It's "red and green should never be seen". Which is a bit of a problem for the Welsh flag, tbh.
There are a few ‘x & y should never be seen’ formulations, blue and green is definitely one of them. It can of course be carried off by the confidently stylish, just not by the Duck of Edinburgh.
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.
I think I wrote about that at some length
I'm triggered by the dishonesty we see from pundits and (imo) from Mr Poophole.
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.
Will Michelle Mone, the "poster girl" of Better Together be involved?
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.
There are plenty of Brits out there. Some settlers, some IDF volunteers.
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.
Will Michelle Mone, the "poster girl" of Better Together be involved?
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.
Scotland's population projection is essentially flat. We actually need fewer schools given our demographic profile - it's immigration that props us up, not children.
And yet a severe housing crisis. Massive rent increases. First time buyers crowded out by cash buyers, STL investors or BTL landlords.
Scotland demonstrates that plastering random bits of the countryside with housing miles away from the economically prosperous parts of the country does nothing to solve the problem.
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.
The move only makes sense of you think the tariffs will create demand for local production and help drive investment.
You're not understanding my point.
I do get your point but you are wrong to see it as some kind of clever new idea that is more sophisticated than regular protectionism.
I didn't say it was a new idea - but it's hugely different from Trump's measures.
The Biden tariffs are aimed at specific sectors; Trump's were, and are across the board.
Biden's are intended as demand side measures and are accompanied by matching supply side measures (subsidies) in the renewable and chip industries which we've already seen start to encourage the building of new factories. Trump had no such matching ideas, and actively seeks to discourage renewables.
And Trump's GOP would veto alternative demand side measures from Biden.
Together, Trump’s proposals could upend North America’s auto supply chains and dramatically increase the price of cars. In contrast, Biden’s approach is expected to have only muted effects on the U.S. economy...
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.
Will Michelle Mone, the "poster girl" of Better Together be involved?
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
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?
That didn’t affect not doing basic maintenance.
So “Officer, is the calibration on your speed gun up to date?”, still instantly ends proceedings.
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.
Where it’s council or govt land they should offer the plots to developers and if the site is developed within three years with x numbers of houses, facilities etc (depending on the size) then they get refunded the cost of the plot.
The gov/council gets cash on balance sheet for three years minimum, developer can get a free site if they are serious about developing, if the authority needs to give back the site cost in three years it’s ok as there is now extra housing, facilities generating taxes at no cost to the council and lower cost to the developer.
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.
If only Cammo had the maturity and insight to have recognised that his interests lay with nurturing his coalition partners and not f**king them over, how our history might be different
Gudrun Ure, the star of beloved 1980s children's show Super Gran, has died aged 98.
Her portrayal of the granny who gained superpowers after being struck by a magic ray won her legions of young fans in the ITV series, which ran from 1985 through to 1987.
Gudrun Ure, the star of beloved 1980s children's show Super Gran, has died aged 98.
Her portrayal of the granny who gained superpowers after being struck by a magic ray won her legions of young fans in the ITV series, which ran from 1985 through to 1987.
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.
If only Cammo had the maturity and insight to have recognised that his interests lay with nurturing his coalition partners and not f**king them over, how our history might be different
The Lib Dems fucked themselves by straddling two horses for decades.
You cannot be virulently anti-Tory then prop them up in government.
Plus it's not Dave's fault that people in Lib Dem held constituencies liked him.
Brexit border latest: IT crash leaves EU food shipments facing 24-hour delays as customs staff work through consignments by hand. Comes just two weeks after introduction of "world-leading" system intended to deliver "time and efficiency savings"
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.
Yes if you think releasing dangerous criminals into the community due to a lack of resource and planning is a technical question beneath the attention of a prime minister.
In PMQ terms this shows a prime minister not on top of his brief. Probably the early release was unavoidable but a more engaged prime minister would want to do it in a more defendable way precisely because he might be questioned on this.
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.
No-one in the UK was successfully prosecuted for volunteering with the YPG, AIUI. Someone was prosecuted who had volunteered with the YPG because he’d been at a PKK training camp as well, and the PKK is a proscribed terrorist group. The IDF is not a proscribed terrorist group.
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
JCB built and supplied equipment to Russia months after saying exports had stopped
Exclusive: Russian customs records suggest firm owned by major Tory donor kept supplying machines after ‘voluntary pause’
he British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal.
Russian customs records show that JCB, whose owners are major donors to the Conservative party, continued to make new products available for Russian dealers well after 2 March 2022, when the company publicly stated that it had “voluntarily paused exports” to Russia.
The data raises questions about the accuracy of JCB’s statements on its business in Russia and relationship with its biggest dealer there, Moscow-based Lonmadi, and that company’s former owner, UK-based JVM group.
JCB has repeatedly said that it stopped exporting products to Russia and JVM companies after 2 March 2022 – less than a week after Putin sent troops into Ukraine.
Gudrun Ure, the star of beloved 1980s children's show Super Gran, has died aged 98.
Her portrayal of the granny who gained superpowers after being struck by a magic ray won her legions of young fans in the ITV series, which ran from 1985 through to 1987.
I remember one episode in which they had a football team that was so stuck in the past that they all sported Bobby Charlton haircuts. The concept of Bobby Charlton seemed like absolute ancient history to me at the time, but watching Super Gran back then was far closer to the era of Charlton than the era of Super Gran is to the present.
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.
Its another example of broken Britain, which is what will cost the Tories their big majority. Everything cut to the rafters beyond the ability to deliver basic public services.
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.
The move only makes sense of you think the tariffs will create demand for local production and help drive investment.
You're not understanding my point.
I do get your point but you are wrong to see it as some kind of clever new idea that is more sophisticated than regular protectionism.
I didn't say it was a new idea - but it's hugely different from Trump's measures.
The Biden tariffs are aimed at specific sectors; Trump's were, and are across the board.
Biden's are intended as demand side measures and are accompanied by matching supply side measures (subsidies) in the renewable and chip industries which we've already seen start to encourage the building of new factories. Trump had no such matching ideas, and actively seeks to discourage renewables.
And Trump's GOP would veto alternative demand side measures from Biden.
Together, Trump’s proposals could upend North America’s auto supply chains and dramatically increase the price of cars. In contrast, Biden’s approach is expected to have only muted effects on the U.S. economy...
This is just partisan spin to disguise the ideological victory of Trump.
Incidentally Biden is now also talking about slapping tariffs on car imports from Mexico too:
The Biden administration is suggesting the possibility that additional penalties could be put in place if the Chinese makers of electric vehicles try to move their production to Mexico to avoid newly announced import taxes.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
JCB built and supplied equipment to Russia months after saying exports had stopped
Exclusive: Russian customs records suggest firm owned by major Tory donor kept supplying machines after ‘voluntary pause’
he British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal.
Russian customs records show that JCB, whose owners are major donors to the Conservative party, continued to make new products available for Russian dealers well after 2 March 2022, when the company publicly stated that it had “voluntarily paused exports” to Russia.
The data raises questions about the accuracy of JCB’s statements on its business in Russia and relationship with its biggest dealer there, Moscow-based Lonmadi, and that company’s former owner, UK-based JVM group.
JCB has repeatedly said that it stopped exporting products to Russia and JVM companies after 2 March 2022 – less than a week after Putin sent troops into Ukraine.
"They also said that in most of the examples cited by the Guardian were contracts with “non-Russian dealers”, which are not restricted by either JCB’s policy or by sanctions."
I imagine this is how a lot of in demand things are still widely available in Russia. Western companies sell to places like the Middle East and China, and they are more than happy to deal with the Russian intermediaries.
I seemed to remember its same with oil, they are happy to buy oil / gas from Russia, sometimes do some processing, and quite often they sell it on to the West.
The other examples, seems to revolve around what you classify as "new". New orders or existing orders of new products, and from foreign factories.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
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.
Yes if you think releasing dangerous criminals into the community due to a lack of resource and planning is a technical question beneath the attention of a prime minister.
In PMQ terms this shows a prime minister not on top of his brief. Probably the early release was unavoidable but a more engaged prime minister would want to do it in a more defendable way precisely because he might be questioned on this.
OK, I'll concede that. I'm not planning on going in to bat for Rishi any time soon
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
That is many steps away from something that would be not that similar to Theranos’s purported product.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
JCB built and supplied equipment to Russia months after saying exports had stopped
Exclusive: Russian customs records suggest firm owned by major Tory donor kept supplying machines after ‘voluntary pause’
he British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal.
Russian customs records show that JCB, whose owners are major donors to the Conservative party, continued to make new products available for Russian dealers well after 2 March 2022, when the company publicly stated that it had “voluntarily paused exports” to Russia.
The data raises questions about the accuracy of JCB’s statements on its business in Russia and relationship with its biggest dealer there, Moscow-based Lonmadi, and that company’s former owner, UK-based JVM group.
JCB has repeatedly said that it stopped exporting products to Russia and JVM companies after 2 March 2022 – less than a week after Putin sent troops into Ukraine.
"They also said that in most of the examples cited by the Guardian were contracts with “non-Russian dealers”, which are not restricted by either JCB’s policy or by sanctions."
I imagine this is how a lot of in demand things are still widely available in Russia. Western companies sell to places like the Middle East and China, and they are more than happy to deal with the Russian intermediaries.
I seemed to remember its same with oil, they are happy to buy oil / gas from Russia, sometimes do some processing, and quite often they sell it on to the West.
The other examples, seems to revolve around what you classify as "new". New orders or existing orders of new products, and from foreign factories.
Same happens with US sanctions on Iran. The US companies just go via another country.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
That is many steps away from something that would be not that similar to Theranos’s purported product.
It's a long way off, certainly - which is rather the point. It's long and painstaking work to produce such results, and turning them into commercial devices likewise.
I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
An excellent episode of Community based on that premise.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
If I remember correctly, it was quite believable that many diseases could / would in the near future be able to be detected via blood tests. The big fraud was that a single tiny box and one very small sample of blood could achieve ever achieve that, rather than many different (often complex) tests requiring multiple blood samples.
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Part of the problem aiui is prison sentences have been getting longer and longer. Another part is there are more people about even if everything else stays the same, including the percentage of criminals, then crime would rise.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
There is no such thing as random. Everything exists within a definable (if unknowable) set of possible outcomes.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Prison population relatively stable. Between 74k and 86k for the last twenty years.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
There is no such thing as random. Everything exists within a definable (if unknowable) set of possible outcomes.
How does the latter sentence support the former sentence?
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
Published 1971. I read it in my teens - nothing whatsoever to do with the explicit sex scenes. I'd just finished Lady Chatterley's Lover.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Prison population relatively stable. Between 74k and 86k for the last twenty years.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
Population grow I give you. But then you factor in the police now seem incapable of solving many low level crimes and fraud, particularly online fraud, well most of that doesn't even get near the plod and when it does they are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Are we locking people up for longer for serious crimes like murder than 20-30 years ago?
So prison population the same, population up, but crime levels are supposed to be right down while detection and prosecution of many crimes down to levels where they literally never catch anybody for it e.g. car theft.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
There is no such thing as random. Everything exists within a definable (if unknowable) set of possible outcomes.
How does the latter sentence support the former sentence?
Because we can describe the set of possible outcomes but we might not have the mathematical tools to be able to calculate the actual probability.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
If I remember correctly, it was quite believable that many diseases could / would in the near future be able to be detected via blood tests. The big fraud was that a single tiny box and one very small sample of blood could achieve ever achieve that, rather than many different (often complex) tests requiring multiple blood samples.
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
I certainly see a future where diagnostics will be much easier, checkups streamlined and diseases caught much earlier from much more simplified testing. We are probably on the track to it: Theranos’ problem was that we are still a way off it yet, whereas they thought it would be within easy reach, simply it seems through Elizabeth Holmes’ sheer force of will.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
There is no such thing as random. Everything exists within a definable (if unknowable) set of possible outcomes.
How does the latter sentence support the former sentence?
Because we can describe the set of possible outcomes but we might not have the mathematical tools to be able to calculate the actual probability.
I don’t think you’re using “random” in the same way as mathematicians use it. Randomness is not about what the possible outcomes are.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
Yes that's the one. It stayed with me a while too - although I find I have less fascination with intellectual mindgames these days. I'm getting simpler with age.
Another one (similar but not the same). The film: The Golden Egg. Dutch, I think. The protagonist saves a person from drowning. On a whim. Years later he buries somebody alive. Again on a whim. Does it balance out? Do good deeds mean good people? Can a bad person do good things? Is it all just chance? etc etc
Could not get that film out of my mind. But it was probably more the way it was done than the story itself - since the Hollywood remake (The Vanishing) didn't have the same impact on me at all.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
If I remember correctly, it was quite believable that many diseases could / would in the near future be able to be detected via blood tests. The big fraud was that a single tiny box and one very small sample of blood could achieve ever achieve that, rather than many different (often complex) tests requiring multiple blood samples.
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
I certainly see a future where diagnostics will be much easier, checkups streamlined and diseases caught much earlier from much more simplified testing. We are probably on the track to it: Theranos’ problem was that we are still a way off it yet, whereas they thought it would be within easy reach, simply it seems through Elizabeth Holmes’ sheer force of will.
Most scientists say Holmes' "vision" is just impossible, not just now, but forever (at least until / unless there is some scientific revolution), as its basically against the laws of nature.
You need to perform huge numbers of different tests, most are destructive of the sample, so you can't just take one tiny sample and one box which does some jiggery-pokery and out pops results for 1000s of markers.
It isn't simply about miniaturisation or some combining of things to gain efficiencies, it would require total revolution in the science of how all known tests for these markers are done.
I must be out of the loop because I keep reading about something called "Baby Reindeer" and I have no idea what it is. (Can't be bothered to look it up either).
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
There is no such thing as random. Everything exists within a definable (if unknowable) set of possible outcomes.
How does the latter sentence support the former sentence?
Because we can describe the set of possible outcomes but we might not have the mathematical tools to be able to calculate the actual probability.
I don’t think you’re using “random” in the same way as mathematicians use it. Randomness is not about what the possible outcomes are.
I must be out of the loop because I keep reading about something called "Baby Reindeer" and I have no idea what it is. (Can't be bothered to look it up either).
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Prison population relatively stable. Between 74k and 86k for the last twenty years.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
Population grow I give you. But then you factor in the police now seem incapable of solving many low level crimes and fraud, particularly online fraud, well most of that doesn't even get near the plod and when it does they are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Are we locking people up for longer for serious crimes like murder than 20-30 years ago?
So prison population the same, population up, but detection and prosecution of many crimes down to levels where they literally never catch anybody for it e.g. car theft.
Something like fraud shouldn't touch a standard police department, it really needs specialisation. Home Office estimates 41% of crime against individuals is fraud. Home Office gives Action Fraud replacement £30m over 3 years and then get Capita and PwC involved. We can all guess how effective that is going to be.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
If I remember correctly, it was quite believable that many diseases could / would in the near future be able to be detected via blood tests. The big fraud was that a single tiny box and one very small sample of blood could achieve ever achieve that, rather than many different (often complex) tests requiring multiple blood samples.
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
I certainly see a future where diagnostics will be much easier, checkups streamlined and diseases caught much earlier from much more simplified testing. We are probably on the track to it: Theranos’ problem was that we are still a way off it yet, whereas they thought it would be within easy reach, simply it seems through Elizabeth Holmes’ sheer force of will.
Most scientists say Holmes' "vision" is just impossible, not just now, but forever, as its basically against the laws of nature. You need to perform different tests, most are destructive of the sample, so you can't just take one tiny sample and one box which does some jiggery-pokery and out pops results for 1000s of markers.
Interesting, thanks for that. I hadn’t quite realised that the model was so impossibly flawed (as in the forever rather than the now) though certainly the point stands that diagnostics are hopefully going to get easier in time.
I must be out of the loop because I keep reading about something called "Baby Reindeer" and I have no idea what it is. (Can't be bothered to look it up either).
Yes it cropped up on one of my whatsapp groups the other day and I had no clue either. I did look it up and it's a Netflix show about a female stalker apparently. That's as much as I'll ever know since I no longer have Netflix.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Prison population relatively stable. Between 74k and 86k for the last twenty years.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
Population grow I give you. But then you factor in the police now seem incapable of solving many low level crimes and fraud, particularly online fraud, well most of that doesn't even get near the plod and when it does they are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Are we locking people up for longer for serious crimes like murder than 20-30 years ago?
So prison population the same, population up, but detection and prosecution of many crimes down to levels where they literally never catch anybody for it e.g. car theft.
Something like fraud shouldn't touch a standard police department, it really needs specialisation. Home Office estimates 41% of crime against individuals is fraud. Home Office gives Action Fraud replacement £30m over 3 years and then get Capita and PwC involved. We can all guess how effective that is going to be.
My couple of experiences of fraud (never I was a direct victim, rather my details were mixed with others and used to scam other people) resulted in talking to car insurances and Action Fraud and both appeared to just think it was the cost of doing business these days.
The particular car fraud scheme is so easy to pull off it is ridiculous, but the insurances companies don't want to add friction to signing up via places like CompareTheMeerkat, so instead react to the fraud after it has happened.
Governments need to get with the times. £30m bunged at Crapita isn't going to do anything.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
Published 1971. I read it in my teens - nothing whatsoever to do with the explicit sex scenes. I'd just finished Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Oh yes it had some raunch in it too. didn't it. I remember that now. Quite randy the eponymous Diceman was.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
There is no such thing as random. Everything exists within a definable (if unknowable) set of possible outcomes.
That's not what "random" means. A number x(n) is random if it cannot be predicted even if you are given the numbers x(1),x(2),...x(n-1)
I must be out of the loop because I keep reading about something called "Baby Reindeer" and I have no idea what it is. (Can't be bothered to look it up either).
Yes it cropped up on one of my whatsapp groups the other day and I had no clue either. I did look it up and it's a Netflix show about a female stalker apparently. That's as much as I'll ever know since I no longer have Netflix.
Seen a couple of mentions in the Graun and have no wish to know more. The problem is that the original stalker is allegedly based on an actual person who has been allegedly outed and preesumnably too easily recogniseable. She has already been interviewed on TV by Piers Morgan of all people.
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
There is no such thing as random. Everything exists within a definable (if unknowable) set of possible outcomes.
That's not what "random" means. A number x(n) is random if it cannot be predicted even if you are given the numbers x(1),x(2),...x(n-1)
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
If I remember correctly, it was quite believable that many diseases could / would in the near future be able to be detected via blood tests. The big fraud was that a single tiny box and one very small sample of blood could achieve ever achieve that, rather than many different (often complex) tests requiring multiple blood samples.
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
I certainly see a future where diagnostics will be much easier, checkups streamlined and diseases caught much earlier from much more simplified testing. We are probably on the track to it: Theranos’ problem was that we are still a way off it yet, whereas they thought it would be within easy reach, simply it seems through Elizabeth Holmes’ sheer force of will.
Most scientists say Holmes' "vision" is just impossible, not just now, but forever, as its basically against the laws of nature. You need to perform different tests, most are destructive of the sample, so you can't just take one tiny sample and one box which does some jiggery-pokery and out pops results for 1000s of markers.
Interesting, thanks for that. I hadn’t quite realised that the model was so impossibly flawed (as in the forever rather than the now) though certainly the point stands that diagnostics are hopefully going to get easier in time.
Well perhaps one day there will be some revolution that changes all of this, but as things stand (and I am no expert on medical testing) my understanding is most tests will alter the sample such that it can't be reused.
The female Steve Jobs could show no academic research that showed anything like this (or any patents) and if they could do this, not sure you need to be the one making the box. You just licence your magical revolution in clinical tests to everybody and instant billionaire for length of the patent.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
The prison population today is twice what it was in 1970, despite the population only being 20% greater:
Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I’m not sure what the explanation is: Were people being held elsewhere? Did we just accept a level of violence in public that would be unacceptable today? I’ve no idea!
As to the current problems: the prison population hasn’t changed for roughly a decade, despite the population increase over that period, because we haven’t built any more prisons. This is at least partially due to the general planning deadlock that holds this country in its vice-like grip - IIRC the Home Office has tried to build them, but been stymied by local councils. But the current overcrowding is an inevitable consequence.
(Is there something about these stats that I’ve missed? Does anyone with relevant knowledge want to chip in? The change in incarceration rate over time since the 1940s to today seems unexpected to me.)
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Prison population relatively stable. Between 74k and 86k for the last twenty years.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
Population grow I give you. But then you factor in the police now seem incapable of solving many low level crimes and fraud, particularly online fraud, well most of that doesn't even get near the plod and when it does they are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Are we locking people up for longer for serious crimes like murder than 20-30 years ago?
So prison population the same, population up, but crime levels are supposed to be right down while detection and prosecution of many crimes down to levels where they literally never catch anybody for it e.g. car theft.
You have to bear in mind,Mr Urquhart, that our police have been constantly belittled over the years by the Tories and their accomplices - and making disparaging remarks now about "plod" and "chocolate teapots" here does not help set the right tone of respect towards authority figures.
And it has not helped society that you Tories have swept away all the "second tier" keepers of order - park keepers, bus conductors, railway station staff and the like - all in the name of "efficiency". Increasingly nowadays some people misbehave because they think they can get away with it. And from low levels of misbehaviour, it works its way up.
And so it is that all misbehaviour now ends up by being dealt with by the police. They have my sympathy - not least because they have on top of them the incubus of the police and crime commissioner, who does not help in the slightest.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Prison population relatively stable. Between 74k and 86k for the last twenty years.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
Population grow I give you. But then you factor in the police now seem incapable of solving many low level crimes and fraud, particularly online fraud, well most of that doesn't even get near the plod and when it does they are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Are we locking people up for longer for serious crimes like murder than 20-30 years ago?
So prison population the same, population up, but crime levels are supposed to be right down while detection and prosecution of many crimes down to levels where they literally never catch anybody for it e.g. car theft.
You have to bear in mind,Mr Urquhart, that our police have been constantly belittled over the years by the Tories and their accomplices - and making disparaging remarks now about "plod" and "chocolate teapots" here does not help set the right tone of respect towards authority figures.
And it has not helped society that you Tories have swept away all the "second tier" keepers of order - park keepers, bus conductors, railway station staff and the like - all in the name of "efficiency". Increasingly nowadays some people misbehave because they think they can get away with it. And from low levels of misbehaviour, it works its way up.
And so it is that all misbehaviour now ends up by being dealt with by the police. They have my sympathy - not least because they have on top of them the incubus of the police and crime commissioner, who does not help in the slightest.
Interesting comment and I think a lot of sense. You could add train conductors and indeed drivers, too. And the physical maintenance of the public environment (which some right wingers ironically in a way applaud - mend all vandalism at once ...).
(Though an unfortunate double entendre in the last sentence ...)
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.
I toss a coin.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it. If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I've done that too! Although it could be more interesting if you made yourself do whatever comes up. I read a novel ages ago where the protagonist rolls a dice to decide everything he does. Course even that doesn't take bias and free will out of things entirely since you have to frame the 6 alternatives (one for each number) and you're in control of deciding what they are.
The Diceman Luke Reinhardt. Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
Yes that's the one. It stayed with me a while too - although I find I have less fascination with intellectual mindgames these days. I'm getting simpler with age.
Another one (similar but not the same). The film: The Golden Egg. Dutch, I think. The protagonist saves a person from drowning. On a whim. Years later he buries somebody alive. Again on a whim. Does it balance out? Do good deeds mean good people? Can a bad person do good things? Is it all just chance? etc etc
Could not get that film out of my mind. But it was probably more the way it was done than the story itself - since the Hollywood remake (The Vanishing) didn't have the same impact on me at all.
It was kind of an 80s book for me (though I know it was written in the previous decade). From my distant memory it was interesting but seemed to me about giving up agency, and we have so little of that anyway. I draw no conclusions that folk were drawn to it in the golden age of the Thatch..
Item 12 suggests the leadership of the council will be shared between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and the Runnymede Independents who will have 23 Councillors and a majority - the Conservatives have 13 councillors and there are five non-aligned Independents from Ottershaw and Englefield Green.
This will be extraordinary if it happens - the Conservatives have led Runnymede continuously since the Council's formation in 1974 - even in the period of NOC from 1996 to 1998 they still led the Council but after 50 years there will be a non-Conservative Council leader and the Conservatives will be in opposition.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
The prison population today is twice what it was in 1970, despite the population only being 20% greater:
Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I’m not sure what the explanation is: Were people being held elsewhere? Did we just accept a level of violence in public that would be unacceptable today? I’ve no idea!
As to the current problems: the prison population hasn’t changed for roughly a decade, despite the population increase over that period, because we haven’t built any more prisons. This is at least partially due to the general planning deadlock that holds this country in its vice-like grip - IIRC the Home Office has tried to build them, but been stymied by local councils. But the current overcrowding is an inevitable consequence.
(Is there something about these stats that I’ve missed? Does anyone with relevant knowledge want to chip in? The change in incarceration rate over time since the 1940s to today seems unexpected to me.)
People living longer? Probably not nearly enough to account for it.
I must be out of the loop because I keep reading about something called "Baby Reindeer" and I have no idea what it is. (Can't be bothered to look it up either).
Yes it cropped up on one of my whatsapp groups the other day and I had no clue either. I did look it up and it's a Netflix show about a female stalker apparently. That's as much as I'll ever know since I no longer have Netflix.
The problem with Baby Reindeer is the blurring of fiction and reality - while all fiction tends to have some basis in lived experience, with authors drawing on real life people and events, this particular show is a very thinly disguised "fiction" based on the real life events of the writer, who also stars in the show as himself. So naturally all the other characters are thinly disguised fictions of real people, too.
As the subject matter of the show includes sexual abuse as well as stalking, mental illness and so on, you can see where the controversy arises. What really happened? What didn't? The author also allegedly has issues with boundaries, dating a young actress while she was under consideration for the role of his girlfriend (he was cleared of wrongdoing by the producers, but still, ick.)
Naturally as it's a hit show people are trying to guess real life identities and have found the person the stalker is based on, who is a woman with clear mental health issues, who was interviewed by Piers Morgan among others. It all feels a bit gratuitously voyeuristic for my tastes.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
The prison population today is twice what it was in 1970, despite the population only being 20% greater:
Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I’m not sure what the explanation is: Were people being held elsewhere? Did we just accept a level of violence in public that would be unacceptable today? I’ve no idea!
Drugs. Much more common at every strata of society and often attracts a custodial for dealing.
I must be out of the loop because I keep reading about something called "Baby Reindeer" and I have no idea what it is. (Can't be bothered to look it up either).
Yes it cropped up on one of my whatsapp groups the other day and I had no clue either. I did look it up and it's a Netflix show about a female stalker apparently. That's as much as I'll ever know since I no longer have Netflix.
Seen a couple of mentions in the Graun and have no wish to know more. The problem is that the original stalker is allegedly based on an actual person who has been allegedly outed and preesumnably too easily recogniseable. She has already been interviewed on TV by Piers Morgan of all people.
Yes. You know that saying - when you're on your deathbed what you regret is the things that you didn't do not the things you did? I think that's nonsense. I'd say it's the opposite. Eg being interviewed by Piers Morgan.
The Conservatives have led the Government of this country for the past 14 years, not six months or five years. They may have gone through five Prime Ministers but the fact remains they have been the party of Government.
Where are the new prisons, the new hospitals, the improved schools, the safer streets, the improved transport system. the "Big Society" we were promised?
Even after this litany of failure, the Party still thinks it "deserves" another five years in office - to be honest, another five minutes is bad enough.
I'm NOT saying Labour will be better but if the sole arguments for retaining Conservative Government are "give us another five years and we'll sort it all out" or "we can't change Government because the world is a nasty, dangerous place", that smacks of desperation and bankruptcy.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
The prison population today is twice what it was in 1970, despite the population only being 20% greater:
Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I’m not sure what the explanation is: Were people being held elsewhere? Did we just accept a level of violence in public that would be unacceptable today? I’ve no idea!
As to the current problems: the prison population hasn’t changed for roughly a decade, despite the population increase over that period, because we haven’t built any more prisons. This is at least partially due to the general planning deadlock that holds this country in its vice-like grip - IIRC the Home Office has tried to build them, but been stymied by local councils. But the current overcrowding is an inevitable consequence.
(Is there something about these stats that I’ve missed? Does anyone with relevant knowledge want to chip in? The change in incarceration rate over time since the 1940s to today seems unexpected to me.)
Yes violence was a lot more accepted in that time. A "fair" fight at closing time was not a police matter nor unusual. Nor was most domestic violence.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
The prison population today is twice what it was in 1970, despite the population only being 20% greater:
Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I’m not sure what the explanation is: Were people being held elsewhere? Did we just accept a level of violence in public that would be unacceptable today? I’ve no idea!
Drugs. Much more common at every strata of society and often attracts a custodial for dealing.
And drugs in the jails has crushed the (never great) rehabilitation element of prison.
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?
It's a good question. Is there anything? Surely there must be something.
Elizabeth Line? Shame they are making such a pig's ear out of HS2 though.
Crossrail Act 2008 was Brown's govt.
For me, good stuff since 2010 has been: Metro mayors Gay marriage Recall of MPs Modern Slavery Act Fixing past wrongs - Saville Inquiry response, Hillsborough inquest & response, Turing & pardons for historic sexual offences Much of Francis Maude's civil service reforms - Open Government, GDS, GSG, etc (Possibly) Universal credit, on balance Energy Act, ending coal power, net zero targets DfID reforms & 0.7% aid target - caused a real increase in our soft power abroad HS2 approval Some of the levelling up stuff had merit
Only the first three really bedded in, though. Some of the others have since been reversed or abandoned, and the others are looking fairly shaky.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
If I remember correctly, it was quite believable that many diseases could / would in the near future be able to be detected via blood tests. The big fraud was that a single tiny box and one very small sample of blood could achieve ever achieve that, rather than many different (often complex) tests requiring multiple blood samples.
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
I certainly see a future where diagnostics will be much easier, checkups streamlined and diseases caught much earlier from much more simplified testing. We are probably on the track to it: Theranos’ problem was that we are still a way off it yet, whereas they thought it would be within easy reach, simply it seems through Elizabeth Holmes’ sheer force of will.
Most scientists say Holmes' "vision" is just impossible, not just now, but forever (at least until / unless there is some scientific revolution), as its basically against the laws of nature.
You need to perform huge numbers of different tests, most are destructive of the sample, so you can't just take one tiny sample and one box which does some jiggery-pokery and out pops results for 1000s of markers.
It isn't simply about miniaturisation or some combining of things to gain efficiencies, it would require total revolution in the science of how all known tests for these markers are done.
Fluorescence base detection of target proteins is feasible, for example, isn't it ? That will lead to fairly simple tests for multiple proteins.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
The prison population today is twice what it was in 1970, despite the population only being 20% greater:
Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I’m not sure what the explanation is: Were people being held elsewhere? Did we just accept a level of violence in public that would be unacceptable today? I’ve no idea!
As to the current problems: the prison population hasn’t changed for roughly a decade, despite the population increase over that period, because we haven’t built any more prisons. This is at least partially due to the general planning deadlock that holds this country in its vice-like grip - IIRC the Home Office has tried to build them, but been stymied by local councils. But the current overcrowding is an inevitable consequence.
(Is there something about these stats that I’ve missed? Does anyone with relevant knowledge want to chip in? The change in incarceration rate over time since the 1940s to today seems unexpected to me.)
We no longer have so many residential "mental asylums" for want of a better word. Thatcher's "care in the community" was meant to replace them but has been chronically underfunded, by all governments. So unaddressed mental health issues eventually filtered through to the justice and penal systems.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6 The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
If I remember correctly, it was quite believable that many diseases could / would in the near future be able to be detected via blood tests. The big fraud was that a single tiny box and one very small sample of blood could achieve ever achieve that, rather than many different (often complex) tests requiring multiple blood samples.
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
I certainly see a future where diagnostics will be much easier, checkups streamlined and diseases caught much earlier from much more simplified testing. We are probably on the track to it: Theranos’ problem was that we are still a way off it yet, whereas they thought it would be within easy reach, simply it seems through Elizabeth Holmes’ sheer force of will.
Most scientists say Holmes' "vision" is just impossible, not just now, but forever (at least until / unless there is some scientific revolution), as its basically against the laws of nature.
You need to perform huge numbers of different tests, most are destructive of the sample, so you can't just take one tiny sample and one box which does some jiggery-pokery and out pops results for 1000s of markers.
It isn't simply about miniaturisation or some combining of things to gain efficiencies, it would require total revolution in the science of how all known tests for these markers are done.
Fluorescence base detection of target proteins is feasible, for example, isn't it ? That will lead to fairly simple tests for multiple proteins.
1000s of markers is a different thing again.
Perhaps one of Holmes worst crimes was fucking the whole area of research. I’ve met people who couldn’t get funding for research into testing because the whole area was seen as toxic.
I can never quite square the circle that crime is supposed to be falling and falling, but prison have been so overflowing for donkeys years that need policies to handle it, that at first there was policies like 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, people out on tag a lot earlier etc, and now we are having to release seriously dangerous ones early....and at the same time businesses complain that low level crimes like shoplifting aren't even enforced, car thefts and burglaries are basically never solved, carrying / using a knife doesn't get your the prison sentences that are on available etc.
Prison population relatively stable. Between 74k and 86k for the last twenty years.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
Population grow I give you. But then you factor in the police now seem incapable of solving many low level crimes and fraud, particularly online fraud, well most of that doesn't even get near the plod and when it does they are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Are we locking people up for longer for serious crimes like murder than 20-30 years ago?
So prison population the same, population up, but crime levels are supposed to be right down while detection and prosecution of many crimes down to levels where they literally never catch anybody for it e.g. car theft.
You have to bear in mind,Mr Urquhart, that our police have been constantly belittled over the years by the Tories and their accomplices - and making disparaging remarks now about "plod" and "chocolate teapots" here does not help set the right tone of respect towards authority figures.
And it has not helped society that you Tories have swept away all the "second tier" keepers of order - park keepers, bus conductors, railway station staff and the like - all in the name of "efficiency". Increasingly nowadays some people misbehave because they think they can get away with it. And from low levels of misbehaviour, it works its way up.
And so it is that all misbehaviour now ends up by being dealt with by the police. They have my sympathy - not least because they have on top of them the incubus of the police and crime commissioner, who does not help in the slightest.
Staff have vanished in most countries round the world where labour costs are high. The park keeper who lived in a one room hovel on thrupence a week isn’t something compatible with modern society.
The police have lost respect by not being worthy of it.
Biden campaign: “The purpose of this letter is to provide notice that the President will not be participating in the Commission on Presidential Debates’ announced debates in 2024.” They float a different schedule: one debate in late June, one in September; VP debate in late July. https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1790733421209108665
Is Radio 4 in trouble? I'll stick to Radio 3 (and I have some reservations even about that niche).
All of the BBC is in trouble. Just look at the statistics Rajar pump out. Even listeners to Radio 3eare up.in arms. Its being dumbed down in a serious way to compete with the idiots of today who's attention span is is counted in seconds.
It will not survive without the license fee. I find more things of interest on the only BBC channel worth listening to .... World Service
Comments
https://www.google.com/search?q=blue+and+green+should+never+be+seen&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#ip=1
I'm triggered by the dishonesty we see from pundits and (imo) from Mr Poophole.
https://www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-over-100-britons-among-israeli-soldiers-and-settlers/
And yet a severe housing crisis. Massive rent increases. First time buyers crowded out by cash buyers, STL investors or BTL landlords.
Scotland demonstrates that plastering random bits of the countryside with housing miles away from the economically prosperous parts of the country does nothing to solve the problem.
The Biden tariffs are aimed at specific sectors; Trump's were, and are across the board.
Biden's are intended as demand side measures and are accompanied by matching supply side measures (subsidies) in the renewable and chip industries which we've already seen start to encourage the building of new factories.
Trump had no such matching ideas, and actively seeks to discourage renewables.
And Trump's GOP would veto alternative demand side measures from Biden.
Economists largely agree on the distinction.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2024/05/14/the-climate-gamble-behind-bidens-china-tariffs-00157923
...Trump has promised to slap a 10 percent tariff on all foreign imports and 60 percent duties on China. He also wants to impose steep auto tariffs on Mexico if it does not block Chinese-made EVs from being shipped into the U.S.
Together, Trump’s proposals could upend North America’s auto supply chains and dramatically increase the price of cars. In contrast, Biden’s approach is expected to have only muted effects on the U.S. economy...
So “Officer, is the calibration on your speed gun up to date?”, still instantly ends proceedings.
The gov/council gets cash on balance sheet for three years minimum, developer can get a free site if they are serious about developing, if the authority needs to give back the site cost in three years it’s ok as there is now extra housing, facilities generating taxes at no cost to the council and lower cost to the developer.
Gudrun Ure, the star of beloved 1980s children's show Super Gran, has died aged 98.
Her portrayal of the granny who gained superpowers after being struck by a magic ray won her legions of young fans in the ITV series, which ran from 1985 through to 1987.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5nnn53wldo
And another #PMQs where the PM misleads the House?
So much for him replacing Boris Johnson with more integrity, accountability and professionalism...
You cannot be virulently anti-Tory then prop them up in government.
Plus it's not Dave's fault that people in Lib Dem held constituencies liked him.
Brexit border latest: IT crash leaves EU food shipments facing 24-hour delays as customs staff work through consignments by hand. Comes just two weeks after introduction of "world-leading" system intended to deliver "time and efficiency savings"
In PMQ terms this shows a prime minister not on top of his brief. Probably the early release was unavoidable but a more engaged prime minister would want to do it in a more defendable way precisely because he might be questioned on this.
Edit, last active November 23 apparently.
JCB built and supplied equipment to Russia months after saying exports had stopped
Exclusive: Russian customs records suggest firm owned by major Tory donor kept supplying machines after ‘voluntary pause’
he British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal.
Russian customs records show that JCB, whose owners are major donors to the Conservative party, continued to make new products available for Russian dealers well after 2 March 2022, when the company publicly stated that it had “voluntarily paused exports” to Russia.
The data raises questions about the accuracy of JCB’s statements on its business in Russia and relationship with its biggest dealer there, Moscow-based Lonmadi, and that company’s former owner, UK-based JVM group.
JCB has repeatedly said that it stopped exporting products to Russia and JVM companies after 2 March 2022 – less than a week after Putin sent troops into Ukraine.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/15/jcb-built-supplied-equipment-to-russia-months-after-saying-exports-stopped
Incidentally Biden is now also talking about slapping tariffs on car imports from Mexico too:
https://apnews.com/article/biden-tariffs-ev-china-mexico-tai-809b0e27339d38dcd3834d2cbb14e1d1
The Biden administration is suggesting the possibility that additional penalties could be put in place if the Chinese makers of electric vehicles try to move their production to Mexico to avoid newly announced import taxes.
If I'm pleased with the result, I do it.
If I'm displeased, I ignore it and do the opposite.
I imagine this is how a lot of in demand things are still widely available in Russia. Western companies sell to places like the Middle East and China, and they are more than happy to deal with the Russian intermediaries.
I seemed to remember its same with oil, they are happy to buy oil / gas from Russia, sometimes do some processing, and quite often they sell it on to the West.
The other examples, seems to revolve around what you classify as "new". New orders or existing orders of new products, and from foreign factories.
Oxford/NHS research might make something along the lines of what they fantasised a reality.
Identifying proteomic risk factors for cancer using prospective and exome analyses of 1463 circulating proteins and risk of 19 cancers in the UK Biobank
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48017-6
The availability of protein measurements and whole exome sequence data in the UK Biobank enables investigation of potential observational and genetic protein-cancer risk associations. We investigated associations of 1463 plasma proteins with incidence of 19 cancers and 9 cancer subsites in UK Biobank participants (average 12 years follow-up). Emerging protein-cancer associations were further explored using two genetic approaches, cis-pQTL and exome-wide protein genetic scores (exGS). We identify 618 protein-cancer associations, of which 107 persist for cases diagnosed more than seven years after blood draw, 29 of 618 were associated in genetic analyses, and four had support from long time-to-diagnosis ( > 7 years) and both cis-pQTL and exGS analyses: CD74 and TNFRSF1B with NHL, ADAM8 with leukemia, and SFTPA2 with lung cancer. We present multiple blood protein-cancer risk associations, including many detectable more than seven years before cancer diagnosis and that had concordant evidence from genetic analyses, suggesting a possible role in cancer development...
Met a lot (well a few) of people who were quite influenced by that book.
(This is the darkest timeline)
And the way they pulled the convincer to some investors was that the blood went into the empty box, they then took them off to lunch and the lab tech came in, took the samples away and ran a load of manual tests on that samples.
Overall population risen in that time. Prison buildings not maintained, lack of investment. Cuts in prison service staffing. More laws distracting police and courts.
Usual broken Britain story of failure to invest and a dogmatic belief in cutting even when its obvious that is not going to work and will end up costing more in the medium and long term.
Without commenting on the matter, she's got to be sailing close to the wind with a whip suspension I'd fancy?
I'd just finished Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Are we locking people up for longer for serious crimes like murder than 20-30 years ago?
So prison population the same, population up, but crime levels are supposed to be right down while detection and prosecution of many crimes down to levels where they literally never catch anybody for it e.g. car theft.
Another one (similar but not the same). The film: The Golden Egg. Dutch, I think. The protagonist saves a person from drowning. On a whim. Years later he buries somebody alive. Again on a whim. Does it balance out? Do good deeds mean good people? Can a bad person do good things? Is it all just chance? etc etc
Could not get that film out of my mind. But it was probably more the way it was done than the story itself - since the Hollywood remake (The Vanishing) didn't have the same impact on me at all.
You need to perform huge numbers of different tests, most are destructive of the sample, so you can't just take one tiny sample and one box which does some jiggery-pokery and out pops results for 1000s of markers.
It isn't simply about miniaturisation or some combining of things to gain efficiencies, it would require total revolution in the science of how all known tests for these markers are done.
The particular car fraud scheme is so easy to pull off it is ridiculous, but the insurances companies don't want to add friction to signing up via places like CompareTheMeerkat, so instead react to the fraud after it has happened.
Governments need to get with the times. £30m bunged at Crapita isn't going to do anything.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/may/10/piers-morgans-baby-reindeer-interview-fiona-harvey-reeked-grubby-exploitation
The female Steve Jobs could show no academic research that showed anything like this (or any patents) and if they could do this, not sure you need to be the one making the box. You just licence your magical revolution in clinical tests to everybody and instant billionaire for length of the patent.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/283475/england-and-wales-prison-population-by-gender/
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population/
Don’t ask me to explain this one, because I’m not sure what the explanation is: Were people being held elsewhere? Did we just accept a level of violence in public that would be unacceptable today? I’ve no idea!
As to the current problems: the prison population hasn’t changed for roughly a decade, despite the population increase over that period, because we haven’t built any more prisons. This is at least partially due to the general planning deadlock that holds this country in its vice-like grip - IIRC the Home Office has tried to build them, but been stymied by local councils. But the current overcrowding is an inevitable consequence.
(Is there something about these stats that I’ve missed? Does anyone with relevant knowledge want to chip in? The change in incarceration rate over time since the 1940s to today seems unexpected to me.)
And it has not helped society that you Tories have swept away all the "second tier" keepers of order - park keepers, bus conductors, railway station staff and the like - all in the name of "efficiency". Increasingly nowadays some people misbehave because they think they can get away with it. And from low levels of misbehaviour, it works its way up.
And so it is that all misbehaviour now ends up by being dealt with by the police. They have my sympathy - not least because they have on top of them the incubus of the police and crime commissioner, who does not help in the slightest.
(Though an unfortunate double entendre in the last sentence ...)
https://democracy.runnymede.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=163&MId=985
Item 12 suggests the leadership of the council will be shared between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and the Runnymede Independents who will have 23 Councillors and a majority - the Conservatives have 13 councillors and there are five non-aligned Independents from Ottershaw and Englefield Green.
This will be extraordinary if it happens - the Conservatives have led Runnymede continuously since the Council's formation in 1974 - even in the period of NOC from 1996 to 1998 they still led the Council but after 50 years there will be a non-Conservative Council leader and the Conservatives will be in opposition.
As the subject matter of the show includes sexual abuse as well as stalking, mental illness and so on, you can see where the controversy arises. What really happened? What didn't? The author also allegedly has issues with boundaries, dating a young actress while she was under consideration for the role of his girlfriend (he was cleared of wrongdoing by the producers, but still, ick.)
Naturally as it's a hit show people are trying to guess real life identities and have found the person the stalker is based on, who is a woman with clear mental health issues, who was interviewed by Piers Morgan among others. It all feels a bit gratuitously voyeuristic for my tastes.
Where are the new prisons, the new hospitals, the improved schools, the safer streets, the improved transport system. the "Big Society" we were promised?
Even after this litany of failure, the Party still thinks it "deserves" another five years in office - to be honest, another five minutes is bad enough.
I'm NOT saying Labour will be better but if the sole arguments for retaining Conservative Government are "give us another five years and we'll sort it all out" or "we can't change Government because the world is a nasty, dangerous place", that smacks of desperation and bankruptcy.
For me, good stuff since 2010 has been:
Metro mayors
Gay marriage
Recall of MPs
Modern Slavery Act
Fixing past wrongs - Saville Inquiry response, Hillsborough inquest & response, Turing & pardons for historic sexual offences
Much of Francis Maude's civil service reforms - Open Government, GDS, GSG, etc
(Possibly) Universal credit, on balance
Energy Act, ending coal power, net zero targets
DfID reforms & 0.7% aid target - caused a real increase in our soft power abroad
HS2 approval
Some of the levelling up stuff had merit
Only the first three really bedded in, though. Some of the others have since been reversed or abandoned, and the others are looking fairly shaky.
That will lead to fairly simple tests for multiple proteins.
1000s of markers is a different thing again.
🚨 || General Election Nowcast (15/05):
LAB: 461 (+261) - 44.1%
CON: 102 (-270) - 23.6%
LDM: 48 (+40) - 10.4%
SNP: 15 (-33) - 2.8%
PLC: 4 (+2) - 0.6%
GRN: 1 (-) - 6.2%
RFM: 0 (-) - 11.8%
Oth: 1 (-) - 0.5%
LAB Maj of 272.
Changes w/ GE2019 notionals.
Thatcher's "care in the community" was meant to replace them but has been chronically underfunded, by all governments.
So unaddressed mental health issues eventually filtered through to the justice and penal systems.
The police have lost respect by not being worthy of it.
See @Cyclefree headers
It’s pure Lord Denning to say we should shut up about it, since it Weakens The Fabric Of Society.
Stay classy Guardian, I don't think it's an alleged bullet and trip to hospital
UK's puffin protection laws at centre of post Brexit row
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9rrpn955qo
https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1790733421209108665
"...I see Fox grinning, talking fast, dismissing my ventures into
intercorporate espionage with a shake of his head. The Edge, he said, have
to find that Edge. He made you bear the capital E. The Edge was Fox's grail,
that essential fraction of sheer human talent, nontransferable, locked in
the skulls of the world's hottest research scientists...
...You can't put Edge down on paper, Fox said, can't punch Edge into a
diskette. The money was in corporate defectors. Fox was smooth, the severity
of his dark French suits offset by a boyish forelock that wouldn't stay in
place. I never liked the way the effect was ruined when he stepped back from
the bar, his left shoulder skewed at an angle no Paris tailor could conceal.
Someone had run him over with a taxi in Berne, and nobody quite knew how to
put him together again..."
Diskette. Heh. We are all getting old...
Its being dumbed down in a serious way to compete with the idiots of today who's attention span is is counted in seconds.
It will not survive without the license fee.
I find more things of interest on the only BBC channel worth listening to .... World Service