Breaking - AP (via Seattle Times) - Search underway for missing submersible that takes people to see Titanic
A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic, according to media reports.
The U.S. Coast Guard told BBC News that a search was underway Monday off the coast of Newfoundland. OceanGate Expeditions confirmed it owned the missing vessel.
“We are exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely,” the company said in a statement to BBC News. “Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families.”
The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston did not immediately return messages sent by The Associated Press. However, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said a Canadian military aircraft and a Canadian Coast Guard vessel are assisting the search effort, which is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 2021, OceanGate Expeditions began what it expected to become an annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the iconic ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The company said at the time that in addition to archaeologists and marine biologists, the expeditions also would include roughly 40 paid tourists who would take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible.
The initial group of tourists was funding the expedition by spending anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 apiece.
This sad story is important. (I say 'sad', as I fear that it's not going to end well).
There is a growing trend of people doing dangerous things, with the idea - or image - that they are safe. Whether it is going down to the Titanic as a tourist, or going to space, there are dangers that should not be ignored. After the Challenger disaster, NASA was rightly criticised because the risks of spaceflight had not been correctly passed onto astronauts. The same may well be sadly true of these private companies.
It depends whether they've been made aware of the dangers beforehand.
They won't have been. Guaranteed.
Another point; don't call them 'explorers'. They are not. They are adventurers. There's a massive difference, albeit with some overlap, between the two.
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
I think a peak to trough in nominal terms of around 20%.
@BethRigby Think Sunak going to have an issue with privileges cttee vote if senior Tories like May support the motion as PM dodges. He promised govt of integrity, accountability and professionalism. Opponents will criticise if he avoids the vote. Watch KS call him weak at PMQs on Weds
But it was so predictable. He should probably just call an election. Time to get rid of him, he’s not up to it.
An early election would be a nice idea if we were really going to replace the government with something better. Unfortunately the alternative is Sir Kier Boredom and the loony Labour Public Sector Party ffs!
Oh do stop it. You posted for years that Starmer was ok. Now you're reverting to tory story propaganda output because you finally have a non risible leader and there's an election coming.
Nigel seems to be part of a cadre of posters who will allow themselves to complain occasionally about the Cons but will also vote for them regardless. Even economic malfeasance and outright corruption is unable to shake their votes.
See also, BigG, DavidL and CasinoRoyale.
They all seem to have formed their view of Labour in the 1980s or earlier, with the exception of CR who’s just an young fogey.
I did vote for Blair twice and would have voted lib dem if Johnson had stayed in office
I am not captured by Starmer like some , as he flip flops regularly
Abolish tuition fees - not now
Spend 28 billion pa on green issues - not now
Stop all new oil and gas licences - not now
Abolish all union legislation since 2016 - absolutely handing unprecedented power to the trade unions
Accepts 1.6 million from stop oil but that is OK
And as far as public sector wage demands are concerned then he will bow to his union masters
The policy of abolishing of vat on school fees and non dom status is paltry to the sums needed and Starmer has not laid out how he is going to pay for his government either in borrowing or higher taxes, which by the way he has consistently condemned
None of this means Starmer will not be the next PM but he is not entitled to a free pass
Agree.
But no right thinking person could vote to give the Tories another go, after the shambles and shame and corruption of the last few years.
It depends if the alternative is worse and Sunak has 18 months at most to move on from Johnson
It is an unbelievably high bar and I expect a majority Starmer government but again I am not giving him a free pass
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
I think a peak to trough in nominal terms of around 20%.
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
Item 1: tick. Item 3: tick. Item 2: we can but hope, but you're probably right. Any downward correction is liable to be limited by lack of supply - but hopefully a nice bit of extra wage inflation will help to improve affordability.
I'm frustrated enough being a rapidly ageing bloke stuck in a starter flat; needless to say the barmy property market must be excruciating for those condemned to permarenting from scalper landlords.
@BethRigby Think Sunak going to have an issue with privileges cttee vote if senior Tories like May support the motion as PM dodges. He promised govt of integrity, accountability and professionalism. Opponents will criticise if he avoids the vote. Watch KS call him weak at PMQs on Weds
But it was so predictable. He should probably just call an election. Time to get rid of him, he’s not up to it.
An early election would be a nice idea if we were really going to replace the government with something better. Unfortunately the alternative is Sir Kier Boredom and the loony Labour Public Sector Party ffs!
Oh do stop it. You posted for years that Starmer was ok. Now you're reverting to tory story propaganda output because you finally have a non risible leader and there's an election coming.
Nigel seems to be part of a cadre of posters who will allow themselves to complain occasionally about the Cons but will also vote for them regardless. Even economic malfeasance and outright corruption is unable to shake their votes.
See also, BigG, DavidL and CasinoRoyale.
They all seem to have formed their view of Labour in the 1980s or earlier, with the exception of CR who’s just an young fogey.
I did vote for Blair twice and would have voted lib dem if Johnson had stayed in office
I am not captured by Starmer like some , as he flip flops regularly
Abolish tuition fees - not now
Spend 28 billion pa on green issues - not now
Stop all new oil and gas licences - not now
Abolish all union legislation since 2016 - absolutely handing unprecedented power to the trade unions
Accepts 1.6 million from stop oil but that is OK
And as far as public sector wage demands are concerned then he will bow to his union masters
The policy of abolishing of vat on school fees and non dom status is paltry to the sums needed and Starmer has not laid out how he is going to pay for his government either in borrowing or higher taxes, which by the way he has consistently condemned
None of this means Starmer will not be the next PM but he is not entitled to a free pass
Agree.
But no right thinking person could vote to give the Tories another go, after the shambles and shame and corruption of the last few years.
It depends if the alternative is worse and Sunak has 18 months at most to move on from Johnson
It is an unbelievably high bar and I expect a majority Starmer government but again I am not giving him a free pass
What would you 'giving him a free pass' look like btw? How would we spot it?
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
I think a peak to trough in nominal terms of around 20%.
Quite possible. I was thinking more like 10% max.
It will probably be difficult to put a precise figure on it because the market will respond differently in different areas and different segments.
RFK Jr on the Pfizer Vaccine: "22,000 people got the Vaccine and 22,000 didn't. During that six month period, 1 Vaccinated person died of Covid and in the placebo group 2 people died. That allows Pfizer and the FDA to say the Vaccine is 100% effective."
RFK junior sounsd indististinguishable from Trump.
He's really unconvincing
However I think the refusal by scientists to debate RFK's antivaxxery on Joe Rogan is a major mistake. They are haughtily doing it on the basis that debating him would give credence to a "conspiracy theory"
But for a year these same pompous, self-important scientists told us "lab leak" was a baseless conspiracy, and forbade debates on it
People no longer kneel, automatically, before The Science. If antivaxxery is foolish nonsense (and it probably is, but we don;t know for sure, and this is a live issue) then debate it, Prove your case. Make RFK look like a jerk. Don't avoid debate on the basis scientists shouldn't have to bother with these "nutters". The scientists were the nutters who told us lab leak was impossible
1) scientists are not typically good at communicating science - the few who do are also looked down on by the scientific community because they aren't producing research (the thing that shows you're a good scientist) and are likely instead making TV shows 2) when do we tell people to shut up and stop being stupid? At some point we have to - evolution, germ theory, flat earthers: when do we stop? The argument about vaccines is about saving lives, and it is good to have better vaccine education in general, but to dignify actual antivaxxers with a debate or response is nonsense 3) why is Joe Rogan being paid stupid money by spotify to spread this kind of dangerous misinformation. It is hardly curtailing free speech to not pay someone millions of dollars for doing something - I think it is more than reasonable to have had a part of the contract that says doing that kind of nonsense will lead to losing money or even cancellation of the show 4) "A lie will go around the world before the truth has put it's shoes on". It is easy to lie. It is easy to say "Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine". It is easy to say "Scientists have never found a transitionary species in the fossil record". You know what takes a long time? Explaining how vaccines work, how we know they work, and what they do; how we have found transition fossils, how many of them we have found, and what that suggests about evolution. It is always easier to make a baseless claim, or multiple baseless claims, and when the person arguing in good faith spends all their time debunking one baseless claim you shout "ah ha, see how he ignored all the other baseless claims I made!" (it's called a Gish Gallop after the famous creationist Dr Gish who used to do that - he also had an appearance in Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, for those of you who may have seen that)
All in all, taking bad faith arguments as if they are good faith and trying to dissect them whilst giving them a larger audience to be spread does not work. Better would be governments coming down hard on social media moderation and refusing to accept the argument that stuff is moderated by ai or algorithms and say "if you can't moderate content without actual humans viewing the content, either hire humans or close down because your platform is actively harmful)
I'm not sure the BIB is true. Many excellent scientists are also excellent at talking about it. There is a significant trend in science now to show public engagement - how will you engage (in both directions) with the public? This is both listening to the public as well as disseminating information.
There is sometimes a bit of jealousy about scientists who have become the rock stars of science (Brian Cox, Alice Roberts etc). Sometimes they have achieved the status of Professor for non academic merit, but because of the public role. But generally people accept it.
We've also seen a lot more engagement on SM, such as Twitter through the pandemic, some good, some bad. Its notable how many of my colleagues are on twitter and promoting their work via that platform.
Two that immediately spring to mind are Richard Feynman and Stephen Jay Gould. Both at the very forefront of their disciplines (Quantum Mechanics and Evolutionary theory) yet both great communicators, popularisers and educators. Being a great media figure does not in any way mean one is not also a great scientist.
I have all Gould's books but its been some years since I dipped in. One essay always sticks in my mind - a tale of false memory where he describes sitting somewhere with a relative that he remembers from childhood and then comes to realise that his memory cannot be correct. And yet the memory persists.
I had a conversation with my folks yesterday where they told me that schoolfriends used to ring me up for homework advice on a regular basis. I cannot recall this at all. Nothing, Not one occasion, but I have no reason to doubt them. What else have I forgotten?
Stephen Jay Gould was essentially a Marxist. Not really the cuddly professorial character he is often portrayed as
Good writer, tho. Crisp and lucid prose
Of course this is a classic example of why one's politics should not be the defining characteristic by which we are judged. I disagree with his marxist views whilst recognising how and why they developed. But I don't find they in any way interfere with his scientific writings and was surprised to find out about his politics after many years of reading his works both for academic and pleasure purposes.
His work on punctuated equilibriums also looks to be absolutely spot on.
Agreed. I was fortunate to be studying Geology at Uni when this was still the big debate and I buy into the concept pretty much completely.
It's not wrong, it's just not interesting because how else did anyone ever think or say evolution works? It demolishes s complete straw man.theory of absolute uniformitarianism which nobody ever held.
Wrong. Utterly wrong. The slow steady progress idea with gradual genetic change resulting in speciation was THE idea underpinning evolution for decades. Indeed at the time I was at university that argument was mainstream. The idea it was a straw man argument is simply wrong from start to finish. Eldridge and Gould changed the whole way evolution was considered and understood.
Not wrong. Any theory of evolution says that you change when external circumstances change, and not otherwise barring a bit of genetic drift. Things stay the same for more of the time than they change. So punctuated equilibrium is exactly what Darwin predicts.
You clearly weren't around in the late 70s and 80s to see and hear the phyletic gradualists lining up to attack punctuated equilibrium hypothesis. Even Darwin retreated from the catastrophist idea prior to publication.
Indeed even today gradualism is the main way evolution is taught at degree level with a hat tip to PE.
Of course I am grateful for the debate as I got 15% of my degree from writing about it.
You should stop getting all your ideas from Dawkins. He has his own hypothesis to push and the best way to do that in his eyes apparently is to undermine all the others. Something he has spent most of his life doing.
I don't get all my ideas from Dawkins. I cannot imagine how a gradualist theory of evolution would work; there's nothing gradual about moving from one Galapagos island to another. If there is such a theory and Gould demolished it good for him, but it doesn't make him the Messiah
Same with the spandrel stuff. Look at your face. I can tell you first class evolutionary stories about your eyes and teeth and nose and slightly iffy ones about your beard and eyebrows, but things like your forehead and chin are quite obviously just the way things are to join the evolved bits. What was ever non obvious about that?
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
A former member of the Bank of England was interviewed on yesterday's Sophie on Sunday and provided one of the most sensible and informative responses to the present crisis and said that covid and Ukraine were the driving factor behind inflation, and in a much smaller way brexit, but that no government could risk bailing out mortgage holders as that would provide an immediate response from the markets in even higher interest rates
Indeed Starmer refused to endorse bailing out mortgagees in this current climate
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Great idea. repossessions, misery depression and suicide. What a nice person you must be.
I'm always struck with how immense sympathy is afforded to mortgage payers in these circumstances, whereas no thought is given at all to the remaining 70% of the population.
Falling prices are something to be celebrated for those who can't afford to buy full stop, or who are stuck in small properties with no prospect of being able to afford to trade upwards. Falling prices may upset pensioner homeowners, but at least ramping interest rates provides them with compensation in the form of higher interest on savings (which is also a serious boon for those about to retire and considering the purchase of annuities.)
The market giveth and the market taketh away, There are always winners and losers - but, critically, there are probably more of the former than the latter to be found from a downward correction in property prices.
Breaking - AP (via Seattle Times) - Search underway for missing submersible that takes people to see Titanic
A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic, according to media reports.
The U.S. Coast Guard told BBC News that a search was underway Monday off the coast of Newfoundland. OceanGate Expeditions confirmed it owned the missing vessel.
“We are exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely,” the company said in a statement to BBC News. “Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families.”
The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston did not immediately return messages sent by The Associated Press. However, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said a Canadian military aircraft and a Canadian Coast Guard vessel are assisting the search effort, which is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 2021, OceanGate Expeditions began what it expected to become an annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the iconic ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The company said at the time that in addition to archaeologists and marine biologists, the expeditions also would include roughly 40 paid tourists who would take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible.
The initial group of tourists was funding the expedition by spending anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 apiece.
This sad story is important. (I say 'sad', as I fear that it's not going to end well).
There is a growing trend of people doing dangerous things, with the idea - or image - that they are safe. Whether it is going down to the Titanic as a tourist, or going to space, there are dangers that should not be ignored. After the Challenger disaster, NASA was rightly criticised because the risks of spaceflight had not been correctly passed onto astronauts. The same may well be sadly true of these private companies.
I have no sympathy for posts beginning "I have no sympathy...", but the element of rich twattishness here needs to be recognised. Mass grave tourism is not attractive.
Everest was an example I was going to mention; but the risks of that are fairly well acknowledged. And sadly, so many people have died going up Everest that it is now 'mass grave tourism'.
The Challenger astronauts will have grown up knowing about the Apollo 1 disaster and would definitely have been aware that spaceflight as it was then and is now is risky.
I suggest you read the Rogers Commission (Challenger report). Yes, they'd know there was a risk. In fact, studies were done, and the risk was put at between 1 chance in 1000 and 1 in 10,000 (1) or higher. In reality, they had 135 flights and 2 failures - despite the improvements post-Challenger. A ~1 in 67 failure rate.
Which led to politicians and NASA putting poor Christa McAuliffe, a teacher, on Challenger.
A later study found that the first nine shuttle flights had a 1 in 9 chance of catastrophic failure (2). The astronauts on board - even in STS 1, the first flight, had not been told it was anywhere near that risk. And STS-1 was very nearly a failure.
It's not just a case of saying: "This is risky!"; intelligent people need to know the *degree* of risk.
@BethRigby Think Sunak going to have an issue with privileges cttee vote if senior Tories like May support the motion as PM dodges. He promised govt of integrity, accountability and professionalism. Opponents will criticise if he avoids the vote. Watch KS call him weak at PMQs on Weds
But it was so predictable. He should probably just call an election. Time to get rid of him, he’s not up to it.
An early election would be a nice idea if we were really going to replace the government with something better. Unfortunately the alternative is Sir Kier Boredom and the loony Labour Public Sector Party ffs!
Oh do stop it. You posted for years that Starmer was ok. Now you're reverting to tory story propaganda output because you finally have a non risible leader and there's an election coming.
Nigel seems to be part of a cadre of posters who will allow themselves to complain occasionally about the Cons but will also vote for them regardless. Even economic malfeasance and outright corruption is unable to shake their votes.
See also, BigG, DavidL and CasinoRoyale.
They all seem to have formed their view of Labour in the 1980s or earlier, with the exception of CR who’s just an young fogey.
I did vote for Blair twice and would have voted lib dem if Johnson had stayed in office
I am not captured by Starmer like some , as he flip flops regularly
Abolish tuition fees - not now
Spend 28 billion pa on green issues - not now
Stop all new oil and gas licences - not now
Abolish all union legislation since 2016 - absolutely handing unprecedented power to the trade unions
Accepts 1.6 million from stop oil but that is OK
And as far as public sector wage demands are concerned then he will bow to his union masters
The policy of abolishing of vat on school fees and non dom status is paltry to the sums needed and Starmer has not laid out how he is going to pay for his government either in borrowing or higher taxes, which by the way he has consistently condemned
None of this means Starmer will not be the next PM but he is not entitled to a free pass
Agree.
But no right thinking person could vote to give the Tories another go, after the shambles and shame and corruption of the last few years.
It depends if the alternative is worse and Sunak has 18 months at most to move on from Johnson
It is an unbelievably high bar and I expect a majority Starmer government but again I am not giving him a free pass
What would you 'giving him a free pass' look like btw? How would we spot it?
Happy Juneteenth! US public holiday celebrating emancipation of slaves in Texas in June 1865 by Union Army, about two months after Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox CH.
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
A former member of the Bank of England was interviewed on yesterday's Sophie on Sunday and provided one of the most sensible and informative responses to the present crisis and said that covid and Ukraine were the driving factor behind inflation, and in a much smaller way brexit, but that no government could risk bailing out mortgage holders as that would provide an immediate response from the markets in even higher interest rates
Indeed Starmer refused to endorse bailing out mortgagees in this current climate
This is correct.
Although a more interesting question is why the brunt of inflation suppression should fall solely on mortgage holders.
This is quite a different market than even twenty years ago. Interest rates only hit a certain, well-defined sector of the population.
It’s remarkable that some of these Tory dinosaurs think that picking over the legal minutiae is going to provide any sort of answer to this big picture scandal that any man or woman on the bus can already see.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
According to Paul Mason, there is a new conspiracy theory emanating from far-left / Corbynista circles: that Keir Starmer is a “spycop”: some kind of establishment or even CIA plant.
Stuff like this, as well as the anti-Semitism and the pathetic response to Salisbury is why I disagree with posters who claim that Corbyn was somehow on a par or even a less malign option than Johnson in 2019.
(Of course, I voted for neither).
Thing is, you have an actual Johnson PM calamity against a mere hypothetical Corbyn PM one. And you have to weight an actual as greater than a hypothetical, all else being equal.
No. Simply no. Boris' flaws were all too visible before he became PM. He did not change; he changed the party and removed many of the people against him. What makes you think that Corbyn would become a paragon of virtue and sanity if he had become PM? especially when as party leader he tried to change his party into his image.
It doesn't matter what I think. We'll never know how he'd have been. Point is, it’s apples and pears. We have the stone cold objective fact of the Johnson PM calamity vs the purely hypothetical (and heavily subjective since it's a matter of opinion) Corbyn premiership. No contest. What would you rather have, real food poisoning or theoretical, 'matter of opinion' food poisoning?
Breaking - AP (via Seattle Times) - Search underway for missing submersible that takes people to see Titanic
A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic, according to media reports.
The U.S. Coast Guard told BBC News that a search was underway Monday off the coast of Newfoundland. OceanGate Expeditions confirmed it owned the missing vessel.
“We are exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely,” the company said in a statement to BBC News. “Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families.”
The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston did not immediately return messages sent by The Associated Press. However, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said a Canadian military aircraft and a Canadian Coast Guard vessel are assisting the search effort, which is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 2021, OceanGate Expeditions began what it expected to become an annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the iconic ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The company said at the time that in addition to archaeologists and marine biologists, the expeditions also would include roughly 40 paid tourists who would take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible.
The initial group of tourists was funding the expedition by spending anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 apiece.
This sad story is important. (I say 'sad', as I fear that it's not going to end well).
There is a growing trend of people doing dangerous things, with the idea - or image - that they are safe. Whether it is going down to the Titanic as a tourist, or going to space, there are dangers that should not be ignored. After the Challenger disaster, NASA was rightly criticised because the risks of spaceflight had not been correctly passed onto astronauts. The same may well be sadly true of these private companies.
Virgin Galactic is a disaster waiting to happen.
Blue Origins suborbital system is decently engineered, though the flight rate is strangely low.
My plane from Cincinnati to LHR last night was full of 18-19 year old kids - fairly well off but not super rich - on some kind of school/college trip to London. For nearly all of them it was their first trip to Europe, for some the first trip abroad. I listened in to conversations
What on earth will they make of London, Britain, Europe
Particularly in London it will all seem so familiar at first - language - but then confoundingly strange. Overwhelming
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
A former member of the Bank of England was interviewed on yesterday's Sophie on Sunday and provided one of the most sensible and informative responses to the present crisis and said that covid and Ukraine were the driving factor behind inflation, and in a much smaller way brexit, but that no government could risk bailing out mortgage holders as that would provide an immediate response from the markets in even higher interest rates
Indeed Starmer refused to endorse bailing out mortgagees in this current climate
This is correct.
Although a more interesting question is why the brunt of inflation suppression should fall solely on mortgage holders.
This is quite a different market than even twenty years ago. Interest rates only hit a certain, well-defined sector of the population.
Fair comment but not sure there is an alternative though the Bank of England should have started tightened long ago
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
Murderous thugs, in other words.
Like William Wallace you mean?
Unless you were a Bishop or Abbott or a Lawyer most of the elite were in those days
Breaking - AP (via Seattle Times) - Search underway for missing submersible that takes people to see Titanic
A search is underway for a missing submersible that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic, according to media reports.
The U.S. Coast Guard told BBC News that a search was underway Monday off the coast of Newfoundland. OceanGate Expeditions confirmed it owned the missing vessel.
“We are exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely,” the company said in a statement to BBC News. “Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families.”
The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston did not immediately return messages sent by The Associated Press. However, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said a Canadian military aircraft and a Canadian Coast Guard vessel are assisting the search effort, which is being led by the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 2021, OceanGate Expeditions began what it expected to become an annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the iconic ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The company said at the time that in addition to archaeologists and marine biologists, the expeditions also would include roughly 40 paid tourists who would take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible.
The initial group of tourists was funding the expedition by spending anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000 apiece.
This sad story is important. (I say 'sad', as I fear that it's not going to end well).
There is a growing trend of people doing dangerous things, with the idea - or image - that they are safe. Whether it is going down to the Titanic as a tourist, or going to space, there are dangers that should not be ignored. After the Challenger disaster, NASA was rightly criticised because the risks of spaceflight had not been correctly passed onto astronauts. The same may well be sadly true of these private companies.
Virgin Galactic is a disaster waiting to happen.
Blue Origins suborbital system is decently engineered, though the flight rate is strangely low.
Soyuz has increasing quality problems.
Dragon/F9 is tested to a reasonable extent.
Orion will never fly enough to be properly tested
Starliner has an ugly vibe of continuing issues
Dreamchaser isn’t ready yet
That's all fair.
I'd also add that the Chinese Shenzhou system has had about 15 flights, mostly crewed, with no failures.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
Murderous thugs, in other words.
Like William Wallace you mean?
Unless you were a Bishop or Abbott or a Lawyer most of the elite were in those days
Wallace? Only because a bunch of thugs invaded Scotland. And as for your second point, "waah! waah! Everyone else in the playground was doing it!" doesn't make a psychopath into your concept of a toff.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
Murderous thugs, in other words.
Like William Wallace you mean?
Unless you were a Bishop or Abbott or a Lawyer most of the elite were in those days
Wallace? Only because a bunch of thugs invaded Scotland.
Sir Julian Lewis said he will vote for the Report, a surprise as he is a diehard Eurosceptic rightwinger
Not a surprise. Some were/are Eurosceptic because they want to protect British parliamentary democracy and rule of law from the EU.
Sadly, not enough. And those Brexiters who made it into government, perhaps with exceptions like Steve Baker, simply wanted to engross power to themselves.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
Murderous thugs, in other words.
Like William Wallace you mean?
Unless you were a Bishop or Abbott or a Lawyer most of the elite were in those days
Wallace? Only because a bunch of thugs invaded Scotland.
Wallace also sacked towns and cities across the North of England
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
I see "Sir" JRM has compared the Committee to Communist China. Pity it isn't. I can think of one or two who would benefit from 10 years hard graft on a collective farm.
Respect by way of a blanket and cup of cocoa, perhaps. Just take no notice of anything he might be saying.
He is standing down, so last hurrah
Sir Bill is 83, I doubt he cares what people think of him now.
You are never too old to stand up for honestly, integrity and decency rather than try to deflect and excuse malign behaviour
It's the dilemma facing all Conservative politicians in the twilights of their careers- not just the Cash generation, but also the Gove/Hunt generation.
What do they want their obituary to say? They can't unwrite the bit about helping a charlatan rise to power. Many of them appear to be fluffing the chance to say "when I realised how bad he was, I did the right thing".
There might be different reasons for that. Fear of the constituency members or the rabid press. Fear that Johnson will somehow come back and have his revenge. Maybe even a reluctance to admit quite how much the great liar lied to them personally, and how they didn't spot it until it was much too late.
@BethRigby Think Sunak going to have an issue with privileges cttee vote if senior Tories like May support the motion as PM dodges. He promised govt of integrity, accountability and professionalism. Opponents will criticise if he avoids the vote. Watch KS call him weak at PMQs on Weds
But it was so predictable. He should probably just call an election. Time to get rid of him, he’s not up to it.
An early election would be a nice idea if we were really going to replace the government with something better. Unfortunately the alternative is Sir Kier Boredom and the loony Labour Public Sector Party ffs!
Oh do stop it. You posted for years that Starmer was ok. Now you're reverting to tory story propaganda output because you finally have a non risible leader and there's an election coming.
Nigel seems to be part of a cadre of posters who will allow themselves to complain occasionally about the Cons but will also vote for them regardless. Even economic malfeasance and outright corruption is unable to shake their votes.
See also, BigG, DavidL and CasinoRoyale.
They all seem to have formed their view of Labour in the 1980s or earlier, with the exception of CR who’s just an young fogey.
And as far as public sector wage demands are concerned then he will bow to his union masters
You haven’t the faintest idea about public sector pay.
In my ALB, I have a colleague, stuck at the top of an immobile payscale, who earns less net now than she did in 2012. Because of increased pension/NI contributions. Other colleagues are now regular foodbank users. This can’t be right. We have no progression, no increments, and towards the top of scales, no increases, inflationary or otherwise.
We are struggling to recruit to specialist roles because pay has fallen so far behind the third sector, never mind the private sector.
You are happy to take your triple locked pension whilst taking pops at public sector pay arrangements you clearly don’t understand.
As was observed on here, how can it be right for non-workers to be rewarded whilst workers are told there’s no money.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
Murderous thugs, in other words.
Like William Wallace you mean?
Unless you were a Bishop or Abbott or a Lawyer most of the elite were in those days
Wallace? Only because a bunch of thugs invaded Scotland.
Wallace also sacked towns and cities across the North of England
And yet you put him in charge of our country’s defences?
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
Sir Julian Lewis said he will vote for the Report, a surprise as he is a diehard Eurosceptic rightwinger
By sanctioning Boris, Parliament is asserting it's sovereignty... Leave MPs in particular should be voting to support the Privileges committee and our sovereign Parliament.
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
Sir Julian Lewis said he will vote for the Report, a surprise as he is a diehard Eurosceptic rightwinger
By sanctioning Boris, Parliament is asserting it's sovereignty... Leave MPs in particular should be voting to support the Privileges committee and our sovereign Parliament.
Did you spot Mrs May making that point, ironically, during her speech? A barb aimed at the clown’s heart that fellow MPs certainly spotted.
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
I see "Sir" JRM has compared the Committee to Communist China. Pity it isn't. I can think of one or two who would benefit from 10 years hard graft on a collective farm.
You could probably drop the 're' in re-education for some of them. Dame Andrea Littlefinger Jenkyns springs to mind..
I'd vote in favour of this report, with a few minor reservations.
But if Johnson gets censured to this degree about this, how did Blair remain in power for years after his lies over Iraq - something that had much greater effect on the country?
I'd vote in favour of this report, with a few minor reservations.
But if Johnson gets censured to this degree about this, how did Blair remain in power for years after his lies over Iraq - something that had much greater effect on the country?
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
And even if it were so, what does respecting someone for being the oldest MP mean in this context? Given you've raised it in response to someone calling him a mean name, am I to gather that by 'respect' you mean 'immunity from mockery'?
A very snowflakey attiude, I'd have thought Sir William would not be in favour of that.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Why has her peerage been blocked, anyway? I mean, whatever one thinks of her she is not obviously less qualified for the role than other recent appointees and arguably more qualified than at least one of them.
Because she would not commit to stand down as an MP.
Why would she need to? Peers automatically forfeit their seats in the Commons (exhibit A - Tony Benn).
Although today, Viscount Stansgate would still remain an MP.
Yes, but we're talking about being members of the Lords. You can't take a life peerage and stay in the Commons, surely?
No, that's of course correct. But exhibit A - young Mr Benn - was for an hereditary peerage and since Blair's 'reform' in the late 1990s, these are no longer automatically members of the Lords.
I know that. What I was saying was that becoming a member of the Lords automatically means you leave the commons. Even if you don't want it to (although in that case why accept a peerage)?
Which was true until the removal of automatic hereditary peerages in the 1990s and is why Benn despite refusing to take his seat in the Lords still had his commons seat declared vacant and was not allowed to remain an MP even though he won the by-election with a 13,000 majority.
What was interesting is that the Macmillan Government then introduced legislation to allow peers to renounce their titles within a certain period. This was intended to remedy the injustice to Tony Benn, but it also had the effect of then allowing both Home and Hailsham to do the same and thus become viable contenders for the Tory Leadership in November 1963. A law with unintended consequences....
The irony being that Tony Benn's son and heir is now a hereditary Labour peer. Bob's yer uncle etc. etc.
Home was a true Toff though, the 14th Earl of Home. Benn just had a father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being a Labour MP and Minister.
Indeed not even the House of Lords has many genuine toffs left, most of them are just appointed Life Peers given most hereditary peers were removed in 1999
Home a true toff? He just had a g-g-g --- ... father who got a hereditary peerage as reward for being on the winning side of a minor civil war.
Well if you go back far enough all Dukes were just loyal supporters of the King and Earls the most prominent supporters of William the Conqueror (replacing the old Saxon Earls)
Murderous thugs, in other words.
Like William Wallace you mean?
Unless you were a Bishop or Abbott or a Lawyer most of the elite were in those days
Wallace? Only because a bunch of thugs invaded Scotland.
Wallace also sacked towns and cities across the North of England
And they still think he's a suitable candidate for NATO Secretary-General? Ridiculous.
@BethRigby Think Sunak going to have an issue with privileges cttee vote if senior Tories like May support the motion as PM dodges. He promised govt of integrity, accountability and professionalism. Opponents will criticise if he avoids the vote. Watch KS call him weak at PMQs on Weds
But it was so predictable. He should probably just call an election. Time to get rid of him, he’s not up to it.
An early election would be a nice idea if we were really going to replace the government with something better. Unfortunately the alternative is Sir Kier Boredom and the loony Labour Public Sector Party ffs!
Oh do stop it. You posted for years that Starmer was ok. Now you're reverting to tory story propaganda output because you finally have a non risible leader and there's an election coming.
Nigel seems to be part of a cadre of posters who will allow themselves to complain occasionally about the Cons but will also vote for them regardless. Even economic malfeasance and outright corruption is unable to shake their votes.
See also, BigG, DavidL and CasinoRoyale.
They all seem to have formed their view of Labour in the 1980s or earlier, with the exception of CR who’s just an young fogey.
And as far as public sector wage demands are concerned then he will bow to his union masters
You haven’t the faintest idea about public sector pay.
In my ALB, I have a colleague, stuck at the top of an immobile payscale, who earns less net now than she did in 2012. Because of increased pension/NI contributions. Other colleagues are now regular foodbank users. This can’t be right. We have no progression, no increments, and towards the top of scales, no increases, inflationary or otherwise.
We are struggling to recruit to specialist roles because pay has fallen so far behind the third sector, never mind the private sector.
You are happy to take your triple locked pension whilst taking pops at public sector pay arrangements you clearly don’t understand.
As was observed on here, how can it be right for non-workers to be rewarded whilst workers are told there’s no money.
Actually my daughter has 31 years in the civil service, and I have opposed the triple lock over the last 2 years
Never mind yesterday's fat oaf, the big news today is that Sunak has declined to offer more help to struggling mortgage payers. I mean, we'll see how long that position lasts as the pained screaming ramps up through the rest of this year and into the next, but for all of us who are desperately willing the vastly overinflated property bubble to burst in spectacular fashion it can't be anything but positive news.
Providing 'support' for mortgage payers will simply accelerate inflation and keep interest rates higher for longer
House prices might fall a little in nominal terms but there won't be a collapse, of course inflation enhances the real impact
Property should be viewed as a home to live in, not an investment
A former member of the Bank of England was interviewed on yesterday's Sophie on Sunday and provided one of the most sensible and informative responses to the present crisis and said that covid and Ukraine were the driving factor behind inflation, and in a much smaller way brexit, but that no government could risk bailing out mortgage holders as that would provide an immediate response from the markets in even higher interest rates
Indeed Starmer refused to endorse bailing out mortgagees in this current climate
This is correct.
Although a more interesting question is why the brunt of inflation suppression should fall solely on mortgage holders.
This is quite a different market than even twenty years ago. Interest rates only hit a certain, well-defined sector of the population.
The BoE was arguing vociferously for wage suppression well before the panic about mortgage interest really set in.
Ultimately it's all dictated by market forces. It's a workers' job market in most sectors, so employers that attempt wage suppression merely lose experienced staff and find it harder to recruit (or have to plug gaps with very expensive temps and locum staff.) Thus, their attempts are typically self-defeating.
Government could attempt to stifle demand by freezing state pensions and other social security, or limiting rises to well below the rate of inflation, but that has proven politically impossible.
Take those two mechanisms out of the equation, and the burden of taming inflation must, necessarily, fall disproportionately on the property market. Which, we hardly need reminding, has been in a state of rampant runaway inflation for the whole of the century so far, the period of the GFC excepted.
A correction in property prices and a return to normal interest rates are both massively overdue, and the pain from that will inevitably be borne primarily by mortgage payers, along with indebted businesses facing steep financing costs. TINA, and all that.
I'd vote in favour of this report, with a few minor reservations.
But if Johnson gets censured to this degree about this, how did Blair remain in power for years after his lies over Iraq - something that had much greater effect on the country?
The award for whatabout of the day goes to
It's not really a 'whatabout' is it? It appears the standards expected in the house have altered after this. Hopefully these new higher standards will be applicable to future government, whichever party is in power. And what Blair did would be totally unforgivable.
Comments
Another point; don't call them 'explorers'. They are not. They are adventurers. There's a massive difference, albeit with some overlap, between the two.
It is an unbelievably high bar and I expect a majority Starmer government but again I am not giving him a free pass
After all piss and wind are both valuable commodities when put to good (or even ill) use. SJRM?
I'm frustrated enough being a rapidly ageing bloke stuck in a starter flat; needless to say the barmy property market must be excruciating for those condemned to permarenting from scalper landlords.
Same with the spandrel stuff. Look at your face. I can tell you first class evolutionary stories about your eyes and teeth and nose and slightly iffy ones about your beard and eyebrows, but things like your forehead and chin are quite obviously just the way things are to join the evolved bits. What was ever non obvious about that?
Deltapoll just out have the Labour lead at 19%
The mean Labour lead of the last 4 four national opinion polls is 19.25%
Sunak is stronger? Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Nightwatchman! That's brave.
Indeed Starmer refused to endorse bailing out mortgagees in this current climate
Falling prices are something to be celebrated for those who can't afford to buy full stop, or who are stuck in small properties with no prospect of being able to afford to trade upwards. Falling prices may upset pensioner homeowners, but at least ramping interest rates provides them with compensation in the form of higher interest on savings (which is also a serious boon for those about to retire and considering the purchase of annuities.)
The market giveth and the market taketh away, There are always winners and losers - but, critically, there are probably more of the former than the latter to be found from a downward correction in property prices.
AND for your sake - and good of the order as we say in USA - glad there are a few Tory MPs standing tall today.
Which led to politicians and NASA putting poor Christa McAuliffe, a teacher, on Challenger.
A later study found that the first nine shuttle flights had a 1 in 9 chance of catastrophic failure (2). The astronauts on board - even in STS 1, the first flight, had not been told it was anywhere near that risk. And STS-1 was very nearly a failure.
It's not just a case of saying: "This is risky!"; intelligent people need to know the *degree* of risk.
(1): https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-space-shuttle-a-case-of-subjective-engineering
(2): https://www.npr.org/2011/03/04/134265291/early-space-shuttle-flights-riskier-than-estimated
“The final act in one of the most disreputable episodes we have witnessed in British politics for many years…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833
I certainly don't run fast enough to redshift my speech. (*)
(*) Can sound by redshifted?
Although a more interesting question is why the brunt of inflation suppression should fall solely on mortgage holders.
This is quite a different market than even twenty years ago. Interest rates only hit a certain, well-defined sector of the population.
It’s remarkable that some of these Tory dinosaurs think that picking over the legal minutiae is going to provide any sort of answer to this big picture scandal that any man or woman on the bus can already see.
roses are blue
depending on their velocity
relative to you
Blue Origins suborbital system is decently engineered, though the flight rate is strangely low.
Soyuz has increasing quality problems.
Dragon/F9 is tested to a reasonable extent.
Orion will never fly enough to be properly tested
Starliner has an ugly vibe of continuing issues
Dreamchaser isn’t ready yet
What on earth will they make of London, Britain, Europe
Particularly in London it will all seem so familiar at first - language - but then confoundingly strange. Overwhelming
Plus they will be legally allowed to drink. Oops
Interest rates have been too low for too long
Unless you were a Bishop or Abbott or a Lawyer most of the elite were in those days
I'd also add that the Chinese Shenzhou system has had about 15 flights, mostly crewed, with no failures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgMxtT_jYf0
Result will be marginal ranging from an ENG win by no more than 50 runs to an AUS win by no more than 3 wickets.
Boland has done well tonight.
Some were/are Eurosceptic because they want to protect British parliamentary democracy and rule of law from the EU.
Sadly, not enough. And those Brexiters who made it into government, perhaps with exceptions like Steve Baker, simply wanted to engross power to themselves.
Unless a conservative shouts no then as I understand it a no from anyone who is voting yes will be judged contempt of parliament by the speaker
Has anyone else heard of this technicality ?
And doesn't he look it as he's chased by the news cameras.
Sir Bill Cash tells the Commons: “Those who say the dogs bark and the caravan moves on miss the wood for the trees. The caravan of this House, having moved on, will certainly come back, and then the dogs will not only merely bark, but they will bite.”
Me neither.
https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1670855828050526208
Pity it isn't.
I can think of one or two who would benefit from 10 years hard graft on a collective farm.
Meeeeeeeeeee-yowwwwwwww.
Meeeeeeeeeee-yowwwwwwww.
What do they want their obituary to say? They can't unwrite the bit about helping a charlatan rise to power. Many of them appear to be fluffing the chance to say "when I realised how bad he was, I did the right thing".
There might be different reasons for that. Fear of the constituency members or the rabid press. Fear that Johnson will somehow come back and have his revenge. Maybe even a reluctance to admit quite how much the great liar lied to them personally, and how they didn't spot it until it was much too late.
In my ALB, I have a colleague, stuck at the top of an immobile payscale, who earns less net now than she did in 2012. Because of increased pension/NI contributions. Other colleagues are now regular foodbank users. This can’t be right. We have no progression, no increments, and towards the top of scales, no increases, inflationary or otherwise.
We are struggling to recruit to specialist roles because pay has fallen so far behind the third sector, never mind the private sector.
You are happy to take your triple locked pension whilst taking pops at public sector pay arrangements you clearly don’t understand.
As was observed on here, how can it be right for non-workers to be rewarded whilst workers are told there’s no money.
Freshen up the pitch.
Bring in an extra layer of jeopardy.
As well as the other two results into play.
Idolised in certain quarters but nobody else likes them or can see the point.
“How come everyone is thin”
(Not true of the Uk as a whole or course but definitely true of the Smoke)
But if Johnson gets censured to this degree about this, how did Blair remain in power for years after his lies over Iraq - something that had much greater effect on the country?
And even if it were so, what does respecting someone for being the oldest MP mean in this context? Given you've raised it in response to someone calling him a mean name, am I to gather that by 'respect' you mean 'immunity from mockery'?
A very snowflakey attiude, I'd have thought Sir William would not be in favour of that.
Unfortunately for you Starmer supports it also
Ultimately it's all dictated by market forces. It's a workers' job market in most sectors, so employers that attempt wage suppression merely lose experienced staff and find it harder to recruit (or have to plug gaps with very expensive temps and locum staff.) Thus, their attempts are typically self-defeating.
Government could attempt to stifle demand by freezing state pensions and other social security, or limiting rises to well below the rate of inflation, but that has proven politically impossible.
Take those two mechanisms out of the equation, and the burden of taming inflation must, necessarily, fall disproportionately on the property market. Which, we hardly need reminding, has been in a state of rampant runaway inflation for the whole of the century so far, the period of the GFC excepted.
A correction in property prices and a return to normal interest rates are both massively overdue, and the pain from that will inevitably be borne primarily by mortgage payers, along with indebted businesses facing steep financing costs. TINA, and all that.