How the LDs are using their by-election victories – politicalbetting.com

Cicero said:

One thing that may help the Liberal Democrats improve their poll ratings is that they have missed the limelight for a while: the last conference had to be cancelled after the death of Elizabeth II, so there has not been much spotlight on the party. Despite this, at both Westminster by elections and local council elections, they have been performing very strongly, and above their poll ratings.

Ed Davey is a remarkable man, and when journalists have gone one-to-one with him, they seem to come away pretty impressed. (vide recent Guardian interview). He has also solved a fair few of the internal process issues and is attracting something of a surge in support, including significant financial support.

Meanwhile the Tories seem to be doing everything in their power to cozy up to the Faragist right, but this is going down very badly in places like Surrey, and many other places across the South and south west of England. In Scotland the party is coming back in the North East and making strong progress in Edinburgh.

Its all beginning to look like we could see a real move in the coming months, and the anti Tory swing could bring some remarkable results in some surprising places.

Were you still up for Gove?

Sandpit said:

.

Malmesbury said:

A

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Carnyx said:

Taz said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The Tories should be worried about the rise and fall and rise again of Reginald Farage. As an almost millionaire he practically an Ordinary Man compared to our billionaire Prime Minister. And now that he has pledged himself to Stand Up for the ordinary people in a crusade against the woke establishment, he could be a serious threat to the Tories.

It is increasingly clear that the Tories are going to fight an insurgent campaign against Keir Starmer's government - the blob, the establishment, the lawyers, the regulators - all the people ruining the lives of the ordinary.

If Farage is there to point out that the Tories ARE the government, it won't work. Especially if he is leading another crusade to motivate all the let behind people to vote against the amassed forces stopping them from succeeding.

There has been an assumption that ReFUK will be an irrelevance. The fall out from the Coutts affair suggests that may not be true.

There is a wider issue on the conduct of banks. Farage has found something to elevate his profile with, or re-elevate it. There will be, I expect, more stories like this one which, on the face of it, is inexcusable.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/crane-on-the-case-my-vulnerable-in-laws-got-debanked-by-hsbc/ar-AA1epGGQ?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=5377dd238d794d1b942c9ec60d0bfe48&ei=14

I get very twitchy about the number of banks and lawyers with a photocopy of my passport, but at least I have one to prove my identity.

There's a related issue - access to Government services online. It has proved difficult to get through the Government Gateway and then the HMRC process in my experience esp if one doesn't have a photographic drivers' licence - demands to send mobile phone photos of passports (insane security wise), questions about one's credit record (not easy if one last took out a loan in 1992), and so on. And on top of that there seems to be a random element (as well as the sort of recursive loop in the website which drives one potty). @DavidL was unsurprisingly complainiong about it a few weeks back.

(And even when one does get to the HMRC site the tax information seems pretty pathetic. No clear statements of tax charged and why - just that "tax is sorted for year Y". If HMRC have done it for you it seems to be impossible to correct it once that has happened. But that is another matter.)

Another issue with "the number of banks and lawyers with a photocopy of my passport" is the number of banks and lawyers you hope have got their IT security ducks in a row so your passport is not for sale on the dark web.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway. I have a long, complicated surname. Cossacks stole all the vowels when we lived in the shtetl…

So I have my surname as an internet domain.

So my email is firstname@surname.com

Because I run it, anything before the @ that isn’t a proper, setup email address goes to me.

So i often give out, online, an email address specific to a purpose.

Say I fill in a form with - isuspectthisbsnkissellingdata@surname.com

Then find that email address on the web in hours…

I do exactly the same. I bought a domain for my consultancy business, and any company who asks me for my email address gets theircompany@mydomain.com.

Makes it really, really easy to find out where the spam is coming from.

It’s a useful starting point for conversations with customers, given that a fair bit of my business is IT security training!

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Sandpit said:

.

Malmesbury said:

A

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Carnyx said:

Taz said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The Tories should be worried about the rise and fall and rise again of Reginald Farage. As an almost millionaire he practically an Ordinary Man compared to our billionaire Prime Minister. And now that he has pledged himself to Stand Up for the ordinary people in a crusade against the woke establishment, he could be a serious threat to the Tories.

It is increasingly clear that the Tories are going to fight an insurgent campaign against Keir Starmer's government - the blob, the establishment, the lawyers, the regulators - all the people ruining the lives of the ordinary.

If Farage is there to point out that the Tories ARE the government, it won't work. Especially if he is leading another crusade to motivate all the let behind people to vote against the amassed forces stopping them from succeeding.

There has been an assumption that ReFUK will be an irrelevance. The fall out from the Coutts affair suggests that may not be true.

There is a wider issue on the conduct of banks. Farage has found something to elevate his profile with, or re-elevate it. There will be, I expect, more stories like this one which, on the face of it, is inexcusable.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/crane-on-the-case-my-vulnerable-in-laws-got-debanked-by-hsbc/ar-AA1epGGQ?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=5377dd238d794d1b942c9ec60d0bfe48&ei=14

I get very twitchy about the number of banks and lawyers with a photocopy of my passport, but at least I have one to prove my identity.

There's a related issue - access to Government services online. It has proved difficult to get through the Government Gateway and then the HMRC process in my experience esp if one doesn't have a photographic drivers' licence - demands to send mobile phone photos of passports (insane security wise), questions about one's credit record (not easy if one last took out a loan in 1992), and so on. And on top of that there seems to be a random element (as well as the sort of recursive loop in the website which drives one potty). @DavidL was unsurprisingly complainiong about it a few weeks back.

(And even when one does get to the HMRC site the tax information seems pretty pathetic. No clear statements of tax charged and why - just that "tax is sorted for year Y". If HMRC have done it for you it seems to be impossible to correct it once that has happened. But that is another matter.)

Another issue with "the number of banks and lawyers with a photocopy of my passport" is the number of banks and lawyers you hope have got their IT security ducks in a row so your passport is not for sale on the dark web.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway. I have a long, complicated surname. Cossacks stole all the vowels when we lived in the shtetl…

So I have my surname as an internet domain.

So my email is firstname@surname.com

Because I run it, anything before the @ that isn’t a proper, setup email address goes to me.

So i often give out, online, an email address specific to a purpose.

Say I fill in a form with - isuspectthisbsnkissellingdata@surname.com

Then find that email address on the web in hours…

I do exactly the same. I bought a domain for my consultancy business, and any company who asks me for my email address gets theircompany@mydomain.com.

Makes it really, really easy to find out where the spam is coming from.

It’s a useful starting point for conversations with customers, given that a fair bit of my business is IT security training!

I knew someone who did that but reported a lot of pushback from phone operators who thought tesco@mydomain meant that he had hacked Tesco. Of course, for your purposes that would be a good thing as a sales lead.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Sandpit said:

.

Malmesbury said:

A

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Carnyx said:

Taz said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The Tories should be worried about the rise and fall and rise again of Reginald Farage. As an almost millionaire he practically an Ordinary Man compared to our billionaire Prime Minister. And now that he has pledged himself to Stand Up for the ordinary people in a crusade against the woke establishment, he could be a serious threat to the Tories.

It is increasingly clear that the Tories are going to fight an insurgent campaign against Keir Starmer's government - the blob, the establishment, the lawyers, the regulators - all the people ruining the lives of the ordinary.

If Farage is there to point out that the Tories ARE the government, it won't work. Especially if he is leading another crusade to motivate all the let behind people to vote against the amassed forces stopping them from succeeding.

There has been an assumption that ReFUK will be an irrelevance. The fall out from the Coutts affair suggests that may not be true.

There is a wider issue on the conduct of banks. Farage has found something to elevate his profile with, or re-elevate it. There will be, I expect, more stories like this one which, on the face of it, is inexcusable.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/crane-on-the-case-my-vulnerable-in-laws-got-debanked-by-hsbc/ar-AA1epGGQ?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=5377dd238d794d1b942c9ec60d0bfe48&ei=14

I get very twitchy about the number of banks and lawyers with a photocopy of my passport, but at least I have one to prove my identity.

There's a related issue - access to Government services online. It has proved difficult to get through the Government Gateway and then the HMRC process in my experience esp if one doesn't have a photographic drivers' licence - demands to send mobile phone photos of passports (insane security wise), questions about one's credit record (not easy if one last took out a loan in 1992), and so on. And on top of that there seems to be a random element (as well as the sort of recursive loop in the website which drives one potty). @DavidL was unsurprisingly complainiong about it a few weeks back.

(And even when one does get to the HMRC site the tax information seems pretty pathetic. No clear statements of tax charged and why - just that "tax is sorted for year Y". If HMRC have done it for you it seems to be impossible to correct it once that has happened. But that is another matter.)

Another issue with "the number of banks and lawyers with a photocopy of my passport" is the number of banks and lawyers you hope have got their IT security ducks in a row so your passport is not for sale on the dark web.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha

Anyway. I have a long, complicated surname. Cossacks stole all the vowels when we lived in the shtetl…

So I have my surname as an internet domain.

So my email is firstname@surname.com

Because I run it, anything before the @ that isn’t a proper, setup email address goes to me.

So i often give out, online, an email address specific to a purpose.

Say I fill in a form with - isuspectthisbsnkissellingdata@surname.com

Then find that email address on the web in hours…

I do exactly the same. I bought a domain for my consultancy business, and any company who asks me for my email address gets theircompany@mydomain.com.

Makes it really, really easy to find out where the spam is coming from.

It’s a useful starting point for conversations with customers, given that a fair bit of my business is IT security training!

I knew someone who did that but reported a lot of pushback from phone operators who thought tesco@mydomain meant that he had hacked Tesco. Of course, for your purposes that would be a good thing as a sales lead.

Andy_JS said:

Australia win toss and bowl at the Oval.

Nigelb said:

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

Did you decide about Odesa ?

logical_song said:

kinabalu said:

HYUFD said:

Electoral calculus currently projects Labour would win Chelsea and Fulham with 40% of the vote, the Tories on 30% and the LDs on just 17%
"New Seat Details - Chelsea and Fulham" https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?seat=Chelsea and Fulham

Average house price in Chelsea and Fulham is 1.4 million pounds so a Tory manifesto commitment to scrap IHT or raise the threshold to 1 million pounds would help Hands in this marginal seat

Yes we don't want the LDs getting busy in Chelsea & Fulham. That's a central London seat. It's Labour. What we want the LDs doing is winning seats off the Cons in the SW and blue wall towns and burbs.

Libdems are 2nd in that seat, up 15% over 2017, Labour down 10%.

Malmesbury said:

kinabalu said:

HYUFD said:

Electoral calculus currently projects Labour would win Chelsea and Fulham with 40% of the vote, the Tories on 30% and the LDs on just 17%
"New Seat Details - Chelsea and Fulham" https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?seat=Chelsea and Fulham

Average house price in Chelsea and Fulham is 1.4 million pounds so a Tory manifesto commitment to scrap IHT or raise the threshold to 1 million pounds would help Hands in this marginal seat

Yes we don't want the LDs getting busy in Chelsea & Fulham. That's a central London seat. It's Labour. What we want the LDs doing is winning seats off the Cons in the SW and blue wall towns and burbs.

That’s assuming that the Lib Dem’s are Spare Labour. There is a long history of that in the Labour Party - see the negotiations about the Coalition government.

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

Leon said:

Nigelb said:

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

Did you decide about Odesa ?

No. I want to go but 1, it’s hard to get to from here and 2, eeeek bombs

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

I get a feeling that @Leon's forthcoming Speccie article on "life in Ukraine" is going to be unbearably smug.

I don’t write for the Spectator. If only! The Knapper’s Gazette might, I suppose, ask me for a war diary. But why would it be smug?

I am completely capable of being intolerably smug, I don’t deny that. But anything I write about Ukraine will just be the truth about what I have encountered

I’m not gonna be boasting about the tasting menus and Ayurvedic massage

Nigelb said:

Leon said:

Nigelb said:

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

Did you decide about Odesa ?

No. I want to go but 1, it’s hard to get to from here and 2, eeeek bombs

Fair enough.
Would have been interesting - it's on my list if I ever get the ability to spend more time travelling.

TimS said:

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

I'm intrigued by Telegram. It seems to dominate much of the post-Soviet social media space, but I've never gone on it. How does it work - is it like Twitter/Threads, or more Facebook-like? Or basic messaging like Whatsapp? Who owns it, I thought it was Russian but the fact Ukrainians seem happy to use it suggests not.

bondegezou said:

Nigelb said:

Rudy Giuliani has now admitted that while acting as Trump’s lawyer, he made false statements by asserting that two Georgia election workers had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the 2020 election.

Giuliani’s concession came in court papers filed on Tuesday night as part of a defamation lawsuit that the two workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, had brought against him in Federal District Court in Washington in December 2021.

The suit accused Giuliani and others of promoting a video that purported to show the two women — who are mother and daughter — manipulating ballots while working for the Fulton County Board of Elections.

In a two-page declaration, Giuliani acknowledged that he had in fact made the statements about the women that led to the filing of the suit and that the remarks “carry meaning that is defamatory per se.” He also admitted that his statements were “actionable” and “false” and that he no longer disputed the “factual elements of liability” the election workers had raised in their suit.
https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1684202856725839876

The mills of justice ground slowly, but they grind very fine... but will any of it cut through to the Fox News-watching Republican voters who still believe the 2020 election was stolen?

viewcode said:

Benpointer said:

viewcode said:

Sandpit said:

Mexicanpete said:

Benpointer said:

ydoethur said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Yes, good piece from Mike and it echoes my own view that this could be a very good election for the LDs.

Their biggest stumbling block is that they have to overcome some seriously large majorities to win a lot of seats from the Conservatives, but as the bar illustrates, they are capable of doing this.

I am going to provisionally estimate that yhey will emerge from the GE with at least 30 seats. They may even displace the SNP as the third largest Party.

As Generals go, Davey is almost as lucky as Starmer.

Good morning

Fair comment and as things stand entirely possible

On the Farage banking affair there are times, when no matter how you dislike someone's political views, when a stand has to be made against an injustice

Yesterday, Nick Thomas Symonds was terrible on Sky attempting to defend Alison Rose and even worse, Rachel Reeves penned a piece (before Rose resigned) accusing Farage and the media of 'bullying' Rose which was just crass in the extreme

Starmer eventually endorsed her resignation, but only after seeing the way the wind was blowing

This was not a political issue, but the difference between trust and confidentiality, and no doubt if it had been anyone other than Farage, these labour politicians would have had a different response

And I would say the same thing if it had been Corbyn who had been subject to this injustice

Agreed, Big G.

Awkward as it is to find oneself supporting Farage, it has to be said that he has as much right to privacy as the rest of us.

What possessed this woman to blurt out his private details to a journalist is beyond me.

Because she thought she was so brilliant she knew better.

You meet the same phenomenon with OFSTED inspectors.

The fact that they might actually have quite poor judgement doesn't cross their minds.

I can't comment on OFSTED inspectors but the 'they thought they were so brilliant they knew better' attitude is prevalent in many senior executives (and politicians) .

Maybe it's a function of their success in climbing the slippery pole - they come to believe in their own brilliance.

Thank **** such hubris never afflicted Nigel Farage.

Although to be fair he has been particularly deft in his takedown of these particular liberal elitists. These might even be a hatful of compo at the end of this particular rainbow.

Farage is now setting up a campaign group on the de-banking issue, after many people have shared their similar stories with him over the last few weeks.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/26/my-war-on-woke-banks-is-just-getting-started/

“ Now it is time to fight back. A common feeling that has been expressed to me over these past few weeks is one of helplessness bordering on despair. It is clear that nobody has been speaking up for everyday people. Now, I intend to be their voice and to campaign for the cultural and legal changes that our banking system needs. Every law-abiding citizen in this country should have the right to a bank account. The resignation of Dame Alison Rose is the first step to ensuring this can happen. Banks must return to operating as they used to do. Then – and only then – can we return to business as usual.

“I am now seriously motivated by this issue. The desperation of those that have been wronged by the big banks means that I simply have to do something. I may not have picked this fight, but I now find myself right in the middle of it. I will be launching, over the course of the next few days, an exercise designed to gather together all of those that have been de-banked. I’m hoping to build a very large database of cases to find out which banks are the worst offenders and what the commonest reasons are, so that we can prepare and present a lobby to ministers, and to Parliament, in order to achieve fundamental change.”

Fair play to him, if he can use his story to bring wider attention to the issue.

I am very very cynical that he will do so. His case attracted attention because he was rich and politically powerful, and the fact that his cause turned out to be just was just coincident to the support: were it not he would still be supported. With the possible caveat that a court case would provide a precedent that could be used by poor people, I doubt that this will help the poor. Happy to be proved wrong, though.

Rightly, or wrongly, being poor remains a legitimate reason for a bank to reject you, surely?

Um, no. Where else is a poor person to put their pennies?

If functioning in society requires the ownership of a bank account, then people must be able to have bank accounts. To do otherwise is to ostracise that person. Consequently if banks do not want to provide one then the state must.

PB has a marked tendency to service the needs of the rich whilst neglecting the needs of the poor, or even imposing upon them against their will.

Mexicanpete said:

Sandpit said:

Mexicanpete said:

Benpointer said:

ydoethur said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Yes, good piece from Mike and it echoes my own view that this could be a very good election for the LDs.

Their biggest stumbling block is that they have to overcome some seriously large majorities to win a lot of seats from the Conservatives, but as the bar illustrates, they are capable of doing this.

I am going to provisionally estimate that yhey will emerge from the GE with at least 30 seats. They may even displace the SNP as the third largest Party.

As Generals go, Davey is almost as lucky as Starmer.

Good morning

Fair comment and as things stand entirely possible

On the Farage banking affair there are times, when no matter how you dislike someone's political views, when a stand has to be made against an injustice

Yesterday, Nick Thomas Symonds was terrible on Sky attempting to defend Alison Rose and even worse, Rachel Reeves penned a piece (before Rose resigned) accusing Farage and the media of 'bullying' Rose which was just crass in the extreme

Starmer eventually endorsed her resignation, but only after seeing the way the wind was blowing

This was not a political issue, but the difference between trust and confidentiality, and no doubt if it had been anyone other than Farage, these labour politicians would have had a different response

And I would say the same thing if it had been Corbyn who had been subject to this injustice

Agreed, Big G.

Awkward as it is to find oneself supporting Farage, it has to be said that he has as much right to privacy as the rest of us.

What possessed this woman to blurt out his private details to a journalist is beyond me.

Because she thought she was so brilliant she knew better.

You meet the same phenomenon with OFSTED inspectors.

The fact that they might actually have quite poor judgement doesn't cross their minds.

I can't comment on OFSTED inspectors but the 'they thought they were so brilliant they knew better' attitude is prevalent in many senior executives (and politicians) .

Maybe it's a function of their success in climbing the slippery pole - they come to believe in their own brilliance.

Thank **** such hubris never afflicted Nigel Farage.

Although to be fair he has been particularly deft in his takedown of these particular liberal elitists. These might even be a hatful of compo at the end of this particular rainbow.

Farage is now setting up a campaign group on the de-banking issue, after many people have shared their similar stories with him over the last few weeks.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/26/my-war-on-woke-banks-is-just-getting-started/

“ Now it is time to fight back. A common feeling that has been expressed to me over these past few weeks is one of helplessness bordering on despair. It is clear that nobody has been speaking up for everyday people. Now, I intend to be their voice and to campaign for the cultural and legal changes that our banking system needs. Every law-abiding citizen in this country should have the right to a bank account. The resignation of Dame Alison Rose is the first step to ensuring this can happen. Banks must return to operating as they used to do. Then – and only then – can we return to business as usual.

“I am now seriously motivated by this issue. The desperation of those that have been wronged by the big banks means that I simply have to do something. I may not have picked this fight, but I now find myself right in the middle of it. I will be launching, over the course of the next few days, an exercise designed to gather together all of those that have been de-banked. I’m hoping to build a very large database of cases to find out which banks are the worst offenders and what the commonest reasons are, so that we can prepare and present a lobby to ministers, and to Parliament, in order to achieve fundamental change.”

Fair play to him, if he can use his story to bring wider attention to the issue.

Maybe, but with Farage there is always an angle.

Sandpit said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

I'm intrigued by Telegram. It seems to dominate much of the post-Soviet social media space, but I've never gone on it. How does it work - is it like Twitter/Threads, or more Facebook-like? Or basic messaging like Whatsapp? Who owns it, I thought it was Russian but the fact Ukrainians seem happy to use it suggests not.

It’s more of a messaging app, a replacement for WhatsApp or Signal, and yes it’s dominant in the CIS countries. Set up by the people who launched Facebook-like VK social network, who quit that company saying it had been taken over by the Russian government.

They’re now Russian exiles based in the sandpit, with a lot of opaque corporate structure designed to stop them from being taken down by governments.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/how-to-use-telegram,news-29636.html

Peter_the_Punter said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Yes, good piece from Mike and it echoes my own view that this could be a very good election for the LDs.

Their biggest stumbling block is that they have to overcome some seriously large majorities to win a lot of seats from the Conservatives, but as the bar illustrates, they are capable of doing this.

I am going to provisionally estimate that yhey will emerge from the GE with at least 30 seats. They may even displace the SNP as the third largest Party.

As Generals go, Davey is almost as lucky as Starmer.

Good morning

Fair comment and as things stand entirely possible

On the Farage banking affair there are times, when no matter how you dislike someone's political views, when a stand has to be made against an injustice

Yesterday, Nick Thomas Symonds was terrible on Sky attempting to defend Alison Rose and even worse, Rachel Reeves penned a piece (before Rose resigned) accusing Farage and the media of 'bullying' Rose which was just crass in the extreme

Starmer eventually endorsed her resignation, but only after seeing the way the wind was blowing

This was not a political issue, but the difference between trust and confidentiality, and no doubt if it had been anyone other than Farage, these labour politicians would have had a different response

And I would say the same thing if it had been Corbyn who had been subject to this injustice

Agreed, Big G.

Awkward as it is to find oneself supporting Farage, it has to be said that he has as much right to privacy as the rest of us.

What possessed this woman to blurt out his private details to a journalist is beyond me.

HYUFD said:

Singapore to execute its first woman in twenty years for heroin smuggling

"Singapore to execute woman on drugs charge for the first time in 20 years - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66309347

Theuniondivvie said:

Mexicanpete said:

Sandpit said:

Mexicanpete said:

Benpointer said:

ydoethur said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Yes, good piece from Mike and it echoes my own view that this could be a very good election for the LDs.

Their biggest stumbling block is that they have to overcome some seriously large majorities to win a lot of seats from the Conservatives, but as the bar illustrates, they are capable of doing this.

I am going to provisionally estimate that yhey will emerge from the GE with at least 30 seats. They may even displace the SNP as the third largest Party.

As Generals go, Davey is almost as lucky as Starmer.

Good morning

Fair comment and as things stand entirely possible

On the Farage banking affair there are times, when no matter how you dislike someone's political views, when a stand has to be made against an injustice

Yesterday, Nick Thomas Symonds was terrible on Sky attempting to defend Alison Rose and even worse, Rachel Reeves penned a piece (before Rose resigned) accusing Farage and the media of 'bullying' Rose which was just crass in the extreme

Starmer eventually endorsed her resignation, but only after seeing the way the wind was blowing

This was not a political issue, but the difference between trust and confidentiality, and no doubt if it had been anyone other than Farage, these labour politicians would have had a different response

And I would say the same thing if it had been Corbyn who had been subject to this injustice

Agreed, Big G.

Awkward as it is to find oneself supporting Farage, it has to be said that he has as much right to privacy as the rest of us.

What possessed this woman to blurt out his private details to a journalist is beyond me.

Because she thought she was so brilliant she knew better.

You meet the same phenomenon with OFSTED inspectors.

The fact that they might actually have quite poor judgement doesn't cross their minds.

I can't comment on OFSTED inspectors but the 'they thought they were so brilliant they knew better' attitude is prevalent in many senior executives (and politicians) .

Maybe it's a function of their success in climbing the slippery pole - they come to believe in their own brilliance.

Thank **** such hubris never afflicted Nigel Farage.

Although to be fair he has been particularly deft in his takedown of these particular liberal elitists. These might even be a hatful of compo at the end of this particular rainbow.

Farage is now setting up a campaign group on the de-banking issue, after many people have shared their similar stories with him over the last few weeks.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/26/my-war-on-woke-banks-is-just-getting-started/

“ Now it is time to fight back. A common feeling that has been expressed to me over these past few weeks is one of helplessness bordering on despair. It is clear that nobody has been speaking up for everyday people. Now, I intend to be their voice and to campaign for the cultural and legal changes that our banking system needs. Every law-abiding citizen in this country should have the right to a bank account. The resignation of Dame Alison Rose is the first step to ensuring this can happen. Banks must return to operating as they used to do. Then – and only then – can we return to business as usual.

“I am now seriously motivated by this issue. The desperation of those that have been wronged by the big banks means that I simply have to do something. I may not have picked this fight, but I now find myself right in the middle of it. I will be launching, over the course of the next few days, an exercise designed to gather together all of those that have been de-banked. I’m hoping to build a very large database of cases to find out which banks are the worst offenders and what the commonest reasons are, so that we can prepare and present a lobby to ministers, and to Parliament, in order to achieve fundamental change.”

Fair play to him, if he can use his story to bring wider attention to the issue.

Maybe, but with Farage there is always an angle.

A cute hoor grifting the obtuse?

Luckyguy1983 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Stuartinromford said:

Carnyx said:

Mexicanpete said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Another day on from the Farage / Coutts fun. As he is ineligible for an account there (I assume they won't wave their rules just because they have made a tit of themselves) will the Nigel now be demanding that "ordinary" people like him should be allowed a Coutts account?

I am feeling the Farage love on here, he is doing this not for himself, but for the poor people. Handily, I have another invisible Garden Bridge available.

What strikes me is that Mr Farage has had hassle from being a PEP. So he makes himself an even more Politically Exposed Person with his mission against the banks. What bank is now going to take him on, if it means banner headlines in the DM every time some minion burps unintentionally while handling his non-Coutt's cheque book? Which will only "justify" him even more.

Nevertheless: the point remains: we need to understand this basic bank business and how well it works. Benpointer thought just about anyone ordinary could get one (which is not the same as having an existing one closed down), but RCS1000's stats suggest otherwise.

One way of reading the stats is that everyone who persists manages to sort out a Basic Account with someone eventually, but at least one bank isn't pulling their weight in making it easy and seems generally keener on Computer Says No reasons for rejecting people. Which isn't the point really.

And that's where the stories of the Aristocrat who (no longer) banks at Coutts and the Aristocrat who cleans our boots (and can't get a basic account) do join up.

We have got a business model of banking where "nah, too difficult/ expensive" is part of the thinking. Branches, customers, services and transactions that aren't easy and quickly profitable are to be trimmed.

Capitalism doesn't have to look like that, but capitalism coupled with short horizons probably does. Fix that, and a lot of the British Disease subsides.

(Talking of which, without being conspiratorial, what's the benefit to society in a hedge fund shorting a bank?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/)

Well, on the one hand it makes money from shorting NatWest, while the other hand owns GBNews which hosts Nigel Farage who...

The irony here is that while there is no conspiracy (the paper explains that the short was computer-driven) you wonder if Farage might have to be silenced so they can avoid the appearance of conspiracy and carry on making money.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/ (£££)

I think GBNews needs Farage more than the other way around probably.

Sean_F said:

HYUFD said:

Singapore to execute its first woman in twenty years for heroin smuggling

"Singapore to execute woman on drugs charge for the first time in 20 years - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66309347

I can't imagine many things more stupid than trafficking drugs in Singapore.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Sean_F said:

HYUFD said:

Singapore to execute its first woman in twenty years for heroin smuggling

"Singapore to execute woman on drugs charge for the first time in 20 years - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66309347

I can't imagine many things more stupid than trafficking drugs in Singapore.

Surely proof the death penalty does not deter stupid drug traffickers.

Andy_JS said:

HYUFD said:

I suspect Greg Hands will be delighted with that new LD barchart.

In 2019 he won with 49% of the vote ie less than half the votes but there was only 2% between the LDs and Labour for second. On current polls Starmer Labour would be a clear second so anything which helps divide his opposition also helps him cling on and keeps Chelsea and Fulham Tory blue

I agree, Labour is the main threat to the Tories in Chelsea and Fulham. The LDs only came second because of Corbyn.

Leon said:

kinabalu said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

I get a feeling that @Leon's forthcoming Speccie article on "life in Ukraine" is going to be unbearably smug.

I don’t write for the Spectator. If only! The Knapper’s Gazette might, I suppose, ask me for a war diary. But why would it be smug?

I am completely capable of being intolerably smug, I don’t deny that. But anything I write about Ukraine will just be the truth about what I have encountered

I’m not gonna be boasting about the tasting menus and Ayurvedic massage

Will you be going to more warzones after this?

I can completely see how - notoriously - some journalists get addicted to it. War journalism

Everything seems elevated: more intense and colourful. Oh I’m having a nice coffee and strudel - what if the air raid sirens go off?! Here’s a guy having a beer - but he’s telling me about how last
week he was nearly shot dead. That sounds like thunder - but it could be incoming missiles - run!

Etc

It’s a constant pump of adrenaline, excitement and interest. Until you get over excited, get too close to the front and Bang

Leon said:

Casino_Royale said:

Obesity is no longer confined to the Anglosphere. Very prevalent here too.

If I had to guess it's the spread of burgers, pizza and chips- all of which are far more prevalent here than 15 years ago - and the general decline in physical activity.

That said, it's still not as bad as the UK - yet alone the USA.

That’s Bulgaria?

Yes, obesity is almost everywhere. The only country I’ve been recently that seems immune is Vietnam. Which - surely no coincidence - has some of the best food and food culture in the world

But I bet it will get there in the end. America was merely the pioneer. The other Anglophone countries followed (Oz is really fat as well). Now continental Europe, South Asia, all follow. Some Arab controls are grossly fat. Ditto Latin America

OTOH these new obesity drugs really work, and they work fast, they just need to come down in price (which they surely will). The NHS should start handing them out for free. The money saved versus money spent (on lifelong obesity) will make it a huge bonus overall

Cicero said:

One thing that may help the Liberal Democrats improve their poll ratings is that they have missed the limelight for a while: the last conference had to be cancelled after the death of Elizabeth II, so there has not been much spotlight on the party. Despite this, at both Westminster by elections and local council elections, they have been performing very strongly, and above their poll ratings.

Ed Davey is a remarkable man, and when journalists have gone one-to-one with him, they seem to come away pretty impressed. (vide recent Guardian interview). He has also solved a fair few of the internal process issues and is attracting something of a surge in support, including significant financial support.

Meanwhile the Tories seem to be doing everything in their power to cozy up to the Faragist right, but this is going down very badly in places like Surrey, and many other places across the South and south west of England. In Scotland the party is coming back in the North East and making strong progress in Edinburgh.

Its all beginning to look like we could see a real move in the coming months, and the anti Tory swing could bring some remarkable results in some surprising places.

Were you still up for Gove?

algarkirk said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Sean_F said:

HYUFD said:

Singapore to execute its first woman in twenty years for heroin smuggling

"Singapore to execute woman on drugs charge for the first time in 20 years - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66309347

I can't imagine many things more stupid than trafficking drugs in Singapore.

Surely proof the death penalty does not deter stupid drug traffickers.

There is a simple logical flaw in that argument.

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Stuartinromford said:

Carnyx said:

Mexicanpete said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Another day on from the Farage / Coutts fun. As he is ineligible for an account there (I assume they won't wave their rules just because they have made a tit of themselves) will the Nigel now be demanding that "ordinary" people like him should be allowed a Coutts account?

I am feeling the Farage love on here, he is doing this not for himself, but for the poor people. Handily, I have another invisible Garden Bridge available.

What strikes me is that Mr Farage has had hassle from being a PEP. So he makes himself an even more Politically Exposed Person with his mission against the banks. What bank is now going to take him on, if it means banner headlines in the DM every time some minion burps unintentionally while handling his non-Coutt's cheque book? Which will only "justify" him even more.

Nevertheless: the point remains: we need to understand this basic bank business and how well it works. Benpointer thought just about anyone ordinary could get one (which is not the same as having an existing one closed down), but RCS1000's stats suggest otherwise.

One way of reading the stats is that everyone who persists manages to sort out a Basic Account with someone eventually, but at least one bank isn't pulling their weight in making it easy and seems generally keener on Computer Says No reasons for rejecting people. Which isn't the point really.

And that's where the stories of the Aristocrat who (no longer) banks at Coutts and the Aristocrat who cleans our boots (and can't get a basic account) do join up.

We have got a business model of banking where "nah, too difficult/ expensive" is part of the thinking. Branches, customers, services and transactions that aren't easy and quickly profitable are to be trimmed.

Capitalism doesn't have to look like that, but capitalism coupled with short horizons probably does. Fix that, and a lot of the British Disease subsides.

(Talking of which, without being conspiratorial, what's the benefit to society in a hedge fund shorting a bank?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/)

Well, on the one hand it makes money from shorting NatWest, while the other hand owns GBNews which hosts Nigel Farage who...

The irony here is that while there is no conspiracy (the paper explains that the short was computer-driven) you wonder if Farage might have to be silenced so they can avoid the appearance of conspiracy and carry on making money.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/ (£££)

I think GBNews needs Farage more than the other way around probably.

Maybe I missed it, but has anyone commented on the uber-irony of Farage using the EU developed GDPR (that no doubt he would like scrapped) to issue a Subject Access Request to NatWest/Coutts?

HYUFD said:

Cicero said:

One thing that may help the Liberal Democrats improve their poll ratings is that they have missed the limelight for a while: the last conference had to be cancelled after the death of Elizabeth II, so there has not been much spotlight on the party. Despite this, at both Westminster by elections and local council elections, they have been performing very strongly, and above their poll ratings.

Ed Davey is a remarkable man, and when journalists have gone one-to-one with him, they seem to come away pretty impressed. (vide recent Guardian interview). He has also solved a fair few of the internal process issues and is attracting something of a surge in support, including significant financial support.

Meanwhile the Tories seem to be doing everything in their power to cozy up to the Faragist right, but this is going down very badly in places like Surrey, and many other places across the South and south west of England. In Scotland the party is coming back in the North East and making strong progress in Edinburgh.

Its all beginning to look like we could see a real move in the coming months, and the anti Tory swing could bring some remarkable results in some surprising places.

Were you still up for Gove?

Gove will likely hold on, Surrey Heath voted Leave unlike most of Surrey and his build in the brownbelt not greenbelt housing plans are exactly what his constituency wants. Hunt likely loses and Raab's seat probably goes LD too but Gove will survive. Like cockroaches, Gove and Jeffrey Archer and Lord Mandelson would even survive a nuclear holocaust!

Leon said:

Casino_Royale said:

Obesity is no longer confined to the Anglosphere. Very prevalent here too.

If I had to guess it's the spread of burgers, pizza and chips- all of which are far more prevalent here than 15 years ago - and the general decline in physical activity.

That said, it's still not as bad as the UK - yet alone the USA.

That’s Bulgaria?

Yes, obesity is almost everywhere. The only country I’ve been recently that seems immune is Vietnam. Which - surely no coincidence - has some of the best food and food culture in the world

But I bet it will get there in the end. America was merely the pioneer. The other Anglophone countries followed (Oz is really fat as well). Now continental Europe, South Asia, all follow. Some Arab controls are grossly fat. Ditto Latin America

OTOH these new obesity drugs really work, and they work fast, they just need to come down in price (which they surely will). The NHS should start handing them out for free. The money saved versus money spent (on lifelong obesity) will make it a huge bonus overall

Peck said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Yes, good piece from Mike and it echoes my own view that this could be a very good election for the LDs.

Their biggest stumbling block is that they have to overcome some seriously large majorities to win a lot of seats from the Conservatives, but as the bar illustrates, they are capable of doing this.

I am going to provisionally estimate that yhey will emerge from the GE with at least 30 seats. They may even displace the SNP as the third largest Party.

As Generals go, Davey is almost as lucky as Starmer.

Good morning

Fair comment and as things stand entirely possible

On the Farage banking affair there are times, when no matter how you dislike someone's political views, when a stand has to be made against an injustice

Yesterday, Nick Thomas Symonds was terrible on Sky attempting to defend Alison Rose and even worse, Rachel Reeves penned a piece (before Rose resigned) accusing Farage and the media of 'bullying' Rose which was just crass in the extreme

Starmer eventually endorsed her resignation, but only after seeing the way the wind was blowing

This was not a political issue, but the difference between trust and confidentiality, and no doubt if it had been anyone other than Farage, these labour politicians would have had a different response

And I would say the same thing if it had been Corbyn who had been subject to this injustice

Agreed, Big G.

Awkward as it is to find oneself supporting Farage, it has to be said that he has as much right to privacy as the rest of us.

What possessed this woman to blurt out his private details to a journalist is beyond me.

Why do you believe that ridiculously spun story?

The printing of that material by the BBC was almost certainly a result of a parallelogram of forces, a negotiated agreement between tough, serious, very intelligent people, not the product of somebody finding out she was sitting next to somebody else at a dinner one evening and blurting it out by accident after she'd had a few. The same can be said about the cracking down on Farage's account in the first place. Ditto with the unsanctioning of Oleg Tinkov. Into that, add a dose of the fact that in Britain wherever the royal family are concerned, especially the head of that family - currently a man who can't write his own name with a pen without effing and blinding at his servants - different rules apply.

Farage should lose the "K" bit in "Reform UK".

carnforth said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Stuartinromford said:

Carnyx said:

Mexicanpete said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Another day on from the Farage / Coutts fun. As he is ineligible for an account there (I assume they won't wave their rules just because they have made a tit of themselves) will the Nigel now be demanding that "ordinary" people like him should be allowed a Coutts account?

I am feeling the Farage love on here, he is doing this not for himself, but for the poor people. Handily, I have another invisible Garden Bridge available.

What strikes me is that Mr Farage has had hassle from being a PEP. So he makes himself an even more Politically Exposed Person with his mission against the banks. What bank is now going to take him on, if it means banner headlines in the DM every time some minion burps unintentionally while handling his non-Coutt's cheque book? Which will only "justify" him even more.

Nevertheless: the point remains: we need to understand this basic bank business and how well it works. Benpointer thought just about anyone ordinary could get one (which is not the same as having an existing one closed down), but RCS1000's stats suggest otherwise.

One way of reading the stats is that everyone who persists manages to sort out a Basic Account with someone eventually, but at least one bank isn't pulling their weight in making it easy and seems generally keener on Computer Says No reasons for rejecting people. Which isn't the point really.

And that's where the stories of the Aristocrat who (no longer) banks at Coutts and the Aristocrat who cleans our boots (and can't get a basic account) do join up.

We have got a business model of banking where "nah, too difficult/ expensive" is part of the thinking. Branches, customers, services and transactions that aren't easy and quickly profitable are to be trimmed.

Capitalism doesn't have to look like that, but capitalism coupled with short horizons probably does. Fix that, and a lot of the British Disease subsides.

(Talking of which, without being conspiratorial, what's the benefit to society in a hedge fund shorting a bank?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/)

Well, on the one hand it makes money from shorting NatWest, while the other hand owns GBNews which hosts Nigel Farage who...

The irony here is that while there is no conspiracy (the paper explains that the short was computer-driven) you wonder if Farage might have to be silenced so they can avoid the appearance of conspiracy and carry on making money.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/ (£££)

I think GBNews needs Farage more than the other way around probably.

Maybe I missed it, but has anyone commented on the uber-irony of Farage using the EU developed GDPR (that no doubt he would like scrapped) to issue a Subject Access Request to NatWest/Coutts?

His right to see his data began in 1984, under UK-originated legislation:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/35/pdfs/ukpga_19840035_en.pdf

Only when the 1998 act came in was there an EU basis.

Malmesbury said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Carnyx said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Stuartinromford said:

Carnyx said:

Mexicanpete said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Another day on from the Farage / Coutts fun. As he is ineligible for an account there (I assume they won't wave their rules just because they have made a tit of themselves) will the Nigel now be demanding that "ordinary" people like him should be allowed a Coutts account?

I am feeling the Farage love on here, he is doing this not for himself, but for the poor people. Handily, I have another invisible Garden Bridge available.

What strikes me is that Mr Farage has had hassle from being a PEP. So he makes himself an even more Politically Exposed Person with his mission against the banks. What bank is now going to take him on, if it means banner headlines in the DM every time some minion burps unintentionally while handling his non-Coutt's cheque book? Which will only "justify" him even more.

Nevertheless: the point remains: we need to understand this basic bank business and how well it works. Benpointer thought just about anyone ordinary could get one (which is not the same as having an existing one closed down), but RCS1000's stats suggest otherwise.

One way of reading the stats is that everyone who persists manages to sort out a Basic Account with someone eventually, but at least one bank isn't pulling their weight in making it easy and seems generally keener on Computer Says No reasons for rejecting people. Which isn't the point really.

And that's where the stories of the Aristocrat who (no longer) banks at Coutts and the Aristocrat who cleans our boots (and can't get a basic account) do join up.

We have got a business model of banking where "nah, too difficult/ expensive" is part of the thinking. Branches, customers, services and transactions that aren't easy and quickly profitable are to be trimmed.

Capitalism doesn't have to look like that, but capitalism coupled with short horizons probably does. Fix that, and a lot of the British Disease subsides.

(Talking of which, without being conspiratorial, what's the benefit to society in a hedge fund shorting a bank?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/)

Well, on the one hand it makes money from shorting NatWest, while the other hand owns GBNews which hosts Nigel Farage who...

The irony here is that while there is no conspiracy (the paper explains that the short was computer-driven) you wonder if Farage might have to be silenced so they can avoid the appearance of conspiracy and carry on making money.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/ (£££)

I think GBNews needs Farage more than the other way around probably.

Maybe I missed it, but has anyone commented on the uber-irony of Farage using the EU developed GDPR (that no doubt he would like scrapped) to issue a Subject Access Request to NatWest/Coutts?

Oh yes; but one of us took the slightly niche view that it was revenge on the remainers with their own weapons.

I have zero sympathy for Farage (the fascist tosser), but it does question the managerial efficiency of Coutts. When GDPR came out, most sensible companies informed their staff that if they wrote anything about any individual it needed to factual and not subjective and written in a manner that was defensible if an SAR was issued.

Perhaps Coutts needs to also look at it's "membership" policy which could ( I am not sure whether legal under banking law) state that the bank reserved the right to not hold accounts of persons it considered that might bring the bank's equality values into disrepute.

They have the right to terminate your account for any reason they chose. Now.

They frequently terminate accounts at Coutts - transferring the people to NatWest. They do this so often that there is an internal process for this. You invite the customer in and tell them, to their face, what is happening. A friend of mine does this on a regular basis there.

They chose not to tell the truth to Farage. They seem to have lied to other banks about why they were closing his account. They then lied to a BBC journalist, face to face, on the record. While disclosing personal information.

If someone pours petrol over their head, and lights a cigar…..

TimS said:

kinabalu said:

Leon said:

TOPPING said:

I get a feeling that @Leon's forthcoming Speccie article on "life in Ukraine" is going to be unbearably smug.

I don’t write for the Spectator. If only! The Knapper’s Gazette might, I suppose, ask me for a war diary. But why would it be smug?

I am completely capable of being intolerably smug, I don’t deny that. But anything I write about Ukraine will just be the truth about what I have encountered

I’m not gonna be boasting about the tasting menus and Ayurvedic massage

Will you be going to more warzones after this?

There's definitely a niche for travel in the safe parts of otherwise war torn countries, with the limitation usually being travel insurance if the FCDO have it as a red zone.

Iraqi Kurdistan (Erbil) is an example. It's amber - avoid all but necessary travel - whereas the rest of Iraq is red. So you can potentially get insurance, and there are flights to Erbil on Wizz and Pegasus airlines.

Afghanistan is another that is probably theoretically now safer than when the US and UK were occupying it. I expect that, red zones notwithstanding, there are parts of Northern Sudan still perfectly visitable, and large tracts of Yemen. The quasi-independent Somaliland at least until recently.

Then there are the disputed zones of otherwise peaceful countries, which are by and large possible to visit and by all accounts can be very interesting. Abkhazia in Georgia for example I hear is beautiful but dilapidated (Sukhumi), though South Ossetia seems more problematic. Transnistria in Moldova is an established offbeat tourist attraction. The Israeli settlements on the West Bank, etc. Others I would probably steer clear of, like the IS-prowled zones of Saharan Mali and Chad, or the cartel zones of Northern Mexico.

Sandpit said:

Malmesbury said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Carnyx said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Stuartinromford said:

Carnyx said:

Mexicanpete said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Another day on from the Farage / Coutts fun. As he is ineligible for an account there (I assume they won't wave their rules just because they have made a tit of themselves) will the Nigel now be demanding that "ordinary" people like him should be allowed a Coutts account?

I am feeling the Farage love on here, he is doing this not for himself, but for the poor people. Handily, I have another invisible Garden Bridge available.

What strikes me is that Mr Farage has had hassle from being a PEP. So he makes himself an even more Politically Exposed Person with his mission against the banks. What bank is now going to take him on, if it means banner headlines in the DM every time some minion burps unintentionally while handling his non-Coutt's cheque book? Which will only "justify" him even more.

Nevertheless: the point remains: we need to understand this basic bank business and how well it works. Benpointer thought just about anyone ordinary could get one (which is not the same as having an existing one closed down), but RCS1000's stats suggest otherwise.

One way of reading the stats is that everyone who persists manages to sort out a Basic Account with someone eventually, but at least one bank isn't pulling their weight in making it easy and seems generally keener on Computer Says No reasons for rejecting people. Which isn't the point really.

And that's where the stories of the Aristocrat who (no longer) banks at Coutts and the Aristocrat who cleans our boots (and can't get a basic account) do join up.

We have got a business model of banking where "nah, too difficult/ expensive" is part of the thinking. Branches, customers, services and transactions that aren't easy and quickly profitable are to be trimmed.

Capitalism doesn't have to look like that, but capitalism coupled with short horizons probably does. Fix that, and a lot of the British Disease subsides.

(Talking of which, without being conspiratorial, what's the benefit to society in a hedge fund shorting a bank?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/)

Well, on the one hand it makes money from shorting NatWest, while the other hand owns GBNews which hosts Nigel Farage who...

The irony here is that while there is no conspiracy (the paper explains that the short was computer-driven) you wonder if Farage might have to be silenced so they can avoid the appearance of conspiracy and carry on making money.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/26/paul-marshall-hedge-fund-nets-millions-bet-against-natwest/ (£££)

I think GBNews needs Farage more than the other way around probably.

Maybe I missed it, but has anyone commented on the uber-irony of Farage using the EU developed GDPR (that no doubt he would like scrapped) to issue a Subject Access Request to NatWest/Coutts?

Oh yes; but one of us took the slightly niche view that it was revenge on the remainers with their own weapons.

I have zero sympathy for Farage (the fascist tosser), but it does question the managerial efficiency of Coutts. When GDPR came out, most sensible companies informed their staff that if they wrote anything about any individual it needed to factual and not subjective and written in a manner that was defensible if an SAR was issued.

Perhaps Coutts needs to also look at it's "membership" policy which could ( I am not sure whether legal under banking law) state that the bank reserved the right to not hold accounts of persons it considered that might bring the bank's equality values into disrepute.

They have the right to terminate your account for any reason they chose. Now.

They frequently terminate accounts at Coutts - transferring the people to NatWest. They do this so often that there is an internal process for this. You invite the customer in and tell them, to their face, what is happening. A friend of mine does this on a regular basis there.

They chose not to tell the truth to Farage. They seem to have lied to other banks about why they were closing his account. They then lied to a BBC journalist, face to face, on the record. While disclosing personal information.

If someone pours petrol over their head, and lights a cigar…..

It does appear that, under NatWest, the Coutts brand is now little different to an HSBC Premier account, but with added lack of discretion.

I’m still astonished that this played out how it did from the bank’s side, did they not realise that this particular customer has a massive media profile, and an annoying knack of getting himself in the news?

If, as you say, they have a process and switch the brand of your account automatically, there would have been little said about it - but they decided to terminate the relationship completely, and tell him a load of baloney about why they were doing it, then briefing the media about their customer.

Morris_Dancer said:

F1: the sprint bullshit is contaminating Spa this year, so qualifying's tomorrow at 4pm. Joy.

ClippP said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

Cicero said:

One thing that may help the Liberal Democrats improve their poll ratings is that they have missed the limelight for a while: the last conference had to be cancelled after the death of Elizabeth II, so there has not been much spotlight on the party. Despite this, at both Westminster by elections and local council elections, they have been performing very strongly, and above their poll ratings.

Ed Davey is a remarkable man, and when journalists have gone one-to-one with him, they seem to come away pretty impressed. (vide recent Guardian interview). He has also solved a fair few of the internal process issues and is attracting something of a surge in support, including significant financial support.

Meanwhile the Tories seem to be doing everything in their power to cozy up to the Faragist right, but this is going down very badly in places like Surrey, and many other places across the South and south west of England. In Scotland the party is coming back in the North East and making strong progress in Edinburgh.

Its all beginning to look like we could see a real move in the coming months, and the anti Tory swing could bring some remarkable results in some surprising places.

Were you still up for Gove?

The challenge for the LDs is that their popularity plummeted in the Coalition years and has been flatlining at 10% +/- 2% for a decade now. The assumption is that the LDs can sweep all before them using tactical voting but national vote share also matters.

1992 - 20 seats, 18% vote share. ratio 1.1
1997 - 46 seats, 17% vote share. ratio 2.7
2001 - 52 seats, 18% vote share. ratio 2.9
2005 - 62 seats, 22% vote share. ratio 2.8
2010 - 57 seats, 23% vote share. ratio 2.5
2015 - 8 seats, 8% vote share. ratio 1
2017 - 12 seats, 7% vote share. ratio 1.7
2019 - 11 seats, 12% vote share. ratio 0.9

So even at peak tactical voting the best they managed was 3 seats per 1% of national vote. This would give them 25-30 seats max on current polling.

The second challenge is what is the LDs positioning now? Traditionally, they tried to position themselves as being in the centre between Con and Lab. This enabled them to pick up anti-Con and anti-Lab votes in different places but this feel apart after the Coalition. They now seem to be positioning as a more explicitly left wing party but how does that differentiate them from the Greens and Lab?

Labour and the Green Party are both very authoritarian. How about that for a start?

LostPassword said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

I'm intrigued by Telegram. It seems to dominate much of the post-Soviet social media space, but I've never gone on it. How does it work - is it like Twitter/Threads, or more Facebook-like? Or basic messaging like Whatsapp? Who owns it, I thought it was Russian but the fact Ukrainians seem happy to use it suggests not.

I've used telegram a lot, initially for many years simply as a non-facebook version of whatsapp.

But you can also follow people's channels, which I've started doing as an alternative to twitter. This is essentially the same as following their twitter feed, so you can comment on their posts, use emojis in response to them, but it's not like a group conversation (where I have my family all in the same group conversation).

So it's a bit of a hybrid.

The people who created it were Russian, but they made a point of putting their servers outside of Russia, and independent checks rate them highly for security, so I think they're independent of the Russian state.

AugustusCarp2 said:

Sorry if someone has already posted this, but have you seen the list of seats which the Labour Party regard as "non priority"? In other words, the places where it's OK to vote tactically for the Lib Dems as long as you don't make too much of a fuss about it?

This is a publicly available list!

https://www.markpack.org.uk/

tlg86 said:

AugustusCarp2 said:

Sorry if someone has already posted this, but have you seen the list of seats which the Labour Party regard as "non priority"? In other words, the places where it's OK to vote tactically for the Lib Dems as long as you don't make too much of a fuss about it?

This is a publicly available list!

https://www.markpack.org.uk/

Woking not on the list.

ydoethur said:

Zak gets zapped.

Malmesbury said:

A

TimS said:

LostPassword said:

TimS said:

Leon said:

Met some young Ukrainians out drinking last night. Learned a lot

Like this

This is how young Ukrainians decide whether to go to the bomb shelter or not (last night most didn’t, despite the wailing sirens). They constantly check this Telegram channel, the same way we check the weather during a Test match. It tells you what’s incoming & where. If it says drones they say Meh; missiles get them underground. That is digital life in Lviv

I'm intrigued by Telegram. It seems to dominate much of the post-Soviet social media space, but I've never gone on it. How does it work - is it like Twitter/Threads, or more Facebook-like? Or basic messaging like Whatsapp? Who owns it, I thought it was Russian but the fact Ukrainians seem happy to use it suggests not.

I've used telegram a lot, initially for many years simply as a non-facebook version of whatsapp.

But you can also follow people's channels, which I've started doing as an alternative to twitter. This is essentially the same as following their twitter feed, so you can comment on their posts, use emojis in response to them, but it's not like a group conversation (where I have my family all in the same group conversation).

So it's a bit of a hybrid.

The people who created it were Russian, but they made a point of putting their servers outside of Russia, and independent checks rate them highly for security, so I think they're independent of the Russian state.

Does actually sound like it fits a useful niche in social media. It's a surprise few people have suggested moving on to Telegram from Twitter since the recent Elon Shenanigans.

Telegram has less moderation than Twitter. The complaints were about lack of censorship

Nigel_Foremain said:

ClippP said:

GarethoftheVale2 said:

Cicero said:

One thing that may help the Liberal Democrats improve their poll ratings is that they have missed the limelight for a while: the last conference had to be cancelled after the death of Elizabeth II, so there has not been much spotlight on the party. Despite this, at both Westminster by elections and local council elections, they have been performing very strongly, and above their poll ratings.

Ed Davey is a remarkable man, and when journalists have gone one-to-one with him, they seem to come away pretty impressed. (vide recent Guardian interview). He has also solved a fair few of the internal process issues and is attracting something of a surge in support, including significant financial support.

Meanwhile the Tories seem to be doing everything in their power to cozy up to the Faragist right, but this is going down very badly in places like Surrey, and many other places across the South and south west of England. In Scotland the party is coming back in the North East and making strong progress in Edinburgh.

Its all beginning to look like we could see a real move in the coming months, and the anti Tory swing could bring some remarkable results in some surprising places.

Were you still up for Gove?

The challenge for the LDs is that their popularity plummeted in the Coalition years and has been flatlining at 10% +/- 2% for a decade now. The assumption is that the LDs can sweep all before them using tactical voting but national vote share also matters.

1992 - 20 seats, 18% vote share. ratio 1.1
1997 - 46 seats, 17% vote share. ratio 2.7
2001 - 52 seats, 18% vote share. ratio 2.9
2005 - 62 seats, 22% vote share. ratio 2.8
2010 - 57 seats, 23% vote share. ratio 2.5
2015 - 8 seats, 8% vote share. ratio 1
2017 - 12 seats, 7% vote share. ratio 1.7
2019 - 11 seats, 12% vote share. ratio 0.9

So even at peak tactical voting the best they managed was 3 seats per 1% of national vote. This would give them 25-30 seats max on current polling.

The second challenge is what is the LDs positioning now? Traditionally, they tried to position themselves as being in the centre between Con and Lab. This enabled them to pick up anti-Con and anti-Lab votes in different places but this feel apart after the Coalition. They now seem to be positioning as a more explicitly left wing party but how does that differentiate them from the Greens and Lab?

Labour and the Green Party are both very authoritarian. How about that for a start?

The problem for the LDs is that a large part of their party membership and activists are not very liberal

Stuartinromford said:

eek said:

AugustusCarp2 said:

Sorry if someone has already posted this, but have you seen the list of seats which the Labour Party regard as "non priority"? In other words, the places where it's OK to vote tactically for the Lib Dems as long as you don't make too much of a fuss about it?

This is a publicly available list!

https://www.markpack.org.uk/

On that logic - Chesham and Amersham is a target seat for Labour (and it really isn't). Round there the focus should be Wycombe, Watford, Aylesbury and Hemel...

Some chat on this last night- on one level, they're mostly obvious "don't give up the day job" places for Labour candidates, but there were a few there that didn't look totally hopeless.

One of my assumptions is that Labour and Lib Dems have fairly shrewd ideas which seats the other is taking seriously. Not a sordid deal, of course, but a fairly shrewd idea of how to avoid stepping on each other's toes. There will be exceptions (Chelsea and Fulham, for example), but not many, and how better to show that there's no deal?

I did assume that the understanding would be fuelled by lists "accidentally" left in the gent's in a pub at the shadier end of Westminster, rather than on the internet, though.

Sandpit said:

Morris_Dancer said:

F1: the sprint bullshit is contaminating Spa this year, so qualifying's tomorrow at 4pm. Joy.

Hopefully it pours down all day on Saturday, so we don’t have to put up with the s****t.

More seriously, there is actually a lot of adverse weather forecast for the weekend, and they might well need to make late changes to the schedule to avoid a repeat of the 2021 farce, where two safety car laps and five hours of grid-squatting was the order of the day.