Months after voting down a Lab motion declaring a "housing emergency" (a political not official term) & hours before Lab bring a similar motion (with Green support likely this time) Scot Gov declares a "housing emergency" and blames everyone but themselves
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
I'm fairly certain that you do have such principles, but you don't recognise them as such. I think it's a cognitive shortcut that is pretty inherent and everyone has.
Principles immune to changing facts informing my politics? Nothing springs to mind. Perhaps we're thinking of the word differently.
Has any government, given a decade and a half in office, ever squandered its opportunity quite so drastically and deliberately? Is there one area of life in the UK where it can honestly and objectively be said that something – anything – has improved since 2010?
I see that SeanT (formerly of this parish) has heralded AGI is here, no need to save for retirement, life is pointless as everybody will be a super genius....
ChatGPT-4o....Can you help me with a puzzle. There is a man, a cabbage and a goat on one side of a river. They have a boat. How can they get across.....
What ensues is leave the cabbage, take the goat, bring the goat back, yadda yadda yadda. A 7 step process of taking things back and forth.
I don't want this AGI doing medical procedures. ChatGPT can you remove my ingrowing toenails....well first go for an MRI, next have your liver removed....
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
Haidt is interesting on this. He compares our evolved moral principles to our five taste buds. We all have the same basic moral instincts but they differ in combination as some are more salient than others, just like our taste buds. Basic moral "tastes": 1 Caring and prevention of suffering 2 Fairness 3 Cooperation and team working 4 Autonomy 5 Sanctity 6 Respect for authority The first three are left leaning. The last three are right leaning. They are the foundations of your principles based on emotions. David Hume said that emotions come first and rationality follows in order to justify them. Just don't confuse me with the facts.
That makes a lot of sense to me, yes. Not iron-clad principles that don't change regardless of facts and situations - but a hierarchy of values you have and apply to life (inc politics).
And what Hume says there is not wrong. There is lots of that. Of course some people are more emotion-led than others. Kirk v Spock plays out in each of us.
I still can't work out his most famous case http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/465718.stm, the law is very clear when it comes to traffic violations. Short of having a heart attack in your car you simply are not allowed to break traffic laws for any reason whatsoever, they are strict liabilities. Mens rea simply never enters into this part of the law. My thoughts are that the magistrate was swayed by having Sir Alex with an expensive brief in front of him and was completely incorrect, and would have found anyone else guilty if they'd come up with that excuse.
As far as I know that's just not correct in practice. Take dangerous driving.
It's rare for it to be charged as such.
That's just what happens every day as a matter of absolute routine in on our streets, in our police stations and in our courts.
Including such blatantly dangerous driving as going round a blind corner or over a crest in the road, unsighted, at speed, on the wrong side of the road, at speed, driving with inability to read a number plate at 5-10m, driving straight through red lights, driving at the speed limit when dazzled by the sun, driving at 60mph in a 30-mph limit, and on it goes.
Tonnes of strict liability offences in there, all incorrectly dealt with by the magistrate listening to whatever cobblers excuse they shouldn't have allowed. Looks like the final paragraph was the only one not swayed by an expensive brief/celeb combo in my view:
In 2013, Mr Freeman represented Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding after she was spotted using a mobile while driving.
He told magistrates depriving the singer of her licence would be unduly harsh as she was too well-known to catch a bus. District judge Nina Tempia was singularly unimpressed. "Pay someone to drive you," she told Ms Harding before banning her.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
I'm fairly certain that you do have such principles, but you don't recognise them as such. I think it's a cognitive shortcut that is pretty inherent and everyone has.
Principles immune to changing facts informing my politics? Nothing springs to mind. Perhaps we're thinking of the word differently.
Eg could you tell me one of yours?
Death penalty?
Depends on your views, of course, but I don't see circumstances where I would drop my opposition - e.g. even some completely proven way of establishing guilt would not be sufficient. I struggle to think of any others that fundamental. Abortion is close, but my views could perhaps be changed by new research showing consciousness in early foetus etc. Most other things I hold dear are based on evidence rather than fundamental belief and evidence can change.
(Would my views on death penalty change if someone close to me was the victim? I guess that's the big question, isn't it?)
For you, would you change your opposition to inequality if there was compelling evidence that inequality was good for societies as a whole, a kind of inverse Spirit Level?
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
Haidt is interesting on this. He compares our evolved moral principles to our five taste buds. We all have the same basic moral instincts but they differ in combination as some are more salient than others, just like our taste buds. Basic moral "tastes": 1 Caring and prevention of suffering 2 Fairness 3 Cooperation and team working 4 Autonomy 5 Sanctity 6 Respect for authority The first three are left leaning. The last three are right leaning. They are the foundations of your principles based on emotions. David Hume said that emotions come first and rationality follows in order to justify them. Just don't confuse me with the facts.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
Yes, I think most people do.
Nuclear deterrent is an interesting one. I expect a small number of people are absolutely wedded to it come what may, because they just love nukes. But very few. And a rather larger number of people are opposed come what may, because they see nukes as wicked weapons that should never be used. But the largest group in the middle will be in favour, opposed, or say partially in favour (reduced Trident fleet, change in doctrine etc) and more susceptible to change their position based on geopolitical facts.
If you’re in this middle group, surely you don’t cite your conscience, religion and principles as reasons you’re against them
“Lammy , on the other hand, made a passionate speech in the House of Commons eight years ago, saying that, “as a Christian”, he thought “the idea of loving thy neighbour and protecting our world for future generations simply cannot hold if we have stockpiles of [nuclear] weapons”. He was against Trident on principle: “I cannot with a clear conscience vote for what is effectively a blank cheque for nuclear weapons.” And he was against it on practical grounds, saying nuclear weapons were “useless as a deterrent”, and asking: “Why do we need to have an independent programme at such a huge cost?”
Sure and he probably still believes that, but is now representing the Labour shadow cabinet that sees it differently.
Same with Cameron on Brexit, he has to pretend to like it, which isn't a big deal either, its just how collective responsibility works.
Perfectly fine. But don’t claim decisions are borne of conscience or principle
A lot of politics is a charade, its not all meant to be taken literally.
I know, but when people claim to have taken a decision ‘as a matter of principle’, or because of strong religious values, then go back on it, I think it’s beyond the pale
Not necessarily. Principles and religious values change over time, in particular with changes in society. For example churches over female priests or acceptance of homosexuality or divorce. Individuals have the same changes over time too.
Personally I would favour being rid of Nuclear weapons for both practical and moral reasons.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
Haidt is interesting on this. He compares our evolved moral principles to our five taste buds. We all have the same basic moral instincts but they differ in combination as some are more salient than others, just like our taste buds. Basic moral "tastes": 1 Caring and prevention of suffering 2 Fairness 3 Cooperation and team working 4 Autonomy 5 Sanctity 6 Respect for authority The first three are left leaning. The last three are right leaning. They are the foundations of your principles based on emotions. David Hume said that emotions come first and rationality follows in order to justify them. Just don't confuse me with the facts.
That makes a lot of sense to me, yes. Not iron-clad principles that don't change regardless of facts and situations - but a hierarchy of values you have and apply to life (inc politics).
And what Hume says there is not wrong. There is lots of that. Of course some people are more emotion-led than others. Kirk v Spock plays out in each of us.
One of my favourite tools for difficult decisions is making lists of pros and cons. Not for the pros and cons themselves, but because I can quite quickly detect a bias in the way I'm listing them, which tells me which way I really want to go.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
I don't see why anyone would have an issue with that, as long as the ban is proportionate to the ones that drivers get, with perhaps some consideration of the relative weights of the vehicles involved.
For example, a cyclist in Glasgow was left with life changing injuries after they were hit by a drink driver. 12 month ban. £540 fine.
Or a a hit-and-run driver in Glasgow who left a cyclist for dead. 16 month ban, 200 hours community service.
Or a 24 month driving ban (no fine) for deliberately ramming a cyclist off the road (with a prior conviction for dangerous driving...).
And that's just the dangerous ones. Most driving offences where cyclists are killed or seriously injured are pleaded down to Careless, with even lower penalties.
I have a theory that thug cyclists are thug drivers, when they are in cars.
Based on people turning up, driving like twats, at Richmond Park on a Sunday. Get the bike off the car, riding round twattishly. Then putting the bike back on the car rack and leaving - guess what?
Yes. And given 93% of UK adults have at one point gone on a cycle ride, there are probably some murderers in there too.
But that is also why the Government wedging on cyclists might not work. Almost everyone can cycle. People associate it with fond memories of teaching their kids to ride. It's one of the most liberating moments for young people, particularly now that getting a driving license is so difficult and public transport has been cut.
Cycling was 8x as prevalent in the 1950s as it is now, so some Boomers will view it with a great deal of nostalgia. The same Boomers who bemoan that kids spend all day inside on their phone.
Josh Self @Josh_Self_ NEW: Jacob Rees-Mogg's multi-point plan for Conservative election victory
— Election pact with Reform — Nigel Farage to be appointed as minister — Richard Tice and Ben Habib to be candidates — Boris Johnson to return as foreign secretary
See what both the university and the police have said.
Presumably threats of murder and rape are what @Roger calls "slights", about which he has seen no evidence. None so blind ....
As for the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, I have no knowledge about this so no, I will not be writing about it. There are plenty of people who do know and write well about the situation. There was a recent long review in the NY Review of Books of a book about the abysmal situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, which went into some detail about it. Very very sad and troubling. Well worth getting hold of for anyone interested.
That's very lawyerly by Mr Poophole. To attempt to use an innocent party to stir up some shit, whilst spending his career and making his fortune by helping dangerous, reckless and careless individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
This is a further rationale for my view, which I hadn't considered at the time: "...these tariffs stand in for demand side measures that might usually be achieved by procurement or regulation or local content requirements. But since the Biden admin cannot legislate again, it has to figure out how to support projects in a different way..."
Trade barriers as a way to support domestic producers is MAGA trade policy 101, but it was opposed by Biden when Trump was doing it:
Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.
The cashiers at Target see what’s going on – they know more about economics than Trump.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
One point I don't know - was anything relaxed wrt enforcement or standards or tuition or testing over the Covid period?
I don't see why anyone would have an issue with that, as long as the ban is proportionate to the ones that drivers get, with perhaps some consideration of the relative weights of the vehicles involved.
For example, a cyclist in Glasgow was left with life changing injuries after they were hit by a drink driver. 12 month ban. £540 fine.
Or a a hit-and-run driver in Glasgow who left a cyclist for dead. 16 month ban, 200 hours community service.
Or a 24 month driving ban (no fine) for deliberately ramming a cyclist off the road (with a prior conviction for dangerous driving...).
And that's just the dangerous ones. Most driving offences where cyclists are killed or seriously injured are pleaded down to Careless, with even lower penalties.
I have a theory that thug cyclists are thug drivers, when they are in cars.
Based on people turning up, driving like twats, at Richmond Park on a Sunday. Get the bike off the car, riding round twattishly. Then putting the bike back on the car rack and leaving - guess what?
Yes. And given 93% of UK adults have at one point gone on a cycle ride, there are probably some murderers in there too.
But that is also why the Government wedging on cyclists might not work. Almost everyone can cycle. People associate it with fond memories of teaching their kids to ride. It's one of the most liberating moments for young people, particularly now that getting a driving license is so difficult and public transport has been cut.
Cycling was 8x as prevalent in the 1950s as it is now, so some Boomers will view it with a great deal of nostalgia. The same Boomers who bemoan that kids spend all day inside on their phone.
Wasn't there a (clickbait?) report that people who use their phones while driving are...
@bondegezou - "It is an unwritten but real rule that the Arab parties in the Knesset are never invited into government."
Er ... in 2021 the United Arab List won 4 seats in the Knesset and its leader, Mansour Abbas, joined the coalition government, the first time an independent Arab party became a member of the Israeli government, and the first time in more than 50 years that any Arab party formed part of the Israeli government.
The exception that proves the rule! But you're right, it did happen then. It was hugely controversial and, as you say, "the first time an independent Arab party became a member of the Israeli government, and the first time in more than 50 years that any Arab party formed part of the Israeli government".
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
I'm fairly certain that you do have such principles, but you don't recognise them as such. I think it's a cognitive shortcut that is pretty inherent and everyone has.
Principles immune to changing facts informing my politics? Nothing springs to mind. Perhaps we're thinking of the word differently.
Eg could you tell me one of yours?
Death penalty?
Depends on your views, of course, but I don't see circumstances where I would drop my opposition - e.g. even some completely proven way of establishing guilt would not be sufficient. I struggle to think of any others that fundamental. Abortion is close, but my views could perhaps be changed by new research showing consciousness in early foetus etc. Most other things I hold dear are based on evidence rather than fundamental belief and evidence can change.
(Would my views on death penalty change if someone close to me was the victim? I guess that's the big question, isn't it?)
For you, would you change your opposition to inequality if there was compelling evidence that inequality was good for societies as a whole, a kind of inverse Spirit Level?
That's a good one, the DP, but I don't think even that would be absolute for me. If there were a way to satisfy the following:
Definitely guilty Evil crime, no mitigation No grisly theatre around execution Humane method Compelling evidence that the DP reduces murder
Then I'd probably possibly support it. I think.
And ok yes, on inequality, if I could be convinced that the stock of human happiness was increased by having plenty of it then bang would go my egalitarianism. I'd drop it like a stone - or rather, to stick to my lingo, it would disappear from my HoV, my Hierarchy of Values.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
Happy for things to be enforced but think the processes could easily be improved.
Signage for things like roads that are restricted at certain hours is terrible. Adding a simple digital open/closed colour coded sign would make a big difference. You should still be allowed to appeal and pay the reduced fine for early payment, assuming you pay early of course. There should be a way for multiple offences over a short space of time, such as using a bus lane with poor signage at the wrong time three days in a row, to be considered together. (If the police had stopped you on the first day, you very likely wouldn't have committed the further offences).
This is a further rationale for my view, which I hadn't considered at the time: "...these tariffs stand in for demand side measures that might usually be achieved by procurement or regulation or local content requirements. But since the Biden admin cannot legislate again, it has to figure out how to support projects in a different way..."
Trade barriers as a way to support domestic producers is MAGA trade policy 101, but it was opposed by Biden when Trump was doing it:
Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.
The cashiers at Target see what’s going on – they know more about economics than Trump.
This is very clearly targeted at incentivising new investment, as opposed to supporting domestic producers - for items like graphite components for batteries (incidentally, not found on the aisles at Target), bulk domestic production doesn't really exist. A clue to that is that tariffs on those items are delayed until 2026.
And this isn't "Trade policy 101" - it's an imperfect alternative to other demand side measures which GOP control of Congress rules out.
That's very lawyerly by Mr Poophole. To attempt to use an innocent party to stir up some shit, whilst spending his career and making his fortune by helping dangerous, reckless and careless individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
I think the biggest lesson from the Regents Park incident is that you should, if you can, position yourself in the road to give you more time to react if a pedestrian does randomly step out.
Edinburgh is notorious for this in places (South Bridge in particular) I always stick centre lane through those areas, to save my own neck as well as anyone else's.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
In the Plan for Drivers, the Secretary of State for Transport announced action to address concerns about councils generating surpluses from issuing penalty charge notices (PCNs) for contraventions of moving traffic restrictions including:
no entry no left or right turn prohibited vehicles unlawful entry into box junctions driving in mandatory cycle lanes These enforcement powers help free up police time while helping councils to reduce traffic congestion. However, enforcement should be undertaken proportionately and not used as a means to raise revenue.
This call for evidence aims to:
gather evidence of current practice to inform possible policy proposals explore options for restricting a local authority’s ability to generate surpluses from traffic contraventions
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
That's in the Plan for Drivers, which is another Govt document that is partly based on conspiracy theory. This was Mark Harper the Transport Minister at Conference:
“What is sinister, and what we shouldn’t tolerate,” said Harper, “is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when, and that they police it all with CCTV.”
Create a fake threat, then some fake measures to address it, to please the hoons and the goons.
I don't see it going anywhere unless the earth moves, or maybe because it can be done by Ministerial Diktat or Guidelines. This is now May, Parliament will rise in about 7-8 weeks, and then not be back until some time in October. Then we have an election coming.
Perhaps it will be in the next Conservative Manifesto? How did that go for Susan Hall?
This is a further rationale for my view, which I hadn't considered at the time: "...these tariffs stand in for demand side measures that might usually be achieved by procurement or regulation or local content requirements. But since the Biden admin cannot legislate again, it has to figure out how to support projects in a different way..."
Trade barriers as a way to support domestic producers is MAGA trade policy 101, but it was opposed by Biden when Trump was doing it:
Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.
The cashiers at Target see what’s going on – they know more about economics than Trump.
This is very clearly targeted at incentivising new investment, as opposed to supporting domestic producers - for items like graphite components for batteries (incidentally, not found on the aisles at Target), bulk domestic production doesn't really exist. A clue to that is that tariffs on those items are delayed until 2026.
And this isn't "Trade policy 101" - it's an imperfect alternative to other demand side measures which GOP control of Congress rules out.
Did you not read the thread you linked to? Pricing foreign competition out of the market is protectionism/Trumpism 101.
That's very lawyerly by Mr Poophole. To attempt to use an innocent party to stir up some shit, whilst spending his career and making his fortune by helping dangerous, reckless and careless individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
It’s worth noting that about 95% of Mr Loophole’s thing is pointing out basic flaws in the prosecutions.
For example speedguns need to be calibrated and checked at intervals. Known and in the manual. The U.K. police didn’t bother* and didn’t bother to keep records.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
Haidt is interesting on this. He compares our evolved moral principles to our five taste buds. We all have the same basic moral instincts but they differ in combination as some are more salient than others, just like our taste buds. Basic moral "tastes": 1 Caring and prevention of suffering 2 Fairness 3 Cooperation and team working 4 Autonomy 5 Sanctity 6 Respect for authority The first three are left leaning. The last three are right leaning. They are the foundations of your principles based on emotions. David Hume said that emotions come first and rationality follows in order to justify them. Just don't confuse me with the facts.
That makes a lot of sense to me, yes. Not iron-clad principles that don't change regardless of facts and situations - but a hierarchy of values you have and apply to life (inc politics).
And what Hume says there is not wrong. There is lots of that. Of course some people are more emotion-led than others. Kirk v Spock plays out in each of us.
One of my favourite tools for difficult decisions is making lists of pros and cons. Not for the pros and cons themselves, but because I can quite quickly detect a bias in the way I'm listing them, which tells me which way I really want to go.
That's right. It's the process of doing it not the output that clarifies your thinking.
Josh Self @Josh_Self_ NEW: Jacob Rees-Mogg's multi-point plan for Conservative election victory
— Election pact with Reform — Nigel Farage to be appointed as minister — Richard Tice and Ben Habib to be candidates — Boris Johnson to return as foreign secretary
This is a further rationale for my view, which I hadn't considered at the time: "...these tariffs stand in for demand side measures that might usually be achieved by procurement or regulation or local content requirements. But since the Biden admin cannot legislate again, it has to figure out how to support projects in a different way..."
Trade barriers as a way to support domestic producers is MAGA trade policy 101, but it was opposed by Biden when Trump was doing it:
Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.
The cashiers at Target see what’s going on – they know more about economics than Trump.
This is very clearly targeted at incentivising new investment, as opposed to supporting domestic producers - for items like graphite components for batteries (incidentally, not found on the aisles at Target), bulk domestic production doesn't really exist. A clue to that is that tariffs on those items are delayed until 2026.
And this isn't "Trade policy 101" - it's an imperfect alternative to other demand side measures which GOP control of Congress rules out.
Did you not read the thread you linked to? Pricing foreign competition out of the market is protectionism/Trumpism 101.
This is a further rationale for my view, which I hadn't considered at the time: "...these tariffs stand in for demand side measures that might usually be achieved by procurement or regulation or local content requirements. But since the Biden admin cannot legislate again, it has to figure out how to support projects in a different way..."
Trade barriers as a way to support domestic producers is MAGA trade policy 101, but it was opposed by Biden when Trump was doing it:
Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.
The cashiers at Target see what’s going on – they know more about economics than Trump.
This is very clearly targeted at incentivising new investment, as opposed to supporting domestic producers - for items like graphite components for batteries (incidentally, not found on the aisles at Target), bulk domestic production doesn't really exist. A clue to that is that tariffs on those items are delayed until 2026.
And this isn't "Trade policy 101" - it's an imperfect alternative to other demand side measures which GOP control of Congress rules out.
Did you not read the thread you linked to? Pricing foreign competition out of the market is protectionism/Trumpism 101.
I don't see why anyone would have an issue with that, as long as the ban is proportionate to the ones that drivers get, with perhaps some consideration of the relative weights of the vehicles involved.
For example, a cyclist in Glasgow was left with life changing injuries after they were hit by a drink driver. 12 month ban. £540 fine.
Or a a hit-and-run driver in Glasgow who left a cyclist for dead. 16 month ban, 200 hours community service.
Or a 24 month driving ban (no fine) for deliberately ramming a cyclist off the road (with a prior conviction for dangerous driving...).
And that's just the dangerous ones. Most driving offences where cyclists are killed or seriously injured are pleaded down to Careless, with even lower penalties.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
I'm fairly certain that you do have such principles, but you don't recognise them as such. I think it's a cognitive shortcut that is pretty inherent and everyone has.
Principles immune to changing facts informing my politics? Nothing springs to mind. Perhaps we're thinking of the word differently.
Eg could you tell me one of yours?
I think one of my foundational principles, or beliefs, is that most people are mostly reasonable, most of the time - and therefore that I should strive to act towards people with that assumption in mind - assume good faith, provide space and time for people to recognise mistakes when they have wronged me, seem to understand before condemning, etc.
Although I often have interactions with people that contradict this, it's still something that I hold to, despite the contrary evidence. It appears to be impervious to the facts of experience.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
Another outstanding piece by Anne Applebaum, one of my favourite journalists, about how autocracies have identified the promulgation of the rule of law, independent judgment, human rights and freedom of speech as dangerous ideas that need to be undermined not only in their own countries but in ours:
Yes I like her too. I read her "Twilight of Democracy" book. She's been ploughing a rather lonely furrow on this. Everybody agrees with her, but nobody is willing to do the necessary to stop it. It's like John harris on British poverty and alienation. Everybody nods their head and does nothing. It is rather saddening.
She's the sort of journalist (quite rare) who you read and think, "wish she was in politics rather than just writing about it".
Fwiw I think the big divide these days isn't right v left - it's politicians who mean well v those who don't.
Yep.
‘Let’s not mess about with that good intentions shit, we’ll head to hell direct!’
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
Alas, I have no insurance premium. I neither ride nor drive, being a mere pedestrian unimpressed by and occasionally at risk from bad driving and cycling.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
In the Plan for Drivers, the Secretary of State for Transport announced action to address concerns about councils generating surpluses from issuing penalty charge notices (PCNs) for contraventions of moving traffic restrictions including:
no entry no left or right turn prohibited vehicles unlawful entry into box junctions driving in mandatory cycle lanes These enforcement powers help free up police time while helping councils to reduce traffic congestion. However, enforcement should be undertaken proportionately and not used as a means to raise revenue.
This call for evidence aims to:
gather evidence of current practice to inform possible policy proposals explore options for restricting a local authority’s ability to generate surpluses from traffic contraventions
The fact that councils can make a surplus from this kind of enforcement would suggest that it is indeed disproportionate - the fines are not large enough to provide an effective deterrent. Drivers can avoid a fine with one simple trick...
Some of those things could be seriously dangerous - driving a prohibited vehicle? Driving down a cycle lane? Wrong way down a one-way street? Ignoring a no turn sign and ploughing through pedestrians walking on a green man?
In 1948 an ultraracist terror army forced 750000 Palestinians to flee their homes in a single week. That experience is what is known as the Nakba - the Catastrophe. The message that the fascists gave the Palestinians was clear: get out or we will murder you; this is a land without people (because you are just nothing) for a people without land (and we're taking this land now, which makes it ours).
The regime that the fascists created still exists. It has nuclear weapons It also sells weapons and surveillance technology to many countries around the world, including the USA, Russia, China, and Britain.
One of the places where some of the victims of the fascist terror found refuge in 1948 was Gaza, where many families lived in refugee camps for the next 75 years.
Since October 2023, the ultraracist terror army has destroyed the large majority of the houses and flats in Gaza, forcing more than 1 million Palestinians to flee to Rafah in the south.
During the past nine days of 2024, the fascists have further attacked, using terror against Rafah itself, forcing 450000 to flee to the northwest.
There should be no doubt about the applicability of the term Nakba to describe what the fascists are seeking to impose again right now.
Three-quarters of the Gaza population are women and children. That's about the same proportion as among the 35000 Palestinians the fascists have slaughtered since October.
Another statistic: since October, the fascists have murdered or wounded about 5% of the Gaza population. They have also bombed and raided hospitals, killed ~200 humanitarian workers, and destroyed all universities on the territory. At the moment they are keeping all crossings closed to aid shipments, while scum like Rishi Sunak say they are "defending" themselves, and scum like Keir Starmer say they have a "right" to cut off the water and electricity, or in other words to commit genocide.
(Science bros here will confirm that human beings require water to survive.)
That's very lawyerly by Mr Poophole. To attempt to use an innocent party to stir up some shit, whilst spending his career and making his fortune by helping dangerous, reckless and careless individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
It’s worth noting that about 95% of Mr Loophole’s thing is pointing out basic flaws in the prosecutions.
For example speedguns need to be calibrated and checked at intervals. Known and in the manual. The U.K. police didn’t bother* and didn’t bother to keep records.
*Some forces still don’t bother
Did they not change the law so the computer was always right, or at least presumed always to be right, cf DNA evidence and, well, subpostmasters?
Months after voting down a Lab motion declaring a "housing emergency" (a political not official term) & hours before Lab bring a similar motion (with Green support likely this time) Scot Gov declares a "housing emergency" and blames everyone but themselves
This will hardly encourage more landlords to step in. Particularly in an environment where (thanks to George Osborne's madness) interest paid on BTL mortgages is not tax deductible, which was bad enough when BTL rates were 2.something% rather than 5.something% as they are now.
I have a friend from abroad asking me if it's wise to invest in UK property as a landlord and I told him he'd have to be mad to do it, given the differential tax treatment of mortgage interest vs the cost of any other loan on any other business, plus low yields and an overall hostile environment. After all, who likes landlords? Labour will likely punish them further in the UK (as they are with private school fees) because they are an easy target.
The problem is that landlords are providing a vital service. Those who say it's "good" that landlords are being pushed out of the market, because it means more people can buy a house they need to live in, are neglecting two vital things, firstly that not everyone is in a position to or wants to buy a house (students, geographically mobile workers, those for whom a £20k+ deposit is a pipe dream in a cost of living crisis). Secondly, depressed yields also depress the market for BTL development.
The solution to the housing crisis is, as always, build more bloody houses. Instead I think Scotland is a microcosm of what's likely to happen in the UK writ large under Labour, which is 'make life harder for landlords', which in actual fact means 'make life harder for tenants', as costs are passed on to them and the rental market shrinks. I'm really hoping that Labour don't go down the 'punish landlords' route, because as much as I loathe landlords, that only makes things harder for tenants. Walloping landlords with punitive tax regimes and red tape sounds like a good idea, in practice since tenants have nowhere else to turn, it makes things worse for them.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
Haidt is interesting on this. He compares our evolved moral principles to our five taste buds. We all have the same basic moral instincts but they differ in combination as some are more salient than others, just like our taste buds. Basic moral "tastes": 1 Caring and prevention of suffering 2 Fairness 3 Cooperation and team working 4 Autonomy 5 Sanctity 6 Respect for authority The first three are left leaning. The last three are right leaning. They are the foundations of your principles based on emotions. David Hume said that emotions come first and rationality follows in order to justify them. Just don't confuse me with the facts.
That makes a lot of sense to me, yes. Not iron-clad principles that don't change regardless of facts and situations - but a hierarchy of values you have and apply to life (inc politics).
And what Hume says there is not wrong. There is lots of that. Of course some people are more emotion-led than others. Kirk v Spock plays out in each of us.
One of my favourite tools for difficult decisions is making lists of pros and cons. Not for the pros and cons themselves, but because I can quite quickly detect a bias in the way I'm listing them, which tells me which way I really want to go.
That's right. It's the process of doing it not the output that clarifies your thinking.
Which was, of course, what Boris Johnson famously did before deciding to back Leave in the Referendum. And got roundly abused for doing so. Except, to be fair, he didn’t write a list, he wrote two essays, and persuaded himself that the Leave one was ‘better’. We’ll never know whether it was ‘better’ for the country or for himself, of course.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
In the Plan for Drivers, the Secretary of State for Transport announced action to address concerns about councils generating surpluses from issuing penalty charge notices (PCNs) for contraventions of moving traffic restrictions including:
no entry no left or right turn prohibited vehicles unlawful entry into box junctions driving in mandatory cycle lanes These enforcement powers help free up police time while helping councils to reduce traffic congestion. However, enforcement should be undertaken proportionately and not used as a means to raise revenue.
This call for evidence aims to:
gather evidence of current practice to inform possible policy proposals explore options for restricting a local authority’s ability to generate surpluses from traffic contraventions
The fact that councils can make a surplus from this kind of enforcement would suggest that it is indeed disproportionate - the fines are not large enough to provide an effective deterrent. Drivers can avoid a fine with one simple trick...
Some of those things could be seriously dangerous - driving a prohibited vehicle? Driving down a cycle lane? Wrong way down a one-way street? Ignoring a no turn sign and ploughing through pedestrians walking on a green man?
The party of law and order is losing its mind.
It always strikes me as utterly bizarre when driving and parking fines are lambasted as being a 'cash cow' for councils. Obviously, if drivers didn't break the laws the councils wouldn't raise a penny.
Illegal parking is so rife round my way that it appears many affluent drivers (it's usually big, expensive cars) have decided that a parking fine is just an additional cost to driving. I'd like to see the fine rise exponentially for second and subsequent offences.
See what both the university and the police have said.
Presumably threats of murder and rape are what @Roger calls "slights", about which he has seen no evidence. None so blind ....
As for the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, I have no knowledge about this so no, I will not be writing about it. There are plenty of people who do know and write well about the situation. There was a recent long review in the NY Review of Books of a book about the abysmal situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, which went into some detail about it. Very very sad and troubling. Well worth getting hold of for anyone interested.
See what both the university and the police have said.
Presumably threats of murder and rape are what @Roger calls "slights", about which he has seen no evidence. None so blind ....
As for the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, I have no knowledge about this so no, I will not be writing about it. There are plenty of people who do know and write well about the situation. There was a recent long review in the NY Review of Books of a book about the abysmal situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, which went into some detail about it. Very very sad and troubling. Well worth getting hold of for anyone interested.
From one of those pro-Israeli articles:
"Rabbi Deutsch, who is an Israeli citizen, left Yorkshire to serve with his IDF reserve unit in November. Students staged a protest against his return to campus."
He should be stripped of his British citizenship if he holds it, and he should be prosecuted and jailed for terrorism.
BTW Britain is one of many countries that supposedly operate a universal jurisdiction where war crimes and crimes against humanity are concerned.
That's very lawyerly by Mr Poophole. To attempt to use an innocent party to stir up some shit, whilst spending his career and making his fortune by helping dangerous, reckless and careless individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
It’s worth noting that about 95% of Mr Loophole’s thing is pointing out basic flaws in the prosecutions.
For example speedguns need to be calibrated and checked at intervals. Known and in the manual. The U.K. police didn’t bother* and didn’t bother to keep records.
*Some forces still don’t bother
I will state, with some confidence, that I have been charged with and evaded more speeding infringements than anybody else here. I have never beaten one with the calibration yarn. As far as I can remember - there have been a lot.
The most common reason I've skated on one is that the cop doesn't turn up at the court date. Because they are on the Pat and Mick or had to do something else or just couldn't be arsed.
On the one where I 100% should have gone to jail my solicitor got me off because of an incorrect date on the paperwork.
Of course, the most important thing to do is never incriminate yourself when pulled (if you're not going to go full GTA and evade law enforcement). Deny. Deny. Deny.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
In the Plan for Drivers, the Secretary of State for Transport announced action to address concerns about councils generating surpluses from issuing penalty charge notices (PCNs) for contraventions of moving traffic restrictions including:
no entry no left or right turn prohibited vehicles unlawful entry into box junctions driving in mandatory cycle lanes These enforcement powers help free up police time while helping councils to reduce traffic congestion. However, enforcement should be undertaken proportionately and not used as a means to raise revenue.
This call for evidence aims to:
gather evidence of current practice to inform possible policy proposals explore options for restricting a local authority’s ability to generate surpluses from traffic contraventions
That's not really a very good description of what they are doing.
It is a huge data gathering exercise imposed on Local Authorities, for whom this Govt have slashed funding by around 40% (estd but about right).
The "driving in mandatory cycle lanes" is essentially garbage, since the Govt cocked-up the law and made any new ones unenforcible in 2016, ignoring expert advice.
I'm far more concerned about driving in mandatory cycle TRACKS (which are separate from the road carriageway), since the measures to keep drivers out (mainly bollards) are not often installed, and that is where children will be.
Apropos of my comments earlier, this guy driving his Ford Puma up the cycle track next to Binley Road in Coventry, at perhaps 30mph, was charged with Careless Driving not Dangerous Driving.
Apparently the police and the CPS think he did it by mistake. FFS.
That's very lawyerly by Mr Poophole. To attempt to use an innocent party to stir up some shit, whilst spending his career and making his fortune by helping dangerous, reckless and careless individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
It’s worth noting that about 95% of Mr Loophole’s thing is pointing out basic flaws in the prosecutions.
For example speedguns need to be calibrated and checked at intervals. Known and in the manual. The U.K. police didn’t bother* and didn’t bother to keep records.
*Some forces still don’t bother
Did they not change the law so the computer was always right, or at least presumed always to be right, cf DNA evidence and, well, subpostmasters?
Common law presumption was machines work properly, police and criminal evidence act 1984 quite rightly reverses that, youth justice and criminal evidence act 1999 repeals s 69 pace and reinstates common law. An example of the illiberalism of the Blair government in criminal matters, instrumental in causing the Post Office scandal.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
I'm fairly certain that you do have such principles, but you don't recognise them as such. I think it's a cognitive shortcut that is pretty inherent and everyone has.
Principles immune to changing facts informing my politics? Nothing springs to mind. Perhaps we're thinking of the word differently.
Eg could you tell me one of yours?
I think one of my foundational principles, or beliefs, is that most people are mostly reasonable, most of the time - and therefore that I should strive to act towards people with that assumption in mind - assume good faith, provide space and time for people to recognise mistakes when they have wronged me, seem to understand before condemning, etc.
Although I often have interactions with people that contradict this, it's still something that I hold to, despite the contrary evidence. It appears to be impervious to the facts of experience.
Ah ok, yes. So we are thinking of the word differently. Thought we must be. That's one of the principles you try to live your life by. I guess I have those too. I'd hope so anyway.
But I was more thinking of iron-clad 'principles' as relating to politics, to supporting or opposing particular policies, such that one can't change one's mind on them etc. That's where I'm saying I don't have any. I more have a HoV.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
Another outstanding piece by Anne Applebaum, one of my favourite journalists, about how autocracies have identified the promulgation of the rule of law, independent judgment, human rights and freedom of speech as dangerous ideas that need to be undermined not only in their own countries but in ours:
What is the real purpose of the u.s. involvement in Ukraine ? Is it a coincidence that several senior democrats had corrupt ties over there prior to the war ? Why were the u.s. running biolabs on ukr soil that Nuland admitted to ? Why has the west no interest in negotiating peace ?
Hi, got a quick question
If a plane crashes on the Ukraine/Republic of China border, which side do you bury the survivors?
Remember the dodgy dossier and the Iraq war ? This is obviously another neo-con adventure. Look at the way the Ukr placement scheme was up and running so quickly, that psy-op campaign had echoes of the covid-response campaign too. We are being played. It is laughable to suggest that Russia is going to invade the West. We should offer them a position in Nato. We are the warmongers.
The neocons haven't been a significant factor in American politics since Bush II
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
That's very lawyerly by Mr Poophole. To attempt to use an innocent party to stir up some shit, whilst spending his career and making his fortune by helping dangerous, reckless and careless individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own behaviour.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
It’s worth noting that about 95% of Mr Loophole’s thing is pointing out basic flaws in the prosecutions.
For example speedguns need to be calibrated and checked at intervals. Known and in the manual. The U.K. police didn’t bother* and didn’t bother to keep records.
*Some forces still don’t bother
Did they not change the law so the computer was always right, or at least presumed always to be right, cf DNA evidence and, well, subpostmasters?
Common law presumption was machines work properly, police and criminal evidence act 1984 quite rightly reverses that, youth justice and criminal evidence act 1999 repeals s 69 pace and reinstates common law. An example of the illiberalism of the Blair government in criminal matters, instrumental in causing the Post Office scandal.
As I understand things, this particular legal principle was completely reasonable when it was first proposed. The context then was: “Can we rely on a computer to calculate correctly according to the program it has been given?”. Tying up legal cases with having to prove that ”yes this particular computer can calculate 2+2 and get 4” was obviously a massive waste of time & was rightly deprecated. If you want to claim that a computer made an error in fundamental arithmetic then the burden of proof is on the claimant.
The problem came when the legal profession extended this idea to “all computer programs do what their authors think they ought to do” which is a /completely/ different question, but the distinction was ignored. When, in reality, the error rate in computer programs in the real world runs at multiple errors per thousand lines of code & this is consistent across the industry, unless heroic measures are taken to reduce it, it seems astonishing that the courts could claim with a straight face that the output of computer programs could be relied on without inspection, yet this is exactly what they have been doing.
It seems like a kind of quiet conspiracy amongst the legal profession to look the other way, despite the great piles of academic papers demonstrating that errors are the norm. Shades of Lord Denning all over again.
Is Radio 4 in trouble? I'll stick to Radio 3 (and I have some reservations even about that niche).
I think there are problems. The thing about Radio 4 is that it does not exist to not be in competition with Radio 5 or, of course Radios 1 and 2. Or LBC, GB or Times Radio.
So it needn't rely on vox pops, unexpert opinion, celeb culture, todays worthless opinion polls and surveys, instant opinion, false adversarialism, gotcha moments, pop music, single issue fanatics, trash culture, self promoters, awareness raisers, politicians with nothing useful to say (including ministers who don't answer questions), luvviedom, uncritical coverage of the arts, people for who everything is either fantastic or incredible, inarticulate chancers, and comedy programmes that are not even slightly funny.
It is quite capable of being the real Reithian thing when it wants. It just needs a bit more confidence in intelligence.
Nothing exchange this week, both rather poor and empty.
Disagree. The question was, if you are releasing prisoners early because the prisons are full, does that mean dangerous criminals are being released into the community?
The answer appears to be Yes, but Sunak can't say so. That's a good PMQs question.
Months after voting down a Lab motion declaring a "housing emergency" (a political not official term) & hours before Lab bring a similar motion (with Green support likely this time) Scot Gov declares a "housing emergency" and blames everyone but themselves
This will hardly encourage more landlords to step in. Particularly in an environment where (thanks to George Osborne's madness) interest paid on BTL mortgages is not tax deductible, which was bad enough when BTL rates were 2.something% rather than 5.something% as they are now.
I have a friend from abroad asking me if it's wise to invest in UK property as a landlord and I told him he'd have to be mad to do it, given the differential tax treatment of mortgage interest vs the cost of any other loan on any other business, plus low yields and an overall hostile environment. After all, who likes landlords? Labour will likely punish them further in the UK (as they are with private school fees) because they are an easy target.
The problem is that landlords are providing a vital service. Those who say it's "good" that landlords are being pushed out of the market, because it means more people can buy a house they need to live in, are neglecting two vital things, firstly that not everyone is in a position to or wants to buy a house (students, geographically mobile workers, those for whom a £20k+ deposit is a pipe dream in a cost of living crisis). Secondly, depressed yields also depress the market for BTL development.
The solution to the housing crisis is, as always, build more bloody houses. Instead I think Scotland is a microcosm of what's likely to happen in the UK writ large under Labour, which is 'make life harder for landlords', which in actual fact means 'make life harder for tenants', as costs are passed on to them and the rental market shrinks. I'm really hoping that Labour don't go down the 'punish landlords' route, because as much as I loathe landlords, that only makes things harder for tenants. Walloping landlords with punitive tax regimes and red tape sounds like a good idea, in practice since tenants have nowhere else to turn, it makes things worse for them.
Some little time ago, a poster noted that an area of Scotland was projected to see slightly over 1% growth in population over ten years. And that it was obviously impossible to keep up with that, in terms of housing and services.
Months after voting down a Lab motion declaring a "housing emergency" (a political not official term) & hours before Lab bring a similar motion (with Green support likely this time) Scot Gov declares a "housing emergency" and blames everyone but themselves
This will hardly encourage more landlords to step in. Particularly in an environment where (thanks to George Osborne's madness) interest paid on BTL mortgages is not tax deductible, which was bad enough when BTL rates were 2.something% rather than 5.something% as they are now.
I have a friend from abroad asking me if it's wise to invest in UK property as a landlord and I told him he'd have to be mad to do it, given the differential tax treatment of mortgage interest vs the cost of any other loan on any other business, plus low yields and an overall hostile environment. After all, who likes landlords? Labour will likely punish them further in the UK (as they are with private school fees) because they are an easy target.
The problem is that landlords are providing a vital service. Those who say it's "good" that landlords are being pushed out of the market, because it means more people can buy a house they need to live in, are neglecting two vital things, firstly that not everyone is in a position to or wants to buy a house (students, geographically mobile workers, those for whom a £20k+ deposit is a pipe dream in a cost of living crisis). Secondly, depressed yields also depress the market for BTL development.
The solution to the housing crisis is, as always, build more bloody houses. Instead I think Scotland is a microcosm of what's likely to happen in the UK writ large under Labour, which is 'make life harder for landlords', which in actual fact means 'make life harder for tenants', as costs are passed on to them and the rental market shrinks. I'm really hoping that Labour don't go down the 'punish landlords' route, because as much as I loathe landlords, that only makes things harder for tenants. Walloping landlords with punitive tax regimes and red tape sounds like a good idea, in practice since tenants have nowhere else to turn, it makes things worse for them.
The 2022 rent caps, justified by Covid, allegedly, saw Scottish rents rise faster than any other part of the UK. It is hard to imagine that the current proposals will do any better.
What is lacking is a basic understanding of the laws of supply and demand. Policies need to encourage the creation of new housing, both for sale and for rent. That means that being a landlord needs to be encouraged. Instead, we have policies that are driving landlords from the market looking for alternatives like Airbnb which can produce a better return.
The collapse of Stewart Milne group earlier this year shows that this is not just a letting problem. It also applies to the market for sales. Once again, you find that local authorities have sought to milk the profits from developments to fill gaps in their own budgets by, for example, requiring the construction of new schools or road layouts. Locally, Dundee has repeatedly taken the money for this and then not built the schools either. Such policies are understandable given the strains on public authority budgets but they do absolutely nothing to increase the supply of housing stock. Once again, the laws of supply and demand apply.
Like Sir Keir on accepting the referendum result, and the use of the private sector in the NHS, Lammy’s rejection of Nuclear weapons was a matter of principle and conscience
David Lammy voted against Trident in 2016, and now wants to be a pro-nuclear, pro-Nato foreign sec independent.co.uk/voices/labour-…
Tories famously always sticking to their guns on great matters of principle like, say, Brexit.
Defence reversals are an easy one. The world has changed unbelievably since that 2016 vote.
We have no more doubts that effectively we are already at war with Russia. Might be a cold war technically but it is warming quickly.
It wasn’t a matter of conscience and principle then. Or he doesn’t have them anymore
Conscience and principles can change in the face of facts.
Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament is immoral, anyway.
I thought the point of principles was that they don’t change in the face of facts
People with principles that are immune to facts are bad news.
Surely you hold some principles that are impervious? The fundamental building blocks of your belief system, and the starting point for looking at facts and drawing further conclusions from them?
I'd say I have a hierarchy of values (eg reduction in inequality is towards the top) and I do need this to give some shape to my views and opinions.
But I don't have a belief system underpinned by iron principles that float free of facts. That's not something to be admired or respected imo. It's a mental frailty.
Haidt is interesting on this. He compares our evolved moral principles to our five taste buds. We all have the same basic moral instincts but they differ in combination as some are more salient than others, just like our taste buds. Basic moral "tastes": 1 Caring and prevention of suffering 2 Fairness 3 Cooperation and team working 4 Autonomy 5 Sanctity 6 Respect for authority The first three are left leaning. The last three are right leaning. They are the foundations of your principles based on emotions. David Hume said that emotions come first and rationality follows in order to justify them. Just don't confuse me with the facts.
That makes a lot of sense to me, yes. Not iron-clad principles that don't change regardless of facts and situations - but a hierarchy of values you have and apply to life (inc politics).
And what Hume says there is not wrong. There is lots of that. Of course some people are more emotion-led than others. Kirk v Spock plays out in each of us.
One of my favourite tools for difficult decisions is making lists of pros and cons. Not for the pros and cons themselves, but because I can quite quickly detect a bias in the way I'm listing them, which tells me which way I really want to go.
That's right. It's the process of doing it not the output that clarifies your thinking.
Which was, of course, what Boris Johnson famously did before deciding to back Leave in the Referendum. And got roundly abused for doing so. Except, to be fair, he didn’t write a list, he wrote two essays, and persuaded himself that the Leave one was ‘better’. We’ll never know whether it was ‘better’ for the country or for himself, of course.
Yes I didn't think that was a bad thing he did there. But he could have just cut to the chase - what is better for my chances of becoming Tory leader?
See what both the university and the police have said.
Presumably threats of murder and rape are what @Roger calls "slights", about which he has seen no evidence. None so blind ....
As for the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, I have no knowledge about this so no, I will not be writing about it. There are plenty of people who do know and write well about the situation. There was a recent long review in the NY Review of Books of a book about the abysmal situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, which went into some detail about it. Very very sad and troubling. Well worth getting hold of for anyone interested.
From one of those pro-Israeli articles:
"Rabbi Deutsch, who is an Israeli citizen, left Yorkshire to serve with his IDF reserve unit in November. Students staged a protest against his return to campus."
He should be stripped of his British citizenship if he holds it, and he should be prosecuted and jailed for terrorism.
BTW Britain is one of many countries that supposedly operate a universal jurisdiction where war crimes and crimes against humanity are concerned.
Britain also operates a legal system where you have to present evidence. Where is the evidence that this person is guilty of terrorism, war crimes or crimes against humanity? No war crimes tribunal has ever declared that every soldier who served is automatic guilty of everything the army has been accused of.
Nothing exchange this week, both rather poor and empty.
Disagree. The question was, if you are releasing prisoners early because the prisons are full, does that mean dangerous criminals are being released into the community?
The answer appears to be Yes, but Sunak can't say so. That's a good PMQs question.
It was answered no, they are not eligible. If they are then the government will need to be held to account for that.
Months after voting down a Lab motion declaring a "housing emergency" (a political not official term) & hours before Lab bring a similar motion (with Green support likely this time) Scot Gov declares a "housing emergency" and blames everyone but themselves
This will hardly encourage more landlords to step in. Particularly in an environment where (thanks to George Osborne's madness) interest paid on BTL mortgages is not tax deductible, which was bad enough when BTL rates were 2.something% rather than 5.something% as they are now.
I have a friend from abroad asking me if it's wise to invest in UK property as a landlord and I told him he'd have to be mad to do it, given the differential tax treatment of mortgage interest vs the cost of any other loan on any other business, plus low yields and an overall hostile environment. After all, who likes landlords? Labour will likely punish them further in the UK (as they are with private school fees) because they are an easy target.
The problem is that landlords are providing a vital service. Those who say it's "good" that landlords are being pushed out of the market, because it means more people can buy a house they need to live in, are neglecting two vital things, firstly that not everyone is in a position to or wants to buy a house (students, geographically mobile workers, those for whom a £20k+ deposit is a pipe dream in a cost of living crisis). Secondly, depressed yields also depress the market for BTL development.
The solution to the housing crisis is, as always, build more bloody houses. Instead I think Scotland is a microcosm of what's likely to happen in the UK writ large under Labour, which is 'make life harder for landlords', which in actual fact means 'make life harder for tenants', as costs are passed on to them and the rental market shrinks. I'm really hoping that Labour don't go down the 'punish landlords' route, because as much as I loathe landlords, that only makes things harder for tenants. Walloping landlords with punitive tax regimes and red tape sounds like a good idea, in practice since tenants have nowhere else to turn, it makes things worse for them.
Some little time ago, a poster noted that an area of Scotland was projected to see slightly over 1% growth in population over ten years. And that it was obviously impossible to keep up with that, in terms of housing and services.
I think this sums up the situation rather well.
Rent caps allowed to CPI will make damned sure that LLs do that every year.
Since rents have been rising at less than CPI for a very long time, it will make them go up faster.
If you look at the Scotland numbers, that is more or less what the SNP has been achieving since 2014-5. Last time I checked - I have not done a detailed data check on this for a period.
One of those smart restaurants, full on a midweek lunchtime, with everyone from a guy who looks like the local politician to lorry drivers and young couples. Just one tourist with dog.
In principle sure. In practice, who on earth is going to police it and how?
We don't even police basic driving standards anymore.
Aiui some traffic police functions were handed over to local authorities who, by and large, are not in a position to do much about it. There does seem to have been a decline in driving standards though.
The government is currently consulting on facilitating mass law breaking by removing enforcement entirely. If you think your insurance premium is high now...
In the Plan for Drivers, the Secretary of State for Transport announced action to address concerns about councils generating surpluses from issuing penalty charge notices (PCNs) for contraventions of moving traffic restrictions including:
no entry no left or right turn prohibited vehicles unlawful entry into box junctions driving in mandatory cycle lanes These enforcement powers help free up police time while helping councils to reduce traffic congestion. However, enforcement should be undertaken proportionately and not used as a means to raise revenue.
This call for evidence aims to:
gather evidence of current practice to inform possible policy proposals explore options for restricting a local authority’s ability to generate surpluses from traffic contraventions
The fact that councils can make a surplus from this kind of enforcement would suggest that it is indeed disproportionate - the fines are not large enough to provide an effective deterrent. Drivers can avoid a fine with one simple trick...
Some of those things could be seriously dangerous - driving a prohibited vehicle? Driving down a cycle lane? Wrong way down a one-way street? Ignoring a no turn sign and ploughing through pedestrians walking on a green man?
The party of law and order is losing its mind.
It always strikes me as utterly bizarre when driving and parking fines are lambasted as being a 'cash cow' for councils. Obviously, if drivers didn't break the laws the councils wouldn't raise a penny.
Illegal parking is so rife round my way that it appears many affluent drivers (it's usually big, expensive cars) have decided that a parking fine is just an additional cost to driving. I'd like to see the fine rise exponentially for second and subsequent offences.
Alot of parking is civil enforcement these days.
Many of these companies rely on minor infringements of their rules to fleece drivers. I would sooner see something practical done about that than this.
One of those smart restaurants, full on a midweek lunchtime, with everyone from a guy who looks like the local politician to lorry drivers and young couples. Just one tourist with dog.
Have the mods got the image settings wrong again? Tiny photos immensely magnified so no dogs can be seen?
In 1948 an ultraracist terror army forced 750000 Palestinians to flee their homes in a single week. That experience is what is known as the Nakba - the Catastrophe. The message that the fascists gave the Palestinians was clear: get out or we will murder you; this is a land without people (because you are just nothing) for a people without land (and we're taking this land now, which makes it ours).
The regime that the fascists created still exists. It has nuclear weapons It also sells weapons and surveillance technology to many countries around the world, including the USA, Russia, China, and Britain.
One of the places where some of the victims of the fascist terror found refuge in 1948 was Gaza, where many families lived in refugee camps for the next 75 years.
Since October 2023, the ultraracist terror army has destroyed the large majority of the houses and flats in Gaza, forcing more than 1 million Palestinians to flee to Rafah in the south.
During the past nine days of 2024, the fascists have further attacked, using terror against Rafah itself, forcing 450000 to flee to the northwest.
There should be no doubt about the applicability of the term Nakba to describe what the fascists are seeking to impose again right now.
Three-quarters of the Gaza population are women and children. That's about the same proportion as among the 35000 Palestinians the fascists have slaughtered since October.
Another statistic: since October, the fascists have murdered or wounded about 5% of the Gaza population. They have also bombed and raided hospitals, killed ~200 humanitarian workers, and destroyed all universities on the territory. At the moment they are keeping all crossings closed to aid shipments, while scum like Rishi Sunak say they are "defending" themselves, and scum like Keir Starmer say they have a "right" to cut off the water and electricity, or in other words to commit genocide.
(Science bros here will confirm that human beings require water to survive.)
A rather one sided view of the history. Entirely in keeping with your one sided posting.
Months after voting down a Lab motion declaring a "housing emergency" (a political not official term) & hours before Lab bring a similar motion (with Green support likely this time) Scot Gov declares a "housing emergency" and blames everyone but themselves
This will hardly encourage more landlords to step in. Particularly in an environment where (thanks to George Osborne's madness) interest paid on BTL mortgages is not tax deductible, which was bad enough when BTL rates were 2.something% rather than 5.something% as they are now.
I have a friend from abroad asking me if it's wise to invest in UK property as a landlord and I told him he'd have to be mad to do it, given the differential tax treatment of mortgage interest vs the cost of any other loan on any other business, plus low yields and an overall hostile environment. After all, who likes landlords? Labour will likely punish them further in the UK (as they are with private school fees) because they are an easy target.
The problem is that landlords are providing a vital service. Those who say it's "good" that landlords are being pushed out of the market, because it means more people can buy a house they need to live in, are neglecting two vital things, firstly that not everyone is in a position to or wants to buy a house (students, geographically mobile workers, those for whom a £20k+ deposit is a pipe dream in a cost of living crisis). Secondly, depressed yields also depress the market for BTL development.
The solution to the housing crisis is, as always, build more bloody houses. Instead I think Scotland is a microcosm of what's likely to happen in the UK writ large under Labour, which is 'make life harder for landlords', which in actual fact means 'make life harder for tenants', as costs are passed on to them and the rental market shrinks. I'm really hoping that Labour don't go down the 'punish landlords' route, because as much as I loathe landlords, that only makes things harder for tenants. Walloping landlords with punitive tax regimes and red tape sounds like a good idea, in practice since tenants have nowhere else to turn, it makes things worse for them.
Some little time ago, a poster noted that an area of Scotland was projected to see slightly over 1% growth in population over ten years. And that it was obviously impossible to keep up with that, in terms of housing and services.
I think this sums up the situation rather well.
Rent caps allowed to CPI will make damned sure that LLs do that every year.
Since rents have been rising at less than CPI for a very long time, it will make them go up faster.
If you look at the Scotland numbers, that is more or less what the SNP has been achieving since 2014-5. Last time I checked - I have not done a detailed data check on this for a period.
It was the poverty of expectations - based on experience - that struck me.
The whole “Can’t” culture summed up. Build one house per hundred. Can’t.
The answer is there in the past. Layout a new town or suburb. Build the train station, town hall, school and police station *first*. And the shops. Layout the streets and sell the plots in small batches to actual builders.
Nothing exchange this week, both rather poor and empty.
Disagree. The question was, if you are releasing prisoners early because the prisons are full, does that mean dangerous criminals are being released into the community?
The answer appears to be Yes, but Sunak can't say so. That's a good PMQs question.
It was answered no, they are not eligible. If they are then the government will need to be held to account for that.
Not really because Starmer in his first question referred to an official report that stated high risk prisoners are being released early. Sunak then claimed in three further replies that no high risk prisoners were being released early. It wasn't a case of, that's not policy, if it's happening then they will need to put a stop to it.
Nothing exchange this week, both rather poor and empty.
Disagree. The question was, if you are releasing prisoners early because the prisons are full, does that mean dangerous criminals are being released into the community?
The answer appears to be Yes, but Sunak can't say so. That's a good PMQs question.
It was answered no, they are not eligible. If they are then the government will need to be held to account for that.
Starmer cited the Lewes Prison inspection report as evidence that the answer was, in fact, yes. Here's a couple of extracts from the BBC on that report: The report found that release dates for some high-risk prisoners had been brought forward at short notice, putting pressure on resettlement agencies and in some cases forcing prisoners into homelessness and reoffending. In one case, a high-risk prisoner with a significant history of drug misuse and self-harm was released to homelessness despite serious concerns about public safety and appeals for the decision to be reversed.
See what both the university and the police have said.
Presumably threats of murder and rape are what @Roger calls "slights", about which he has seen no evidence. None so blind ....
As for the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, I have no knowledge about this so no, I will not be writing about it. There are plenty of people who do know and write well about the situation. There was a recent long review in the NY Review of Books of a book about the abysmal situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, which went into some detail about it. Very very sad and troubling. Well worth getting hold of for anyone interested.
From one of those pro-Israeli articles:
"Rabbi Deutsch, who is an Israeli citizen, left Yorkshire to serve with his IDF reserve unit in November. Students staged a protest against his return to campus."
He should be stripped of his British citizenship if he holds it, and he should be prosecuted and jailed for terrorism.
BTW Britain is one of many countries that supposedly operate a universal jurisdiction where war crimes and crimes against humanity are concerned.
Yes. The acceptance of British citizens serving in the IDF and potentially participating in their atrocities seems bizarre. We prosecuted the YPG volunteers, the IDF volunteers should be no different.
As Andrew is permanently holed up at Balmoral I think His Majesty should give him a Scottish Dukedom. A gracious gesture bound to please His loyal Scottish subjects.
Months after voting down a Lab motion declaring a "housing emergency" (a political not official term) & hours before Lab bring a similar motion (with Green support likely this time) Scot Gov declares a "housing emergency" and blames everyone but themselves
This will hardly encourage more landlords to step in. Particularly in an environment where (thanks to George Osborne's madness) interest paid on BTL mortgages is not tax deductible, which was bad enough when BTL rates were 2.something% rather than 5.something% as they are now.
I have a friend from abroad asking me if it's wise to invest in UK property as a landlord and I told him he'd have to be mad to do it, given the differential tax treatment of mortgage interest vs the cost of any other loan on any other business, plus low yields and an overall hostile environment. After all, who likes landlords? Labour will likely punish them further in the UK (as they are with private school fees) because they are an easy target.
The problem is that landlords are providing a vital service. Those who say it's "good" that landlords are being pushed out of the market, because it means more people can buy a house they need to live in, are neglecting two vital things, firstly that not everyone is in a position to or wants to buy a house (students, geographically mobile workers, those for whom a £20k+ deposit is a pipe dream in a cost of living crisis). Secondly, depressed yields also depress the market for BTL development.
The solution to the housing crisis is, as always, build more bloody houses. Instead I think Scotland is a microcosm of what's likely to happen in the UK writ large under Labour, which is 'make life harder for landlords', which in actual fact means 'make life harder for tenants', as costs are passed on to them and the rental market shrinks. I'm really hoping that Labour don't go down the 'punish landlords' route, because as much as I loathe landlords, that only makes things harder for tenants. Walloping landlords with punitive tax regimes and red tape sounds like a good idea, in practice since tenants have nowhere else to turn, it makes things worse for them.
Some little time ago, a poster noted that an area of Scotland was projected to see slightly over 1% growth in population over ten years. And that it was obviously impossible to keep up with that, in terms of housing and services.
I think this sums up the situation rather well.
Rent caps allowed to CPI will make damned sure that LLs do that every year.
Since rents have been rising at less than CPI for a very long time, it will make them go up faster.
If you look at the Scotland numbers, that is more or less what the SNP has been achieving since 2014-5. Last time I checked - I have not done a detailed data check on this for a period.
It was the poverty of expectations - based on experience - that struck me.
The whole “Can’t” culture summed up. Build one house per hundred. Can’t.
The answer is there in the past. Layout a new town or suburb. Build the train station, town hall, school and police station *first*. And the shops. Layout the streets and sell the plots in small batches to actual builders.
The United Kingdom. Brakes of a 747. Engine of an an asthmatic flea.
See what both the university and the police have said.
Presumably threats of murder and rape are what @Roger calls "slights", about which he has seen no evidence. None so blind ....
As for the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, I have no knowledge about this so no, I will not be writing about it. There are plenty of people who do know and write well about the situation. There was a recent long review in the NY Review of Books of a book about the abysmal situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, which went into some detail about it. Very very sad and troubling. Well worth getting hold of for anyone interested.
From one of those pro-Israeli articles:
"Rabbi Deutsch, who is an Israeli citizen, left Yorkshire to serve with his IDF reserve unit in November. Students staged a protest against his return to campus."
He should be stripped of his British citizenship if he holds it, and he should be prosecuted and jailed for terrorism.
BTW Britain is one of many countries that supposedly operate a universal jurisdiction where war crimes and crimes against humanity are concerned.
Yes. The acceptance of British citizens serving in the IDF and potentially participating in their atrocities seems bizarre. We prosecuted the YPG volunteers, the IDF volunteers should be no different.
Except they are an Israeli citizen. Born in US, raised in Israel.
In 1948 an ultraracist terror army forced 750000 Palestinians to flee their homes in a single week. That experience is what is known as the Nakba - the Catastrophe. The message that the fascists gave the Palestinians was clear: get out or we will murder you; this is a land without people (because you are just nothing) for a people without land (and we're taking this land now, which makes it ours).
The regime that the fascists created still exists. It has nuclear weapons It also sells weapons and surveillance technology to many countries around the world, including the USA, Russia, China, and Britain.
One of the places where some of the victims of the fascist terror found refuge in 1948 was Gaza, where many families lived in refugee camps for the next 75 years.
Since October 2023, the ultraracist terror army has destroyed the large majority of the houses and flats in Gaza, forcing more than 1 million Palestinians to flee to Rafah in the south.
During the past nine days of 2024, the fascists have further attacked, using terror against Rafah itself, forcing 450000 to flee to the northwest.
There should be no doubt about the applicability of the term Nakba to describe what the fascists are seeking to impose again right now.
Three-quarters of the Gaza population are women and children. That's about the same proportion as among the 35000 Palestinians the fascists have slaughtered since October.
Another statistic: since October, the fascists have murdered or wounded about 5% of the Gaza population. They have also bombed and raided hospitals, killed ~200 humanitarian workers, and destroyed all universities on the territory. At the moment they are keeping all crossings closed to aid shipments, while scum like Rishi Sunak say they are "defending" themselves, and scum like Keir Starmer say they have a "right" to cut off the water and electricity, or in other words to commit genocide.
(Science bros here will confirm that human beings require water to survive.)
A rather one sided view of the history. Entirely in keeping with your one sided posting.
You're expecting a donkey to offer up a balanced and sophisticated historical and geopolitical analysis?
I am contemplating using that Farage photo in the next thread.
Is there anything I can do or say to change your mind?
Agree that pineapple is a terrible topping for pizza.
However if anyone says anything rude about the Lord Cameron after this comment then I will deploy the picture.
David Cameron is a fuckwit
Wait until September when I do the threads on the ten year anniversary of David Cameron leading the forces of light and righteousness to defeat the scourge of Scottish nationalism.
Nothing exchange this week, both rather poor and empty.
Disagree. The question was, if you are releasing prisoners early because the prisons are full, does that mean dangerous criminals are being released into the community?
The answer appears to be Yes, but Sunak can't say so. That's a good PMQs question.
It was answered no, they are not eligible. If they are then the government will need to be held to account for that.
Not really because Starmer in his first question referred to an official report that stated high risk prisoners are being released early. Sunak then claimed in three further replies that no high risk prisoners were being released early. It wasn't a case of, that's not policy, if it's happening then they will need to put a stop to it.
Yes and if that goes against the parameters of the scheme it needs dealing with. Is it an HMP Lewes problem or a wider issue etc In broader terms it was a nothing PMQs in my opinion. Starmers questions would have been better dealt with via letters to the minister and questions to same freeing up 6 questions for other matters.
Comments
https://x.com/chrismusson/status/1790683075501810091
Eg could you tell me one of yours?
ChatGPT-4o....Can you help me with a puzzle. There is a man, a cabbage and a goat on one side of a river. They have a boat. How can they get across.....
What ensues is leave the cabbage, take the goat, bring the goat back, yadda yadda yadda. A 7 step process of taking things back and forth.
I don't want this AGI doing medical procedures. ChatGPT can you remove my ingrowing toenails....well first go for an MRI, next have your liver removed....
And what Hume says there is not wrong. There is lots of that. Of course some people are more emotion-led than others. Kirk v Spock plays out in each of us.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nick-freeman-mr-loophole-david-beckham-speeding-fine-jeremy-clarkson-van-morrison-a8559411.html
Tonnes of strict liability offences in there, all incorrectly dealt with by the magistrate listening to whatever cobblers excuse they shouldn't have allowed.
Looks like the final paragraph was the only one not swayed by an expensive brief/celeb combo in my view:
In 2013, Mr Freeman represented Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding after she was spotted using a mobile while driving.
He told magistrates depriving the singer of her licence would be unduly harsh as she was too well-known to catch a bus. District judge Nina Tempia was singularly unimpressed. "Pay someone to drive you," she told Ms Harding before banning her.
Depends on your views, of course, but I don't see circumstances where I would drop my opposition - e.g. even some completely proven way of establishing guilt would not be sufficient. I struggle to think of any others that fundamental. Abortion is close, but my views could perhaps be changed by new research showing consciousness in early foetus etc. Most other things I hold dear are based on evidence rather than fundamental belief and evidence can change.
(Would my views on death penalty change if someone close to me was the victim? I guess that's the big question, isn't it?)
For you, would you change your opposition to inequality if there was compelling evidence that inequality was good for societies as a whole, a kind of inverse Spirit Level?
Personally I would favour being rid of Nuclear weapons for both practical and moral reasons.
But that is also why the Government wedging on cyclists might not work. Almost everyone can cycle. People associate it with fond memories of teaching their kids to ride. It's one of the most liberating moments for young people, particularly now that getting a driving license is so difficult and public transport has been cut.
Cycling was 8x as prevalent in the 1950s as it is now, so some Boomers will view it with a great deal of nostalgia. The same Boomers who bemoan that kids spend all day inside on their phone.
See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxw7ggjyvnxo#:~:text=Security has been stepped up,family", the university said.
and https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/chief-rabbi-says-those-who-forced-leeds-rabbi-into-hiding-are-a-threat-to-all-of-our-society-e2mkic9h#:~:text=Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch and his,threats of murder and rape.
See what both the university and the police have said.
Presumably threats of murder and rape are what @Roger calls "slights", about which he has seen no evidence. None so blind ....
As for the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, I have no knowledge about this so no, I will not be writing about it. There are plenty of people who do know and write well about the situation. There was a recent long review in the NY Review of Books of a book about the abysmal situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, which went into some detail about it. Very very sad and troubling. Well worth getting hold of for anyone interested.
Offences of careless and dangerous cycling have existed since 1991, and the reason the cyclist concerned in the Regents Park collision, which Nick Freeman is trying to leverage, was not charged with either offence was because there was no hope of conviction, since he had not committed either offence.
The Coroner who conducted the Inquest based on the evidence reached a verdict of Accident, not "unlawful killing" or "open verdict", because the evidence supported that finding.
The dog walker stepped of a refuge island at a point where avoiding action was impossible - he cyclist's testimony supported by an independent witness, and confirmed by the coroner's verdict. The estimate was that the cyclist was 2m away when the dog walker stepped out.
Yet it does not stop Nick Freeman trying to make hay, and the various media jumping up and down like a chimpanzees' tea party at the zoo.
Personally I think that Mr Poophole is an unmitigated shit.
I'm not interested in "car hating fanatical lycra mob"; it's a rhetorical fiction.
https://x.com/transportgovuk/status/1786331189294317699
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1138506137697959939
Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.
The cashiers at Target see what’s going on – they know more about economics than Trump.
We want to hear from you on whether law enforcement measures are fair to robbers and burglars.
Have your say by 11 May.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/1ad258fb-3e2e-4113-90fa-dc90ef7a653d.jpg?strip=all&w=656
The common driving habit that indicates someone might be a psychopath
People with psychopathic traits are more likely to use their phones while driving
They're also more likely than average to have committed a driving offence
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13416895/common-driving-habit-psychopath-scientists.html
Definitely guilty
Evil crime, no mitigation
No grisly theatre around execution
Humane method
Compelling evidence that the DP reduces murder
Then I'd probably possibly support it. I think.
And ok yes, on inequality, if I could be convinced that the stock of human happiness was increased by having plenty of it then bang would go my egalitarianism. I'd drop it like a stone - or rather, to stick to my lingo, it would disappear from my HoV, my Hierarchy of Values.
Signage for things like roads that are restricted at certain hours is terrible. Adding a simple digital open/closed colour coded sign would make a big difference.
You should still be allowed to appeal and pay the reduced fine for early payment, assuming you pay early of course.
There should be a way for multiple offences over a short space of time, such as using a bus lane with poor signage at the wrong time three days in a row, to be considered together. (If the police had stopped you on the first day, you very likely wouldn't have committed the further offences).
A clue to that is that tariffs on those items are delayed until 2026.
And this isn't "Trade policy 101" - it's an imperfect alternative to other demand side measures which GOP control of Congress rules out.
Edinburgh is notorious for this in places (South Bridge in particular) I always stick centre lane through those areas, to save my own neck as well as anyone else's.
In the Plan for Drivers, the Secretary of State for Transport announced action to address concerns about councils generating surpluses from issuing penalty charge notices (PCNs) for contraventions of moving traffic restrictions including:
no entry
no left or right turn
prohibited vehicles
unlawful entry into box junctions
driving in mandatory cycle lanes
These enforcement powers help free up police time while helping councils to reduce traffic congestion. However, enforcement should be undertaken proportionately and not used as a means to raise revenue.
This call for evidence aims to:
gather evidence of current practice to inform possible policy proposals
explore options for restricting a local authority’s ability to generate surpluses from traffic contraventions
https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/restricting-the-generation-of-surplus-funds-from-traffic-contraventions
That's in the Plan for Drivers, which is another Govt document that is partly based on conspiracy theory. This was Mark Harper the Transport Minister at Conference:
“What is sinister, and what we shouldn’t tolerate,” said Harper, “is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when, and that they police it all with CCTV.”
Create a fake threat, then some fake measures to address it, to please the hoons and the goons.
I don't see it going anywhere unless the earth moves, or maybe because it can be done by Ministerial Diktat or Guidelines. This is now May, Parliament will rise in about 7-8 weeks, and then not be back until some time in October. Then we have an election coming.
Perhaps it will be in the next Conservative Manifesto? How did that go for Susan Hall?
https://x.com/bentleyballan/status/1790326841837863115
The move only makes sense of you think the tariffs will create demand for local production and help drive investment.
For example speedguns need to be calibrated and checked at intervals. Known and in the manual. The U.K. police didn’t bother* and didn’t bother to keep records.
*Some forces still don’t bother
Thrilling if true
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cm5r8pm085mo
https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/news/driver-jailed-year-causing-horror-crash-cyclist
Although I often have interactions with people that contradict this, it's still something that I hold to, despite the contrary evidence. It appears to be impervious to the facts of experience.
‘Let’s not mess about with that good intentions shit, we’ll head to hell direct!’
Some of those things could be seriously dangerous - driving a prohibited vehicle? Driving down a cycle lane? Wrong way down a one-way street? Ignoring a no turn sign and ploughing through pedestrians walking on a green man?
The party of law and order is losing its mind.
In 1948 an ultraracist terror army forced 750000 Palestinians to flee their homes in a single week. That experience is what is known as the Nakba - the Catastrophe. The message that the fascists gave the Palestinians was clear: get out or we will murder you; this is a land without people (because you are just nothing) for a people without land (and we're taking this land now, which makes it ours).
The regime that the fascists created still exists. It has nuclear weapons It also sells weapons and surveillance technology to many countries around the world, including the USA, Russia, China, and Britain.
One of the places where some of the victims of the fascist terror found refuge in 1948 was Gaza, where many families lived in refugee camps for the next 75 years.
Since October 2023, the ultraracist terror army has destroyed the large majority of the houses and flats in Gaza, forcing more than 1 million Palestinians to flee to Rafah in the south.
During the past nine days of 2024, the fascists have further attacked, using terror against Rafah itself, forcing 450000 to flee to the northwest.
There should be no doubt about the applicability of the term Nakba to describe what the fascists are seeking to impose again right now.
Three-quarters of the Gaza population are women and children. That's about the same proportion as among the 35000 Palestinians the fascists have slaughtered since October.
Another statistic: since October, the fascists have murdered or wounded about 5% of the Gaza population. They have also bombed and raided hospitals, killed ~200 humanitarian workers, and destroyed all universities on the territory. At the moment they are keeping all crossings closed to aid shipments, while scum like Rishi Sunak say they are "defending" themselves, and scum like Keir Starmer say they have a "right" to cut off the water and electricity, or in other words to commit genocide.
(Science bros here will confirm that human beings require water to survive.)
This will hardly encourage more landlords to step in. Particularly in an environment where (thanks to George Osborne's madness) interest paid on BTL mortgages is not tax deductible, which was bad enough when BTL rates were 2.something% rather than 5.something% as they are now.
I have a friend from abroad asking me if it's wise to invest in UK property as a landlord and I told him he'd have to be mad to do it, given the differential tax treatment of mortgage interest vs the cost of any other loan on any other business, plus low yields and an overall hostile environment. After all, who likes landlords? Labour will likely punish them further in the UK (as they are with private school fees) because they are an easy target.
The problem is that landlords are providing a vital service. Those who say it's "good" that landlords are being pushed out of the market, because it means more people can buy a house they need to live in, are neglecting two vital things, firstly that not everyone is in a position to or wants to buy a house (students, geographically mobile workers, those for whom a £20k+ deposit is a pipe dream in a cost of living crisis). Secondly, depressed yields also depress the market for BTL development.
The solution to the housing crisis is, as always, build more bloody houses. Instead I think Scotland is a microcosm of what's likely to happen in the UK writ large under Labour, which is 'make life harder for landlords', which in actual fact means 'make life harder for tenants', as costs are passed on to them and the rental market shrinks. I'm really hoping that Labour don't go down the 'punish landlords' route, because as much as I loathe landlords, that only makes things harder for tenants. Walloping landlords with punitive tax regimes and red tape sounds like a good idea, in practice since tenants have nowhere else to turn, it makes things worse for them.
And got roundly abused for doing so. Except, to be fair, he didn’t write a list, he wrote two essays, and persuaded himself that the Leave one was ‘better’. We’ll never know whether it was ‘better’ for the country or for himself, of course.
Illegal parking is so rife round my way that it appears many affluent drivers (it's usually big, expensive cars) have decided that a parking fine is just an additional cost to driving. I'd like to see the fine rise exponentially for second and subsequent offences.
Just going about about defence spending.
"Rabbi Deutsch, who is an Israeli citizen, left Yorkshire to serve with his IDF reserve unit in November. Students staged a protest against his return to campus."
He should be stripped of his British citizenship if he holds it, and he should be prosecuted and jailed for terrorism.
BTW Britain is one of many countries that supposedly operate a universal jurisdiction where war crimes and crimes against humanity are concerned.
The most common reason I've skated on one is that the cop doesn't turn up at the court date. Because they are on the Pat and Mick or had to do something else or just couldn't be arsed.
On the one where I 100% should have gone to jail my solicitor got me off because of an incorrect date on the paperwork.
Of course, the most important thing to do is never incriminate yourself when pulled (if you're not going to go full GTA and evade law enforcement). Deny. Deny. Deny.
It is a huge data gathering exercise imposed on Local Authorities, for whom this Govt have slashed funding by around 40% (estd but about right).
It's a formidable list of questions:
https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/restricting-the-generation-of-surplus-funds-from-traffic-contraventions/restricting-the-generation-of-surplus-funds-from-traffic-contraventions#ensuring-proportionate-enforcement-of-pcns
The "driving in mandatory cycle lanes" is essentially garbage, since the Govt cocked-up the law and made any new ones unenforcible in 2016, ignoring expert advice.
I'm far more concerned about driving in mandatory cycle TRACKS (which are separate from the road carriageway), since the measures to keep drivers out (mainly bollards) are not often installed, and that is where children will be.
So this kind of thing happens at the serious end:
https://twitter.com/adamtranter/status/1677361409192075280
Apropos of my comments earlier, this guy driving his Ford Puma up the cycle track next to Binley Road in Coventry, at perhaps 30mph, was charged with Careless Driving not Dangerous Driving.
Apparently the police and the CPS think he did it by mistake. FFS.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/driver-faces-court-after-footage-showed-car-being-driven-down-binley-cycleway/ar-AA1dAZAc
Common law presumption was machines work properly, police and criminal evidence act 1984 quite rightly reverses that, youth justice and criminal evidence act 1999 repeals s 69 pace and reinstates common law. An example of the illiberalism of the Blair government in criminal matters, instrumental in causing the Post Office scandal.
But I was more thinking of iron-clad 'principles' as relating to politics, to supporting or opposing particular policies, such that one can't change one's mind on them etc. That's where I'm saying I don't have any. I more have a HoV.
I am contemplating using that Farage photo in the next thread.
The problem came when the legal profession extended this idea to “all computer programs do what their authors think they ought to do” which is a /completely/ different question, but the distinction was ignored. When, in reality, the error rate in computer programs in the real world runs at multiple errors per thousand lines of code & this is consistent across the industry, unless heroic measures are taken to reduce it, it seems astonishing that the courts could claim with a straight face that the output of computer programs could be relied on without inspection, yet this is exactly what they have been doing.
It seems like a kind of quiet conspiracy amongst the legal profession to look the other way, despite the great piles of academic papers demonstrating that errors are the norm. Shades of Lord Denning all over again.
So it needn't rely on vox pops, unexpert opinion, celeb culture, todays worthless opinion polls and surveys, instant opinion, false adversarialism, gotcha moments, pop music, single issue fanatics, trash culture, self promoters, awareness raisers, politicians with nothing useful to say (including ministers who don't answer questions), luvviedom, uncritical coverage of the arts, people for who everything is either fantastic or incredible, inarticulate chancers, and comedy programmes that are not even slightly funny.
It is quite capable of being the real Reithian thing when it wants. It just needs a bit more confidence in intelligence.
SKS fans please explain?
The answer appears to be Yes, but Sunak can't say so. That's a good PMQs question.
I think this sums up the situation rather well.
However if anyone says anything rude about the Lord Cameron after this comment then I will deploy the picture.
What is lacking is a basic understanding of the laws of supply and demand. Policies need to encourage the creation of new housing, both for sale and for rent. That means that being a landlord needs to be encouraged. Instead, we have policies that are driving landlords from the market looking for alternatives like Airbnb which can produce a better return.
The collapse of Stewart Milne group earlier this year shows that this is not just a letting problem. It also applies to the market for sales. Once again, you find that local authorities have sought to milk the profits from developments to fill gaps in their own budgets by, for example, requiring the construction of new schools or road layouts. Locally, Dundee has repeatedly taken the money for this and then not built the schools either. Such policies are understandable given the strains on public authority budgets but they do absolutely nothing to increase the supply of housing stock. Once again, the laws of supply and demand apply.
Weirdly cringing performance, and terrible shoes.
https://x.com/nokingcharlie/status/1790413216360591591?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Since rents have been rising at less than CPI for a very long time, it will make them go up faster.
If you look at the Scotland numbers, that is more or less what the SNP has been achieving since 2014-5. Last time I checked - I have not done a detailed data check on this for a period.
Many of these companies rely on minor infringements of their rules to fleece drivers. I would sooner see something practical done about that than this.
The whole “Can’t” culture summed up. Build one house per hundred. Can’t.
The answer is there in the past. Layout a new town or suburb. Build the train station, town hall, school and police station *first*. And the shops. Layout the streets and sell the plots in small batches to actual builders.
The report found that release dates for some high-risk prisoners had been brought forward at short notice, putting pressure on resettlement agencies and in some cases forcing prisoners into homelessness and reoffending.
In one case, a high-risk prisoner with a significant history of drug misuse and self-harm was released to homelessness despite serious concerns about public safety and appeals for the decision to be reversed.
Manchester City are happy with their young GK Oliver Whatmuff from the Academy for the future, who recently signed new deal at the club.
https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1790451340142878740
In broader terms it was a nothing PMQs in my opinion. Starmers questions would have been better dealt with via letters to the minister and questions to same freeing up 6 questions for other matters.