That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Wait for the day they log on and we have spent three hours debating pineapples or whether a certain film is a christmas one!!
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
That gap is not going to be bridged by 5k worth of designer knickers for the wife. You are also wrong - archbishops and regius professors are not getting multiples of what a cabinet minister makes. If you want money the trick is to make it elsewhere like Sunak and indeed "Pensions" Starmer, and the best way of exacerbating the problem is the prohibition on second jobs we are apparently expecting
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
I've got this week off - I might dig into a little tool to compare/contrast two PB usernames.
Barty Bobs and Malmesy. The two most tedious fuckers ever to sign up for ADSL.
When you read that stuff from a serious contender to lead the Tories it says as much about this country as the hundreds of new jailbirds after our own version of Kristallnicht. We are turning ugly.
Obviously this is more of a real problem, because someone is going to great lengths to hide their donation.
But for the neo-puritans, this donation is probably OK because it's for a serious thing labelled campaigning expenses, rather than an apparently frivolous thing like expensive clothes.
Plus, it's a Tory doing it.
Can someone explain why spending donations on ladieswear is any worse/different than spending it on iPads and iPhones?
Good morning everyone.
The scandal they really want is the PM buying skirts for his own use .
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
As often happens with humans, we want several things that are ultimately contradictory.
We don't want our politicians beholden to donors. That's logical.
We don't want politics to just be an activity for the mega-rich. That's democratic.
We do want things done "well", and that costs. And whilst the Starmers both have very well-paid careers, I doubt that most of us get how exponentially expensive "well" is at that sort of level. That's understandable.
We don't want the state funding politics at the level that makes the first three points work. Especially in a time of national frugality, that's reasonable.
But you can't have all four.
There is a world of corporate hospitality where this sort of thing is the norm. It's not my world, though I've occasionally been close enough to it to be aware of its existence. The answer to "why did these politicians think this was OK?" is that, in that world it is OK and the rest of us mostly don't care because we don't see it.
On top of that, there are two things now. One is that it is a time of national frugality- the maths dictates that. So these freebies look bad. (Though the Mail would be the first to whine about these politicians going to Primark.) The other is that a lot of people really resent Starmer's success. A lot of the noise has been from people, on the left and the right, who never liked him anyway. That's politics, but it means we should keep a bit of perspective.
This is not the end of this government, or even the beginning of the end. But the government, and the country, need some real politics to think about instead.
I would dispute that some of this is 'the norm' in modern business. If you work for any large UK company then you will have to do the very boring and seemingly pointless ethics courses every year. These define quite strictly what you can and cannot accept as corporate gifts and what you have to report. Basically any gift of any value must be declared and any gift (or combination of gifts) with a value of over £100 is usually banned. The rules are even stricter if you are in any position that might have influence - tendering, legal, finance etc. Of course this is not fixed by law and depends entirely on the company concerned but well run modern companies are extremely hot on this stuff and it is those companies I would expect our elected leadership to emulate.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Wait for the day they log on and we have spent three hours debating pineapples or whether a certain film is a christmas one!!
Which reminds me, when does autumn start? A quick glance offers 1st (weather people) 21st, 22nd (both astronomical) and 29th September (Quarter day, Michaelmas and end of the cricket season.)
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
The podcast. It's mad. Is it AI? Or are real people sat there analysing our comments?
I'd go for self-generated by AI at the behest a certain poster who happens to be bored.
But there's nothing obviously traceable, and I'm being judgemental on the basis of a total lack of evidence.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
They’re going to have to start to hide missiles and bombs in Vladivostok.
Odd that these places hadn’t been targeted before. Perhaps drone tech is improving.
It’s a combination of having the means to attack these sites, the intelligence to know where they are, and the headroom to ignore the local fight and look at the bigger picture.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
They’re going to have to start to hide missiles and bombs in Vladivostok.
Odd that these places hadn’t been targeted before. Perhaps drone tech is improving.
Or Biden would rather they attack munitions than refineries. Until 6th November at least.
Regardless of who wins, I suspect the Ukrainians are going to go a bit drone-crazy on trashing the Russian economy before the Inauguration. Force the Russians to the negotiating table.
Obviously this is more of a real problem, because someone is going to great lengths to hide their donation.
But for the neo-puritans, this donation is probably OK because it's for a serious thing labelled campaigning expenses, rather than an apparently frivolous thing like expensive clothes.
Plus, it's a Tory doing it.
Can someone explain why spending donations on ladieswear is any worse/different than spending it on iPads and iPhones?
Good morning everyone.
The scandal they really want is the PM buying skirts for his own use .
Ooh. That would get Toryherd hot under the collar, the tiny beads of sweat on the upper lip!
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
As often happens with humans, we want several things that are ultimately contradictory.
We don't want our politicians beholden to donors. That's logical.
We don't want politics to just be an activity for the mega-rich. That's democratic.
We do want things done "well", and that costs. And whilst the Starmers both have very well-paid careers, I doubt that most of us get how exponentially expensive "well" is at that sort of level. That's understandable.
We don't want the state funding politics at the level that makes the first three points work. Especially in a time of national frugality, that's reasonable.
But you can't have all four.
There is a world of corporate hospitality where this sort of thing is the norm. It's not my world, though I've occasionally been close enough to it to be aware of its existence. The answer to "why did these politicians think this was OK?" is that, in that world it is OK and the rest of us mostly don't care because we don't see it.
On top of that, there are two things now. One is that it is a time of national frugality- the maths dictates that. So these freebies look bad. (Though the Mail would be the first to whine about these politicians going to Primark.) The other is that a lot of people really resent Starmer's success. A lot of the noise has been from people, on the left and the right, who never liked him anyway. That's politics, but it means we should keep a bit of perspective.
This is not the end of this government, or even the beginning of the end. But the government, and the country, need some real politics to think about instead.
I would dispute that some of this is 'the norm' in modern business. If you work for any large UK company then you will have to do the very boring and seemingly pointless ethics courses every year. These define quite strictly what you can and cannot accept as corporate gifts and what you have to report. Basically any gift of any value must be declared and any gift (or combination of gifts) with a value of over £100 is usually banned. The rules are even stricter if you are in any position that might have influence - tendering, legal, finance etc. Of course this is not fixed by law and depends entirely on the company concerned but well run modern companies are extremely hot on this stuff and it is those companies I would expect our elected leadership to emulate.
There is law behind all of that. Some companies have rules stricter than the law - to make their observance clear and evident to regulators, and also to deal with multiple jurisdictions.
It would be interesting to see how many people were prosecuted under these laws, overseen by a certain DPP.
They’re going to have to start to hide missiles and bombs in Vladivostok.
Estonian military intelligence said that the first major depot hit the night before last could have contained three months worth of ammunition.
One of the two depots hit last night had reportedly been expanded to hold ammunition from North Korea.
All three depots are within the claimed range of the new Ukrainian missile-drone. You'd imagine they would have hit these earlier if they could have, so it has to be a new capability that has enabled this to happen now.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Wait for the day they log on and we have spent three hours debating pineapples or whether a certain film is a christmas one!!
Which reminds me, when does autumn start? A quick glance offers 1st (weather people) 21st, 22nd (both astronomical) and 29th September (Quarter day, Michaelmas and end of the cricket season.)
I think your 2,3 and 4 all collapse to the same thing. Equinox is usually 22 or 23, very rarely 21, and the equinox was the quarter day until we switched Julian to Gregorian
Cause is equinox, effect is various stuff like grass stops growing and apples ripen, which people observed and named when they still thought the earth was flat and the sun was a fat yellow god.
As often happens with humans, we want several things that are ultimately contradictory.
We don't want our politicians beholden to donors. That's logical.
We don't want politics to just be an activity for the mega-rich. That's democratic.
We do want things done "well", and that costs. And whilst the Starmers both have very well-paid careers, I doubt that most of us get how exponentially expensive "well" is at that sort of level. That's understandable.
We don't want the state funding politics at the level that makes the first three points work. Especially in a time of national frugality, that's reasonable.
But you can't have all four.
There is a world of corporate hospitality where this sort of thing is the norm. It's not my world, though I've occasionally been close enough to it to be aware of its existence. The answer to "why did these politicians think this was OK?" is that, in that world it is OK and the rest of us mostly don't care because we don't see it.
On top of that, there are two things now. One is that it is a time of national frugality- the maths dictates that. So these freebies look bad. (Though the Mail would be the first to whine about these politicians going to Primark.) The other is that a lot of people really resent Starmer's success. A lot of the noise has been from people, on the left and the right, who never liked him anyway. That's politics, but it means we should keep a bit of perspective.
This is not the end of this government, or even the beginning of the end. But the government, and the country, need some real politics to think about instead.
I would dispute that some of this is 'the norm' in modern business. If you work for any large UK company then you will have to do the very boring and seemingly pointless ethics courses every year. These define quite strictly what you can and cannot accept as corporate gifts and what you have to report. Basically any gift of any value must be declared and any gift (or combination of gifts) with a value of over £100 is usually banned. The rules are even stricter if you are in any position that might have influence - tendering, legal, finance etc. Of course this is not fixed by law and depends entirely on the company concerned but well run modern companies are extremely hot on this stuff and it is those companies I would expect our elected leadership to emulate.
That's because you and I have stayed the right side of the velvet rope. I'm doing well if I get a free four-colour biro.
But there is a whole industry of corporate hospitality- those prawn sandwiches aren't eating themselves.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
Obviously this is more of a real problem, because someone is going to great lengths to hide their donation.
But for the neo-puritans, this donation is probably OK because it's for a serious thing labelled campaigning expenses, rather than an apparently frivolous thing like expensive clothes.
Plus, it's a Tory doing it.
Can someone explain why spending donations on ladieswear is any worse/different than spending it on iPads and iPhones?
Good morning everyone.
The scandal they really want is the PM buying skirts for his own use .
Ooh. That would get Toryherd hot under the collar, the tiny beads of sweat on the upper lip!
I think you are the one who introduced the word "puritan" implying that your own thoughts on Lady Klouseau's trousseau have a sort of licentious Restoration swagger about them. Hmmm.
She also isn't the First Lady, and your insistence on calling her that has a disturbing shades of grey or gray feel to it.
Aside from the office politics, the revelation that AI can now produce extremely plausible podcasts - human conversations - from random chunks of text (and getting better the more text provided) is absolutely profound
That snippet was good enough to fool most on here despite the obvious and immediate doubts (why would a real US podcast comment on a UK PB thread still ongoing? And so quick?). Makes no sense
But it spells the death knell for a lot of radio, and indeed podcasts
They’re going to have to start to hide missiles and bombs in Vladivostok.
Estonian military intelligence said that the first major depot hit the night before last could have contained three months worth of ammunition.
One of the two depots hit last night had reportedly been expanded to hold ammunition from North Korea.
All three depots are within the claimed range of the new Ukrainian missile-drone. You'd imagine they would have hit these earlier if they could have, so it has to be a new capability that has enabled this to happen now.
An analysis of the Toropets strike from Youtuber Suchomimus, going through it structure by structure from satellite photos.
"New Satellite Imagery of Toropets: Over 60 Bunkers/Warehouses Destroyed!"
I don't know who he is, but he has a northern accent and properly idiomatic English, rather than the strangled 1950s version that comes when some Germans try too hard, or the studied Victorian / Edwardian version that comes from some Russians who learnt before the Soviet Union opened up.
"This is gonna be quite a long video I think, so maybe get yourself a cuppa-tea and soom biscuits; I recommend a packet a coostard creams ...." (It's 15 minutes.)
Aside from the office politics, the revelation that AI can now produce extremely plausible podcasts - human conversations - from random chunks of text (and getting better the more text provided) is absolutely profound
That snippet was good enough to fool most on here despite the obvious and immediate doubts (why would a real US podcast comment on a UK PB thread still ongoing? And so quick?). Makes no sense
But it spells the death knell for a lot of radio, and indeed podcasts
Would it spell doom for flint dildo manufacturers with a sideline writing slightly surreal travel articles for a minor trade journal?
Jenrick is the worst choice of those left. Not just all the dodginess, but also stupid ideas such as a ban on saying 'Alahu Akbar'. It is bizarre that so many MPs are supporting him. Conservatives must hope that he is 'pulling a Starmer' - indulging his party's worst tendencies in the leadership election and then promptly ignoring everything he said after winning. But that does not negate the dodginess, and from a man wealthy enough not to need any freebies.
The lesson from Starmer's current travails is do not make unimpeachable morality or a 'Mr Rules' persona too much of your gimmick. Tony Blair wrote of his regrets in this. If you behave so sanctimoniously when others misbehave, don't be surprised at their glee when you inevitably slip up.
So the Conservatives should not talk too much about these scandals, because the media needs no encouragment to focus on them and the Tories will inevitably be shown up by their own problems (and with Jenrick, far worse than Starmer's). More worthy of focus is that Starmer's potential 'upstream' method for tackling the boats may prove to be more cruel, and with fewer safeguards, than the Tories' own failed Rwanda plan.
Speaking of AI, Spotify's adverts are not only getting more numerous, but also much worse and seem to have no concept of 'I hate this ad and never want to hear it again?'
Guardian cartoons on Keir freebies. It's a characteristic of guardian cartoonists that they think their hatred of their subject is a substitute for wit and humour. Keir should be worried.
Things to do. Between now and Week at Westminster the homework us to listen Reform's Great Leader as wallpaper whilst freezing apples for winter crumbles.
Have a good day, all.
I see @Dura_Ace mentioned the NT. I had an interesting conversation with staff at our local NT property this week; they have had Sustrans out to talk about how they can make their round-the-estate accessible to mobility aids, including cycles, and I think by extension creating a link to the National Cycling / Walking Network.
I'd punt that in addition to it being a good thing to do, they've also noticed the changes to the Environmental Land Management scheme that has brought creation / maintenance of paths into the scope. Very commercially aware, the NT.
It's time to break out the "Walking, Wheeling and Cycling to Hardwick Hall" occasional blog.
As often happens with humans, we want several things that are ultimately contradictory.
We don't want our politicians beholden to donors. That's logical.
We don't want politics to just be an activity for the mega-rich. That's democratic.
We do want things done "well", and that costs. And whilst the Starmers both have very well-paid careers, I doubt that most of us get how exponentially expensive "well" is at that sort of level. That's understandable.
We don't want the state funding politics at the level that makes the first three points work. Especially in a time of national frugality, that's reasonable.
But you can't have all four.
There is a world of corporate hospitality where this sort of thing is the norm. It's not my world, though I've occasionally been close enough to it to be aware of its existence. The answer to "why did these politicians think this was OK?" is that, in that world it is OK and the rest of us mostly don't care because we don't see it.
On top of that, there are two things now. One is that it is a time of national frugality- the maths dictates that. So these freebies look bad. (Though the Mail would be the first to whine about these politicians going to Primark.) The other is that a lot of people really resent Starmer's success. A lot of the noise has been from people, on the left and the right, who never liked him anyway. That's politics, but it means we should keep a bit of perspective.
This is not the end of this government, or even the beginning of the end. But the government, and the country, need some real politics to think about instead.
I would dispute that some of this is 'the norm' in modern business. If you work for any large UK company then you will have to do the very boring and seemingly pointless ethics courses every year. These define quite strictly what you can and cannot accept as corporate gifts and what you have to report. Basically any gift of any value must be declared and any gift (or combination of gifts) with a value of over £100 is usually banned. The rules are even stricter if you are in any position that might have influence - tendering, legal, finance etc. Of course this is not fixed by law and depends entirely on the company concerned but well run modern companies are extremely hot on this stuff and it is those companies I would expect our elected leadership to emulate.
That's because you and I have stayed the right side of the velvet rope. I'm doing well if I get a free four-colour biro.
But there is a whole industry of corporate hospitality- those prawn sandwiches aren't eating themselves.
I am off to run some errands before a relegation six-pointer, but obviously so. Those company boxes at sporting events are there for companies to entertain clients and potential clients.
It's all a feature of contemporary capitalism.
The amusing thing about British political lobbying and corruption is how petty it often is. A campervan here, a borrowed designer dress there, football tickets. It allows us to gloss over the more rampant corruption of sweetheart deals for property developers and PPE etc.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
Speaking of AI, Spotify's adverts are not only getting more numerous, but also much worse and seem to have no concept of 'I hate this ad and never want to hear it again?'
Annoying drives engagement, and advertisers know it. It's why so much Social Media is driven by deliberately annoying people too.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
It 'smelt' like AI to me. Something about the way the two interacted didn't feel quite right. And of course there's the question of why two real humans would run podcast commentary on PB. Still, it is very impressive.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Thanks for the remind to vote in the National Trust AGM to ensure your friends at Tufton Street don't get elected...
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Oh dear. I'm trying to figure out which stage of grief you've reached after July 4th.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
It 'smelt' like AI to me. Something about the way the two interacted didn't feel quite right. And of course there's the question of why two real humans would run podcast commentary on PB. Still, it is very impressive.
To me, AI is still a bit clumsy with analysis and opinion. In that piece, everything sounds superficially insightful, but it lacks that bite.
They’re going to have to start to hide missiles and bombs in Vladivostok.
Estonian military intelligence said that the first major depot hit the night before last could have contained three months worth of ammunition.
One of the two depots hit last night had reportedly been expanded to hold ammunition from North Korea.
All three depots are within the claimed range of the new Ukrainian missile-drone. You'd imagine they would have hit these earlier if they could have, so it has to be a new capability that has enabled this to happen now.
An analysis of the Toropets strike from Youtuber Suchomimus, going through it structure by structure from satellite photos.
"New Satellite Imagery of Toropets: Over 60 Bunkers/Warehouses Destroyed!"
I don't know who he is, but he has a northern accent and properly idiomatic English, rather than the strangled 1950s version that comes when some Germans try too hard, or the studied Victorian / Edwardian version that comes from some Russians who learnt before the Soviet Union opened up.
"This is gonna be quite a long video I think, so maybe get yourself a cuppa-tea and soom biscuits; I recommend a packet a coostard creams ...." (It's 15 minutes.)
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Put it another way. If Labour now own the National Trust their domination over British life is complete
Aside from the office politics, the revelation that AI can now produce extremely plausible podcasts - human conversations - from random chunks of text (and getting better the more text provided) is absolutely profound
That snippet was good enough to fool most on here despite the obvious and immediate doubts (why would a real US podcast comment on a UK PB thread still ongoing? And so quick?). Makes no sense
But it spells the death knell for a lot of radio, and indeed podcasts
Joe Rogan isn’t yet worried. His latest podcast video with Matt Walsh has 2m views on YouTube.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Oh dear. I'm trying to figure out which stage of grief you've reached after July 4th.
Speaking of AI, Spotify's adverts are not only getting more numerous, but also much worse and seem to have no concept of 'I hate this ad and never want to hear it again?'
It has exactly that concept because it is trying to push you into subscribing (which I am surprised you don't as a pro musician, I understand the free sound quality is not great)
I pay Amazon music 10 a month, justified to myself because it is all the music evah. Then it tells me what I listened to in 2023, and 2022, and 2021... and I realise a collection of about 10 CDs would supply all the music I evah listen to.
Things to do. Between now and Week at Westminster the homework us to listen Reform's Great Leader as wallpaper whilst freezing apples for winter crumbles.
Have a good day, all.
I see @Dura_Ace mentioned the NT. I had an interesting conversation with staff at our local NT property this week; they have had Sustrans out to talk about how they can make their round-the-estate accessible to mobility aids, including cycles, and I think by extension creating a link to the National Cycling / Walking Network.
I'd punt that in addition to it being a good thing to do, they've also noticed the changes to the Environmental Land Management scheme that has brought creation / maintenance of paths into the scope. Very commercially aware, the NT.
It's time to break out the "Walking, Wheeling and Cycling to Hardwick Hall" occasional blog.
Freezing apples! Excellent. Thanks - you have reminded me that I was planning to do just that this weekend.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
I’m afraid to say, @Dura_Ace, you are as gullible as the next intellectually average PBer - eg @foxy and @ydoethur
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
It 'smelt' like AI to me. Something about the way the two interacted didn't feel quite right. And of course there's the question of why two real humans would run podcast commentary on PB. Still, it is very impressive.
To me, AI is still a bit clumsy with analysis and opinion. In that piece, everything sounds superficially insightful, but it lacks that bite.
AI reminds me a lot about Trump - AI takes some information and hallucinates a set of facts to form the basis of a story to justify it...
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
That gap is not going to be bridged by 5k worth of designer knickers for the wife. You are also wrong - archbishops and regius professors are not getting multiples of what a cabinet minister makes. If you want money the trick is to make it elsewhere like Sunak and indeed "Pensions" Starmer, and the best way of exacerbating the problem is the prohibition on second jobs we are apparently expecting
archbishops? it's 2024, no-one gives a shit about archbishops
Jenrick is betting the house, now, on immigration being an issue 4-5 years down the line.
Well, he's not likely to be wrong is he? SKS is going to do √fuck all about it except increase it - should such a thing be possible.
Immigration numbers are falling dramatically and will not rise back to the Tory levels. The huge numbers that came over the past gour years were the result of short term factors. Jenrick will only remind the voters of the policy failure of the Tories.
1997 John Prescott at conference "Tony said there was to be no triumphalism. Well, sorry, Tony."
Not all the lame Kübler-Ross gags in the world can bridge the gap between then and now. I am happy to lay at any price bets that we will be hearing similar from Ange in the next few days.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
pay peanuts, get monkeys, complain about the stink. so it goes
Quite a lot of comments on The Guardian gunning for Starmer et al. over the freebies. I suspect this is because Pippa Crerar is now their Political Editor, poached from the Mirror. She was behind the exposés on a) Cummings' Barnard Castle adventure, and b) Partygate, when at the Mirror. She's obviously keen on exposing hypocrisy and wrong-doing. She won't give the Tories a free ride.
Jenrick is betting the house, now, on immigration being an issue 4-5 years down the line.
Well, he's not likely to be wrong is he? SKS is going to do √fuck all about it except increase it - should such a thing be possible.
Immigration numbers are falling dramatically and will not rise back to the Tory levels. The huge numbers that came over the past gour years were the result of short term factors. Jenrick will only remind the voters of the policy failure of the Tories.
And who was Immigration minister?
How many people came in on visas on his watch?
How many boat people?
The "yesterday's man, he failed before" attack lines write themselves.
Speaking of AI, Spotify's adverts are not only getting more numerous, but also much worse and seem to have no concept of 'I hate this ad and never want to hear it again?'
It has exactly that concept because it is trying to push you into subscribing (which I am surprised you don't as a pro musician, I understand the free sound quality is not great)
I pay Amazon music 10 a month, justified to myself because it is all the music evah. Then it tells me what I listened to in 2023, and 2022, and 2021... and I realise a collection of about 10 CDs would supply all the music I evah listen to.
Apparently only about 20% of singles ever released are available to be streamed online.
I've never signed up for a streaming service because almost all of what I listen to I already own. I still use an ipod. I buy new stuff - i.e. to actually own - but I spend less than £10 a month on new music. But if I was my teenage daughter, without half a lifetime's musical aquisition behind me and with the time and curiousity of youth, I can absolutely see that a subscription makes sense. I find it a bit sad though that she'll never own all this stuff. Aquiring a music collection is the closest most people in my generation got to aquiring art.
Jenrick is betting the house, now, on immigration being an issue 4-5 years down the line.
Well, he's not likely to be wrong is he? SKS is going to do √fuck all about it except increase it - should such a thing be possible.
Immigration numbers are falling dramatically and will not rise back to the Tory levels. The huge numbers that came over the past gour years were the result of short term factors. Jenrick will only remind the voters of the policy failure of the Tories.
It won't stop it being an issue, after all it was an issue in the Eighties even when we had net emigration in some years. The objection is not simply to the flows, it is to the cultural and societal changes from previous immigration, even in places where there are very few immigrants such as Clacton.
At some point we will have our own politicians echoing Trump in wanting legal immigrants deported.
Speaking of AI, Spotify's adverts are not only getting more numerous, but also much worse and seem to have no concept of 'I hate this ad and never want to hear it again?'
It has exactly that concept because it is trying to push you into subscribing (which I am surprised you don't as a pro musician, I understand the free sound quality is not great)
I pay Amazon music 10 a month, justified to myself because it is all the music evah. Then it tells me what I listened to in 2023, and 2022, and 2021... and I realise a collection of about 10 CDs would supply all the music I evah listen to.
I only tend to listen to recorded music as background noise, when I'm working or driving or at the gym. I don't usually listen to it for pleasure (I prefer playing it). So the quality is usually not important. (You're right though it is rubbish at that as well.)
Jenrick is the worst choice of those left. Not just all the dodginess, but also stupid ideas such as a ban on saying 'Alahu Akbar'. It is bizarre that so many MPs are supporting him. Conservatives must hope that he is 'pulling a Starmer' - indulging his party's worst tendencies in the leadership election and then promptly ignoring everything he said after winning. But that does not negate the dodginess, and from a man wealthy enough not to need any freebies.
The lesson from Starmer's current travails is do not make unimpeachable morality or a 'Mr Rules' persona too much of your gimmick. Tony Blair wrote of his regrets in this. If you behave so sanctimoniously when others misbehave, don't be surprised at their glee when you inevitably slip up.
So the Conservatives should not talk too much about these scandals, because the media needs no encouragment to focus on them and the Tories will inevitably be shown up by their own problems (and with Jenrick, far worse than Starmer's). More worthy of focus is that Starmer's potential 'upstream' method for tackling the boats may prove to be more cruel, and with fewer safeguards, than the Tories' own failed Rwanda plan.
The Tories are convinced that, unless they move further to the right, they will lose all their voters to Reform. They don’t seem to understand that they can also lose votes to Labour and the Lib Dems.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Put it another way. If Labour now own the National Trust their domination over British life is complete
Jenrick is the worst choice of those left. Not just all the dodginess, but also stupid ideas such as a ban on saying 'Alahu Akbar'. It is bizarre that so many MPs are supporting him. Conservatives must hope that he is 'pulling a Starmer' - indulging his party's worst tendencies in the leadership election and then promptly ignoring everything he said after winning. But that does not negate the dodginess, and from a man wealthy enough not to need any freebies.
The lesson from Starmer's current travails is do not make unimpeachable morality or a 'Mr Rules' persona too much of your gimmick. Tony Blair wrote of his regrets in this. If you behave so sanctimoniously when others misbehave, don't be surprised at their glee when you inevitably slip up.
So the Conservatives should not talk too much about these scandals, because the media needs no encouragment to focus on them and the Tories will inevitably be shown up by their own problems (and with Jenrick, far worse than Starmer's). More worthy of focus is that Starmer's potential 'upstream' method for tackling the boats may prove to be more cruel, and with fewer safeguards, than the Tories' own failed Rwanda plan.
The Tories are convinced that, unless they move further to the right, they will lose all their voters to Reform. They don’t seem to understand that they can also lose votes to Labour and the Lib Dems.
I’m not convinced they’ll lose many more of those that were remaining in their small electoral coalition to Labour/LDs. If you voted Tory at the last GE you were pretty die hard Tory, I think, and probably would naturally be rather unconvinced by those other two parties.
The challenge for the Tories is more about growing their coalition, and not stagnating/declining through natural attrition.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
pay peanuts, get monkeys, complain about the stink. so it goes
Except under no one's definition would £167K a year be described as peanuts. And as I said, politics is supposed to be about public service, not self enrichment.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
That gap is not going to be bridged by 5k worth of designer knickers for the wife. You are also wrong - archbishops and regius professors are not getting multiples of what a cabinet minister makes. If you want money the trick is to make it elsewhere like Sunak and indeed "Pensions" Starmer, and the best way of exacerbating the problem is the prohibition on second jobs we are apparently expecting
archbishops? it's 2024, no-one gives a shit about archbishops
Aside from the office politics, the revelation that AI can now produce extremely plausible podcasts - human conversations - from random chunks of text (and getting better the more text provided) is absolutely profound
That snippet was good enough to fool most on here despite the obvious and immediate doubts (why would a real US podcast comment on a UK PB thread still ongoing? And so quick?). Makes no sense
But it spells the death knell for a lot of radio, and indeed podcasts
I suspect "most on here", like me, didn't listen to it.
Things to do. Between now and Week at Westminster the homework us to listen Reform's Great Leader as wallpaper whilst freezing apples for winter crumbles.
Have a good day, all.
I see @Dura_Ace mentioned the NT. I had an interesting conversation with staff at our local NT property this week; they have had Sustrans out to talk about how they can make their round-the-estate accessible to mobility aids, including cycles, and I think by extension creating a link to the National Cycling / Walking Network.
I'd punt that in addition to it being a good thing to do, they've also noticed the changes to the Environmental Land Management scheme that has brought creation / maintenance of paths into the scope. Very commercially aware, the NT.
It's time to break out the "Walking, Wheeling and Cycling to Hardwick Hall" occasional blog.
Freezing apples! Excellent. Thanks - you have reminded me that I was planning to do just that this weekend.
The size of them this year. Absolute belters.
If they are belters you should be putting the best in newspaper in the garage to be baked apples for Christmas.
I'm recovering my garden from about 2-3 years of total neglect, and the apples are about the one thing doing well. But a couple of trees are now oversize and need a big prune, then next year I'll need to get back to removing some of the apples so that the rest get big.
I had other things, but did not catch any of them. I may get out to find some bilberries in Derbyshire, though, by the end of the month.
This year has been about clearing out, and all sorts of things need a new start. I'll be spending much of next summer dealing with new shoots of entrepreneurial blackberries, which are going to be everywhere. This winter will also be about replacing some structures, which have reached the end of their lives, and making it *my* garden, non mum's.
On thread - Jenrick's reached 63% now? I think he's reasonably the favourite under current circumstances but 63% seems too high to me. A lot still to happen between now and then.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
pay peanuts, get monkeys, complain about the stink. so it goes
Except under no one's definition would £167K a year be described as peanuts. And as I said, politics is supposed to be about public service, not self enrichment.
Some people just don't get it, and that includes most MPs! Legitimate, above board political donations are inevitable and needed. No MP needs free clothes, specs or holidays, and they shouldn't accept them if offered. If 80 grand a year plus generous expenses isn't enough (and I'd listen to sensible ideas about making the package more appealing) then what hope for the average citizen on far less than that?
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Put it another way. If Labour now own the National Trust their domination over British life is complete
That's pretty much how it seems.
I'll have to take a bit more interest in Restore Trust, who I've occasionally seen in the Telegraph or over on Conservative Home, trying to do political culture-war stuff in the NT.
It does seem to have some peculiar political links, and 'interesting' people involved.
The NT campaign modus operandi - drop *our* candidates on the Council with few votes because ballots only get a 1-2% turnout of members - reminds me of the anti-Fox Hunting campaign in the NT, or parts of the SWP playbook in Trades Unions that let them ultimately control organisations such as the NUT.
Jenrick is betting the house, now, on immigration being an issue 4-5 years down the line.
Well, he's not likely to be wrong is he? SKS is going to do √fuck all about it except increase it - should such a thing be possible.
Immigration numbers are falling dramatically and will not rise back to the Tory levels. The huge numbers that came over the past gour years were the result of short term factors. Jenrick will only remind the voters of the policy failure of the Tories.
It won't stop it being an issue, after all it was an issue in the Eighties even when we had net emigration in some years. The objection is not simply to the flows, it is to the cultural and societal changes from previous immigration, even in places where there are very few immigrants such as Clacton.
At some point we will have our own politicians echoing Trump in wanting legal immigrants deported.
There’s probably a multiple regression analysis you could do between the political salience of immigration and other variables.
My sense is that the primary factors are the visibility of (particularly “irregular”) migration, the absolute statistical rate of change, the amount politicians and media talk about it, and the overall performance of public services and living standards.
A combination of very negative vibes about the economy and public realm with a highly visible phenomenon of small boats and over-filled hotels and reception centres currently is quite a toxic recipe.
Jenrick is betting the house, now, on immigration being an issue 4-5 years down the line.
Well, he's not likely to be wrong is he? SKS is going to do √fuck all about it except increase it - should such a thing be possible.
Immigration numbers are falling dramatically and will not rise back to the Tory levels. The huge numbers that came over the past gour years were the result of short term factors. Jenrick will only remind the voters of the policy failure of the Tories.
It won't stop it being an issue, after all it was an issue in the Eighties even when we had net emigration in some years. The objection is not simply to the flows, it is to the cultural and societal changes from previous immigration, even in places where there are very few immigrants such as Clacton.
At some point we will have our own politicians echoing Trump in wanting legal immigrants deported.
There’s probably a multiple regression analysis you could do between the political salience of immigration and other variables.
My sense is that the primary factors are the visibility of (particularly “irregular”) migration, the absolute statistical rate of change, the amount politicians and media talk about it, and the overall performance of public services and living standards.
A combination of very negative vibes about the economy and public realm with a highly visible phenomenon of small boats and over-filled hotels and reception centres currently us quite a toxic recipe.
How the economy is doing is very important. If people feel poorer then suddenly a mass of brown people around claiming benefits become a salient issue. The times when immigration faded as a concern was boom years like the 90s.
On thread - Jenrick's reached 63% now? I think he's reasonably the favourite under current circumstances but 63% seems too high to me. A lot still to happen between now and then.
I agree. It’s entirely possible the conference will change things quite significantly.
I suspect Jenrick makes the last two, but who joins him and how much of chance they have against him will likely be dictated by how the candidates do at conference.
I still don’t think it’s inconceivable we get Jenrick v Badenoch.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
pay peanuts, get monkeys, complain about the stink. so it goes
Except under no one's definition would £167K a year be described as peanuts. And as I said, politics is supposed to be about public service, not self enrichment.
Some people just don't get it, and that includes most MPs! Legitimate, above board political donations are inevitable and needed. No MP needs free clothes, specs or holidays, and they shouldn't accept them if offered. If 80 grand a year plus generous expenses isn't enough (and I'd listen to sensible ideas about making the package more appealing) then what hope for the average citizen on far less than that?
Exactly that. Yes, considering their seniority you can argue they’re not remunerated at the going rate. But they’re still very well paid, compared to the overwhelming majority of the country, who have to make do and buy all the things they need for work etc from their own pay packets.
Jenrick is betting the house, now, on immigration being an issue 4-5 years down the line.
Well, he's not likely to be wrong is he? SKS is going to do √fuck all about it except increase it - should such a thing be possible.
Immigration numbers are falling dramatically and will not rise back to the Tory levels. The huge numbers that came over the past gour years were the result of short term factors. Jenrick will only remind the voters of the policy failure of the Tories.
It won't stop it being an issue, after all it was an issue in the Eighties even when we had net emigration in some years. The objection is not simply to the flows, it is to the cultural and societal changes from previous immigration, even in places where there are very few immigrants such as Clacton.
At some point we will have our own politicians echoing Trump in wanting legal immigrants deported.
There’s probably a multiple regression analysis you could do between the political salience of immigration and other variables.
My sense is that the primary factors are the visibility of (particularly “irregular”) migration, the absolute statistical rate of change, the amount politicians and media talk about it, and the overall performance of public services and living standards.
A combination of very negative vibes about the economy and public realm with a highly visible phenomenon of small boats and over-filled hotels and reception centres currently us quite a toxic recipe.
How the economy is doing is very important. If people feel poorer then suddenly a mass of brown people around claiming benefits become a salient issue. The times when immigration faded as a concern was boom years like the 90s.
Hello there.
You're a bit early this morning, but we always look forward to this moment.
Incidentally i was in paros a few weeks ago and can concur with much of what leon said about the city especially the north side which can feel quite third world in places. Some metro trains i seemed to be the only white person on. A big decline since my last visit.
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Hadrian's wall is a woke supra-national European infrastructure project, I suppose.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
pay peanuts, get monkeys, complain about the stink. so it goes
Except under no one's definition would £167K a year be described as peanuts. And as I said, politics is supposed to be about public service, not self enrichment.
Some people just don't get it, and that includes most MPs! Legitimate, above board political donations are inevitable and needed. No MP needs free clothes, specs or holidays, and they shouldn't accept them if offered. If 80 grand a year plus generous expenses isn't enough (and I'd listen to sensible ideas about making the package more appealing) then what hope for the average citizen on far less than that?
I know we disagree on a lot of things but you are absolutely right here. And this is not a party issue. Or at least we should oppose those who try to make it such.
Incidentally i was in paros a few weeks ago and can concur with much of what leon said about the city especially the north side which can feel quite third world in places. Some metro trains i seemed to be the only white person on. A big decline since my last visit.
Incidentally i was in paros a few weeks ago and can concur with much of what leon said about the city especially the north side which can feel quite third world in places. Some metro trains i seemed to be the only white person on. A big decline since my last visit.
Has anyone noticed the amount of russian propoganda now filling tiktok. One video has Putin saying welcome to russia then an array of scenes showing russias best bits. Another shows Putin walking to uplifting music. Worrying if the russians are targeting the uks youth like this.
The theory that infrastructure costs are prone to bloating when they are paid for centrally is supported by the example of the one kind of infrastructure that has remained relatively cheap, namely roads. Despite some big failures like the Lower Thames Crossing, Britain ranks mid-table overall, a better performance than for any other infrastructure type. The reason for this is that roads directly benefit a much wider constituency than any given railway project: pretty much anyone in the nearby area rather than just the people within about one kilometre of a given station. What’s more, 94 percent of miles travelled in the UK are on roads (80 percent in private cars, and 14 percent on buses and coaches), so many more people see themselves as having a stake in the issue. The tendency for local obstructionism is thus weaker, and even national government tends not to end up with spiralling costs. For the bulk of the projects, funded (or part-funded) and delivered by local councils themselves, the effect is even stronger.
The UK does well when building roads and crap when building railways.
UK governments (and many PBers) are obsessed with building railways.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
pay peanuts, get monkeys, complain about the stink. so it goes
Except under no one's definition would £167K a year be described as peanuts. And as I said, politics is supposed to be about public service, not self enrichment.
I believe Boris Johnson's phrase was "chickenfeed", not "peanuts", and that was £250k per annum not £167k.
And that was in 2009, so worth just under £400k now.
Has anyone noticed the amount of russian propoganda now filling tiktok. One video has Putin saying welcome to russia then an array of scenes showing russias best bits.
Pornography? Does it come with a free microscope to see Putin's bit?
That's actually a bit meta, commenting on our commenting!
Quite an interesting perspective, what podcast is it snipped from?
I know. Mad, right? I think it’s some podcast attached to NPR, they seem to read PB
They would enjoy the Sunday Special on Trump.
It's a shame they didn't wait for today's Kremlin bot to turn up. Imagine them analysing how this shows the British are all crazed anti-vaxxers who hang on everything that spews from Putin's undersized cock.
I want them to analyse the collective wisdom of @HYUFD and compare it to, say, @Dura_Ace and then summarise what that means about the UK political scene
Have they mentioned our version of 9/11 yet? #neverforget #stillgrowinginourhearts #peoplessycamore
The National Trust have become the countryside wing of The Labour Party now - I am no longer a member, nor do I visit their sites, or make any donations.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
Hadrian's wall is a woke supra-national European infrastructure project, I suppose.
Has anyone noticed the amount of russian propoganda now filling tiktok. One video has Putin saying welcome to russia then an array of scenes showing russias best bits.
Pornography? Does it come with a free microscope to see Putin's bit?
No its worrying because it seems every fifth video on my feed is russian propoganda. Are any of you guys on tiktok.
Just like expenses, it appears that once you become an MP, your moral compass gets switched off, and the pursuit of money over and above your earned wage becomes paramount. Political donations are perfectly legitimate as long as they are declared, above board and used for campaigning/running the office and suchlike. Where it starts to stink is the sheer amount of freebies MPs seem to attract, no matter what party they represent. If the PM needs a clothing allowance for them and a partner, then fair enough, make it part of the package and showcase the best of British, but can a cabinet minister really not afford to buy their own clothes? Now the other freebies are bit more stinky and complicated. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. Footie tickets and Swifty tickets? Get to fuck, they should be buying their own. Things like Charity Ball tickets are maybe more acceptable, but it's complicated. Ed Davey taking cash to care for his kid? A tough one, but on balance, I don't like it. Farage off to the States to support an injured mate? Unacceptable. It's gone on for years, but it needs to be stricter and all the freebies stopped. Free Gear Keir and Vicky Sponge have done us all a favour by really highlighting it.
THh thing is, MPs and cabinet ministers are wildy underpaid compared to their peers in any other walk of life. All this caterwauling is just going to make it an even more unattractive profession for talented people to consider.
But they are not underpaid copmpared to the majority of the UK population - and they are supposd to be wanting the job out of a sense of public duty and service not to line their own pockets.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
pay peanuts, get monkeys, complain about the stink. so it goes
Except under no one's definition would £167K a year be described as peanuts. And as I said, politics is supposed to be about public service, not self enrichment.
Some people just don't get it, and that includes most MPs! Legitimate, above board political donations are inevitable and needed. No MP needs free clothes, specs or holidays, and they shouldn't accept them if offered. If 80 grand a year plus generous expenses isn't enough (and I'd listen to sensible ideas about making the package more appealing) then what hope for the average citizen on far less than that?
I know we disagree on a lot of things but you are absolutely right here. And this is not a party issue. Or at least we should oppose those who try to make it such.
Yeah, as a teacher this argument really pisses me off. I get that some/many people will judge the worth of their job entirely by the salary it attracts. That's perfectly legitimate and I have no beef with it whatsoever in the vast majority of cases, but I'm not sure it chimes well with a job that requires you to put others' interests before your own such as being an MP.
The pertinent question is whether an MP's salary and benefits is sufficient for them and their family to live comfortably both in constituency and in London. We don't need to 'attract talent' by competing with private sector salaries. We do need to make the job of being an MP bearable but that's much more about public discourse, respect, stopping abuse etc than it is about their wage.
Has anyone noticed the amount of russian propoganda now filling tiktok. One video has Putin saying welcome to russia then an array of scenes showing russias best bits.
Pornography? Does it come with a free microscope to see Putin's bit?
No its worrying because it seems every fifth video on my feed is russian propoganda. Are any of you guys on tiktok.
Aside from the office politics, the revelation that AI can now produce extremely plausible podcasts - human conversations - from random chunks of text (and getting better the more text provided) is absolutely profound
That snippet was good enough to fool most on here despite the obvious and immediate doubts (why would a real US podcast comment on a UK PB thread still ongoing? And so quick?). Makes no sense
But it spells the death knell for a lot of radio, and indeed podcasts
I suspect "most on here", like me, didn't listen to it.
Old fckr confession, I’ve never downloaded/listened to a podcast in my puff. I realise I may be missing a lot of good stuff but the self-congratulatory tone of much of the proponents puts me off. The thought of listening to Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson snickering at how clever they are makes me feel a bit pukey.
Boring but important, Labour have quietly made a technical but crucial change to Investment Trust disclosure requirements which the Tories should have done years ago. Huzzah for Tulip Siddiq. And she did this in her own clothes.
The theory that infrastructure costs are prone to bloating when they are paid for centrally is supported by the example of the one kind of infrastructure that has remained relatively cheap, namely roads. Despite some big failures like the Lower Thames Crossing, Britain ranks mid-table overall, a better performance than for any other infrastructure type. The reason for this is that roads directly benefit a much wider constituency than any given railway project: pretty much anyone in the nearby area rather than just the people within about one kilometre of a given station. What’s more, 94 percent of miles travelled in the UK are on roads (80 percent in private cars, and 14 percent on buses and coaches), so many more people see themselves as having a stake in the issue. The tendency for local obstructionism is thus weaker, and even national government tends not to end up with spiralling costs. For the bulk of the projects, funded (or part-funded) and delivered by local councils themselves, the effect is even stronger.
The UK does well when building roads and crap when building railways.
UK governments (and many PBers) are obsessed with building railways.
There's an argument that what we should be paying more attention to is indeed the things we're screwing up rather than the things we're doing OK at -- more scope to improve...
Comments
I generated that “podcast” by feeding this thread into AI. Which will now generate podcasts on any text provided
Sorry
Chapeau to @mercator for sensing this early on
The 2024 is the year of the lawyer.
Starmer, Jenrick, then Kamala Harris.
The scandal they really want is the PM buying skirts for his own use
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1837404619045052543
They’re going to have to start to hide missiles and bombs in Vladivostok.
ARE YOU?
The Groucho membership of @rcs1000 hangs in the balance. Up to you
But there's nothing obviously traceable, and I'm being judgemental on the basis of a total lack of evidence.
Seems a lifetime ago and it is
What they really need is wider context, which the AI would get if it could scour more of the posting history.
The thing is you don’t talk about AI, you relentlessly spam PB about the subject.
Regardless of who wins, I suspect the Ukrainians are going to go a bit drone-crazy on trashing the Russian economy before the Inauguration. Force the Russians to the negotiating table.
Now that is a poor argument when talking about nurses and teachers who are on fuck all but not when you are talking about the Prime Minister who is already on a few quid short of £167,000 a year.
This is another failing of our adoption of this idea of professional politicians - politics as a career rather than as service.
It would be interesting to see how many people were prosecuted under these laws, overseen by a certain DPP.
One of the two depots hit last night had reportedly been expanded to hold ammunition from North Korea.
All three depots are within the claimed range of the new Ukrainian missile-drone. You'd imagine they would have hit these earlier if they could have, so it has to be a new capability that has enabled this to happen now.
Cause is equinox, effect is various stuff like grass stops growing and apples ripen, which people observed and named when they still thought the earth was flat and the sun was a fat yellow god.
But there is a whole industry of corporate hospitality- those prawn sandwiches aren't eating themselves.
They're all pretty shit anyway, tbf.
She also isn't the First Lady, and your insistence on calling her that has a disturbing shades of grey or gray feel to it.
And a good morning to everyone else!
That snippet was good enough to fool most on here despite the obvious and immediate doubts (why would a real US podcast comment on a UK PB thread still ongoing? And so quick?). Makes no sense
But it spells the death knell for a lot of radio, and indeed podcasts
https://x.com/ryanobles/status/1837164859525353788?t=F65CgRlsQFa-lZ-p-xbwig&s=19
Fairfax county is quite a Dem stronghold, I believe.
"New Satellite Imagery of Toropets: Over 60 Bunkers/Warehouses Destroyed!"
I don't know who he is, but he has a northern accent and properly idiomatic English, rather than the strangled 1950s version that comes when some Germans try too hard, or the studied Victorian / Edwardian version that comes from some Russians who learnt before the Soviet Union opened up.
"This is gonna be quite a long video I think, so maybe get yourself a cuppa-tea and soom biscuits; I recommend a packet a coostard creams ...." (It's 15 minutes.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP2z3NKvaaM
The lesson from Starmer's current travails is do not make unimpeachable morality or a 'Mr Rules' persona too much of your gimmick. Tony Blair wrote of his regrets in this. If you behave so sanctimoniously when others misbehave, don't be surprised at their glee when you inevitably slip up.
So the Conservatives should not talk too much about these scandals, because the media needs no encouragment to focus on them and the Tories will inevitably be shown up by their own problems (and with Jenrick, far worse than Starmer's). More worthy of focus is that Starmer's potential 'upstream' method for tackling the boats may prove to be more cruel, and with fewer safeguards, than the Tories' own failed Rwanda plan.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/sep/20/martin-rowson-on-keir-starmers-free-glasses-cartoon
Guardian cartoons on Keir freebies. It's a characteristic of guardian cartoonists that they think their hatred of their subject is a substitute for wit and humour. Keir should be worried.
Have a good day, all.
I see @Dura_Ace mentioned the NT. I had an interesting conversation with staff at our local NT property this week; they have had Sustrans out to talk about how they can make their round-the-estate accessible to mobility aids, including cycles, and I think by extension creating a link to the National Cycling / Walking Network.
I'd punt that in addition to it being a good thing to do, they've also noticed the changes to the Environmental Land Management scheme that has brought creation / maintenance of paths into the scope. Very commercially aware, the NT.
It's time to break out the "Walking, Wheeling and Cycling to Hardwick Hall" occasional blog.
It's all a feature of contemporary capitalism.
The amusing thing about British political lobbying and corruption is how petty it often is. A campervan here, a borrowed designer dress there, football tickets. It allows us to gloss over the more rampant corruption of sweetheart deals for property developers and PPE etc.
I didn't read it first - honest !
https://youtube.com/watch?v=v2B28O6YjI0
Onwards and upwards!
I pay Amazon music 10 a month, justified to myself because it is all the music evah. Then it tells me what I listened to in 2023, and 2022, and 2021... and I realise a collection of about 10 CDs would supply all the music I evah listen to.
The size of them this year. Absolute belters.
Not all the lame Kübler-Ross gags in the world can bridge the gap between then and now. I am happy to lay at any price bets that we will be hearing similar from Ange in the next few days.
How many people came in on visas on his watch?
How many boat people?
The "yesterday's man, he failed before" attack lines write themselves.
I've never signed up for a streaming service because almost all of what I listen to I already own. I still use an ipod. I buy new stuff - i.e. to actually own - but I spend less than £10 a month on new music.
But if I was my teenage daughter, without half a lifetime's musical aquisition behind me and with the time and curiousity of youth, I can absolutely see that a subscription makes sense.
I find it a bit sad though that she'll never own all this stuff. Aquiring a music collection is the closest most people in my generation got to aquiring art.
At some point we will have our own politicians echoing Trump in wanting legal immigrants deported.
The challenge for the Tories is more about growing their coalition, and not stagnating/declining through natural attrition.
I'm recovering my garden from about 2-3 years of total neglect, and the apples are about the one thing doing well. But a couple of trees are now oversize and need a big prune, then next year I'll need to get back to removing some of the apples so that the rest get big.
I had other things, but did not catch any of them. I may get out to find some bilberries in Derbyshire, though, by the end of the month.
This year has been about clearing out, and all sorts of things need a new start. I'll be spending much of next summer dealing with new shoots of entrepreneurial blackberries, which are going to be everywhere. This winter will also be about replacing some structures, which have reached the end of their lives, and making it *my* garden, non mum's.
If 80 grand a year plus generous expenses isn't enough (and I'd listen to sensible ideas about making the package more appealing) then what hope for the average citizen on far less than that?
It does seem to have some peculiar political links, and 'interesting' people involved.
The NT campaign modus operandi - drop *our* candidates on the Council with few votes because ballots only get a 1-2% turnout of members - reminds me of the anti-Fox Hunting campaign in the NT, or parts of the SWP playbook in Trades Unions that let them ultimately control organisations such as the NUT.
My sense is that the primary factors are the visibility of (particularly “irregular”) migration, the absolute statistical rate of change, the amount politicians and media talk about it, and the overall performance of public services and living standards.
A combination of very negative vibes about the economy and public realm with a highly visible phenomenon of small boats and over-filled hotels and reception centres currently is quite a toxic recipe.
I suspect Jenrick makes the last two, but who joins him and how much of chance they have against him will likely be dictated by how the candidates do at conference.
I still don’t think it’s inconceivable we get Jenrick v Badenoch.
You're a bit early this morning, but we always look forward to this moment.
One video has Putin saying welcome to russia then an array of scenes showing russias best bits.
Another shows Putin walking to uplifting music.
Worrying if the russians are targeting the uks youth like this.
The UK does well when building roads and crap when building railways.
UK governments (and many PBers) are obsessed with building railways.
And that was in 2009, so worth just under £400k now.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jul/13/boris-johnson-second-salary-chickenfeed
Does it come with a free microscope to see Putin's bit?
The pertinent question is whether an MP's salary and benefits is sufficient for them and their family to live comfortably both in constituency and in
London. We don't need to 'attract talent' by competing with private sector salaries. We do need to make the job of being an MP bearable but that's much more about public discourse, respect, stopping abuse etc than it is about their wage.
I would have expected the ratio to be liker 50%.
Boring but important, Labour have quietly made a technical but crucial change to Investment Trust disclosure requirements which the Tories should have done years ago. Huzzah for Tulip Siddiq. And she did this in her own clothes.
This lad’s video talking about himself realising how miserable Britain is now after travelling hit my soul
https://x.com/NxlAnglo/status/1836483085636112690