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Poor Kemi Badenoch, the victim of the voting system – politicalbetting.com
Poor Kemi Badenoch, the victim of the voting system – politicalbetting.com
? Shadow housing secretary’s camp worry that she may be overtaken by her rival James Cleverly because of ‘vote lending’ by other candidatesRead more ??https://t.co/5aV6EdOZdk pic.twitter.com/lVj1IB6lnf
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Researchers at Survation spoke to 1,021 people in Scotland eligible to vote in a survey commissioned by the campaign group Scotland in Union.
They were questioned between between August 27 and 29 and, according to the poll, both the SNP and Scottish Labour are on 28 per cent support in the constituency vote among likely voters.
Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour Party enjoys a one-point lead over John Swinney’s SNP at 25 per cent and 24 per cent respectively in the regional list vote.
The Scottish Greens, meanwhile, landed on 6 per cent support in constituencies and 9 per cent in the regional list, the Scottish Lib Dems had 9 per cent in both areas and Alba recorded 1 per cent in the constituencies and 2 per cent in the regions...
....the Tories would win just 11 per cent of votes on the proportional regional list, which is where most of their MSPs were returned in the 2021 Scottish parliament election.
Reform would win 8 per cent, which would result in the party gaining a handful of seats despite having next to no campaigning presence north of the border.
In constituency votes, the Conservative share would halve to 11 per cent while Reform would jump to 9 per cent....
The poll also sought to assess the level of support for Scottish independence as the ten-year anniversary of the referendum in 2014 approaches....
...The 2014 question asked was, “should Scotland be an independent country?” with 55 per cent answering “no” and 45 per cent “yes”.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/nigel-farages-reform-surges-in-support-to-rival-scottish-tories-vwr7p8hjl
Letby’s conviction is unsafe, says Boris Johnson’s former science adviser
Evidence presented to the jury was so flawed as to make it not a fair trial, argues James Phillips
...
“It was not, and is not, apparent to me that anyone in the chain of events leading from Letby being placed under suspicion by the consultants to the three-judge appeal being turned down had the skillset or perspective needed to detect potentially catastrophically weak links in this web of evidential relationships.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-says-boris-johnson-adviser/ (£££)
See also: the Conservative right and Reform.
Edit: first launch window scrubbed, now working towards another theoretical attempt possible in 2h20’, but the met guys don’t sound too positive about it.
https://x.com/spacex/status/1833358277805039800
(edit - I actually do like stealing money from the selfish generation to give to the train drivers because I use the trains a lot.)
Done for speeding twice on arguably the two most irritating stretches of speed-controlled roads on the planet - the M1 variable speed section, presumably where they have those stupid metal barriers up, and, as people will know on PB, my personal bete noir - the Westway in London.
Good for him.
Germany are introducing border guards to stop illegal migrants entering the country - it's an attempt to reduce AfD votes.
Hungary are planning to ship migrants on buses to Brussels - slight problem is they need to go through Germany which won't be possible because of point 1...
Illegal immigration is getting to be a bigger problem there - it's no longer just Italy and Calais that has problems.
The stupid fuel allowance nonsense is no longer top story.
Unlike the interval between F9 regular launches - which can be hours - they need a month for the physical work.
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/general-election-2024/conservative-leadership-election-focus-groups/
Though these are at best lukewarm all round.
Given the timeline and CV (https://jameswphillips.substack.com/about), was he one of the 'wierdo and misfit' Diddy Doms?
I think the only way I can see that being achieved is a turnkey package from a TF company, possibly with a professional half -> full time project manager, and services in place.
Though I appreciate you very much know the ropes.
Say loser pays £100 to Wheels for Wellbeing.
How confident are you, and what would your terms be?
I can't think of any Grand Designs that did this, but they always start with planning in place. The quickest build I recall is probably the early water tower off a roundabout, with the Herb Alpert style music.
Or is this another instance of the silent clause in European Legislation?
”This Legislation Can Be Overridden By Germany And France When They Feel Like It”
The consultants are supposed to protect patients
The prosecution builds a case (I’m sure they were looking for weak links)
The judges assess whether the law has been followed
The jury makes their decision
1. I don't understand X.
2. I am extremely clever.
3. Therefore X is wrong.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/
I'm slightly surprised that Nate Silver's forecast is so different as I assumed their models would use similar approaches - I think his latest forecast has Trump on 64%?
I prefer the 538 forecast because:
1. It seems to fit the available data better - Harris has a slight polling lead and there's quite some time to go, so it should be close to 50-50 but Harris slightly favoured.
2. The Silver forecast seems to be noisier with big shifts resulting from a single poll being published, this seems a bit dodgy to me.
3. The Silver model seems to put more weight on dodgy assumptions, which are just basically guesses about which way the polls will move in the future.
4. I'd rather that Trump had less than 64% chance of winning.
I wonder if Silver has deliberately made the model more 'aggressive' so that it stands out a bit more - if so I think it has worked as his high Trump forecasts have got quite a bit of attention when otherwise people might have just kept on going to 538 without maybe even realising that Silver is now doing his own thing. I mean he proudly claims that he is a 'risk-taker' who will do whatever has the highest EV in his books.
That should also make you a fan of Tom Tugendhat btw, who got himself banned in 2022, and is mentioned in the same article.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/04/robert-jenrick-banned-from-driving-for-six-months-for-speeding
They are landlocked and the Danube can barely take a boat let alone a ship once you get upstream
If no one in the chain could check the use of statistical evidence…
Brings to mind some convictions that turned out to be flawed - the DNA evidence didn’t actually prove beyond reasonable doubt.
It's remarkable how a pretty young nurse is getting a lot of attention in the way that Harold Shipman didn't given they seem to have had a similar viewpoint in life.
a) This has absolutely nothing to do with freedom of movement within the EU. You might not remember because it was a few years ago now, but the UK used to be within the EU and had border controls. This is about Schengen.
b) Germany has had temporary border controls with Austria since 2015, and with Poland, Czechia and Switzerland since 2023. Other Schengen countries with current temporary border controls include Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Denmark, France, Sweden
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-and-visa/schengen-area/temporary-reintroduction-border-control_en
During Covid there were a lot more. Though I have to say I drove across the border between Germany and the Netherlands a few times in the height of Covid when 'temporary border controls' were in place, and never saw any sign of any actual border controls.
So, no nothing to do with freedom of movement, and no legislation being overridden, and nothing to do with exceptions for Germany and France. Congratulations!
That’s the secret isn’t it: building to a standardised blueprint and letting someone professional run with it.
Whereas our just completed barn conversion in Burgundy - essentially a complete rebuild from ruin - has taken nigh on 21 months and that’s under a very strict architect/project manager.
It wasn't a road I would want to drive, thankfully the end client was happy to provide a taxi..
Both sides in the EU referendum were presenting it as an absolute. Why? Obvious for Farage & Co, but why Remain?
But it’s also possible they had access to more information than a non name ex SpAd hack writing a hit piece in the Telegraph. Just possible.
And that Alan Bates geezer in the Post Office row. He must be a right looker.
The idea that Letby's convictions are in question because she is "pretty" (is she?) is the laziest trope, and for which there are numerous counter-examples.
But I thought the criticism was of the partial selection of the statistical evidence *presented to the jury*.
Not that it was wrong, but that it was partial and designed to convince the jury of the case.
And you can’t take a single piece of evidence in isolation and say “this didn’t work therefore the conviction is flawed”. Juries form their view based on the totality of evidence
Switzerland and Monaco being examples: in Schengen so you can just hop across the border, but no “free movement”.
Tugendhat was using his mobile phone in his hand for navigation in Wandsworth, but did the slopey-shoulder weasel words thing : "I was holding my mobile phone not using it."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/17/security-minister-tom-tugendhat-given-six-month-driving-ban
But I think he's out, isn't he?
Cleverly had an incident on the motorway where he hit somebody else's new car and denied he was using his phone, and got quite shirty about it.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/james-cleverly-car-crash-tory-mp-braintree-essex-a9072686.html
I can't check on Mel Stride, because his listings about "car crashes" are all about interviews
Kemi seems clear.
..In May 2022, Polymarket appointed J. Christopher Giancarlo, a former Commissioner of the CFTC, as chairman of its advisory board.[5] In May 2024, it was announced that Polymarket had raised $70 million across two rounds of funding.[6] The rounds included investments from Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, and Founders Fund, a venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel...
...In 2024, the outcome of U.S. elections became the most active market on the platform,[6] with over $776 million (as of September 2, 2024) wagered on the presidential race between the Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.[1] Nate Silver, founder of polling analysis firm FiveThirtyEight, became an advisor to Polymarket in 2024.[9] The site allows users to leave comments on markets however the content is largely unmoderated...
There is, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest.
A shame, because she’s by far the most interesting of the candidates from a neutral’s point of view.
BTW is Cleverly positioning himself as the only one who can get votes from drys and wets?
https://x.com/yougov/status/1833413364434808915?s=46
Last night the Harris campaign published some policy ideas on their website:
https://kamalaharris.com/issues/
And JD Vance responded to it, obviously disagreeing and pointing to actual policy enacted by Harris in the last four years.
https://x.com/jdvance/status/1833175793066713371
Worth a read to get an idea of what the two campaigns are thinking, and how they might want to steer the debate.
Hard to see the party progressing that far (beyond the odd spark of life in response to events) until there is a bit more agreement.
The main argument seems to be that evidence relies on evidence, e.g. "As a simple example, the confidence you would have in a piece of evidence being presented as evidence for murder via air embolism is altered by your confidence that there was an abnormal cluster in the first place." Which is a valid point, but both the prosecution and defence seem to have accepted that there were murders. Now, it's possible that the defence were completely inept and should have argued that there were no murders. If there's been a miscarriage of justice then it looks to have been down to the defence team being numpties rather than anything else.
If she can’t even manage to get a grip of her favourite topic then heaven help the tories.
As I said yesterday, she manages to be both nasty AND incompetent.
@TSE
https://archive.ph/8D27d
https://x.com/BarbMcQuade/status/1833299012851536282
It's funny how all the MAGA people are doing this Haitian fearmongering when the person involved in this election who is most likely to have actually eaten a cat is clearly Robert F Kennedy Jr
https://x.com/SwannMarcus89/status/1833324467352641975
A city which, it turns out, is doing that fantastic thing we have previously identified on PB - “fulfilling all your most cliched tourist expectations” - like going to Paris and finding an impossibly rude waiter who flamboyantly shrugs at you, while wearing a beret
In Vancouver’s case: the expectation fulfilled is “being ridiculously scenic and obviously liveable”
Also, cracking oysters. Of COURSE it would have great oysters
The strange orange bread dipping sauce in the little shallow jar is a reduction of lobster shells in butter - notably delicious
Not to mention the calendars released by the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4….
If Kemi Badenoch's claim about driving into a waist-deep "flash flood" and having to wade out of it with hubby is true, perhaps she'll be getting one too.
As she said "the water came from nowhere", which I think is another version of "I (or husband) was driving too fast into the dip to stop in time", but that might be being a little over-sceptical in some circumstances.
Telegraph seems very keen on mentioning the high heels:
https://archive.ph/ozTlO
At the trial evidence was presented that in each of the alleged incidents (murder and attempted murder) Letby was on duty in a material place; and that as a matter of fact no other person was on duty at all or significant numbers of times at these incidents.
This is not statistical evidence, it is ordinary factual evidence. Without it there could have been no case as if she could not be shown to be present there is no case to answer in each case.
The critics now are saying: statistical evidence was not presented of the rotas more generally, about every possible incident of unexpected harm etc to a child, and this may have shown (I suppose) either other murderers as possible suspects, or a pattern to show the deaths were not criminal.
The defence are entitled to go down that track and didn't. Probably because it could not work. The prosecution would not have wanted to go there as it was not part of their case.
What I really don't see is what Tory MPs see in Jenrick. I don't like the idea of some of the other contenders, but I can make a plausible case for any of them. Jenrick just seems to have mountains of sleezey baggage and little else.
I don’t know which turned me on more
It's been argued that the tabulation in question was selective and that the full tabulation has other persons as possible suspects, as indeed one would expect from random chance - which therefore includes Letby. If Letby's correlation canm be explained as chance ...
There's also a suggestion that the data are unreliable (bad recording, last minute changes and swaps, early/late shift changeovers).
'Elon Musk, right-wing media personalities post unverified claims about cannibalism in Haiti'
I shall be the first to say 'it's what he would have wanted' when the tragic reports of semi digested Leon come through.
I’ve been here 12 hours but already I’m thinking, wow, what a blessed place. Like the nicest city in the USA - minus the guns (but they do have some homeless)
Shame it’s a bit cool and grey - tho I note they do get 2,000 hours of annual sunshine, which places it well ahead of London and about the same as Lyon or Milan
I've started a new thread over on BH asking the question anonymously, as we do a "how long does it take" every so often. Since we now have nearly 20k members (though many stay for a time and then drop out), there should be a few posts. My normal suggested range is 2-5 years with PP already in place, or 3-7 from scratch.
https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/40417-have-you-gone-from-planning-app-to-moving-in-in-~2-yeas/
I have one example of 2 years 3 months so far, and that was on a sloping site needing a big retaining wall.
My punt is that it will be only 5% who do it, but that most take a longer timescale to be able to be more involved and do work themselves, so it is a skewed sample.
For me, there are too many unknowns that can throw it off, especially underground unknowns.
But I'm delighted Ben has the plot and is moving it on.
Also, is the cannibalism unverified?! IIRC there is video of a guy actually roasting an enemy and eating a chunk of him live on camera, and it has not been questioned (but I could be wrong)
tia
And I could add a few more.
Aged 32.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/09/david-knowles-journalist-telegraph-dies-ukraine-war-podcast/
But it has this spectacular location on multiple islands, backdropped by green forested mountains; add in the skyscrapers and it’s like an Alpine Hong Kong
And superb sweet native oysters are £2 a pop in a fairly posh local oyster bar (3 minutes from my hotel). And they offer them with shallot mignonette, ketchup and horseradish, and ponzu
I’m smitten