya Forstater’s case before bringing hers to court.
This discussion has been closed.