The internet is having so much fun with Jaguar rebrand. If the task for the PR agency was to get lots of people taking about the brand, they certainly achieved that. Not sure it will lead to lots of people buying their new perfume, that's what they sell right given the ad?
That approach works for something like tbh skincare. Not sure it'll work for a car company.
Does anyone else have irrational hatreds for certain types of social media?
For me it is Facebook and Linkedin
I still get notifications from old friends who are STILL posting shit on Facebook and I quietly want to punch them. It's a depressing hospice of a place, and I don't want to think about it
Linkedin is far far worse. Everything about it makes me want to vomit
Weirdly, that's it. TikTok is probably much more corrosive, likewise Instagram, but I just find them sightly irritating or merely boring
YouTube comments section is the only place I still find humour and human connection prevailing. Plus of course niche forums like PB.
LOL 43% want to run Kamala again, after she lost by a landslide to Donald Trump!
Buttigeig is a much better politician, as is Josh Shapiro from that list. Those two would be my picks for ‘28, when the likely Republican nominee is JD Vance or Ron DeSantis. If they insist on a woman then definitely Gretchen Whitmer over AOC.
LOL 43% want to run Kamala again, after she lost by a landslide to Donald Trump!
Buttigeig is a much better politician, as is Josh Shapiro from that list. Those two would be my picks for ‘28, when the likely Republican nominee is JD Vance or Ron DeSantis. If they insist on a woman then definitely Gretchen Whitmer over AOC.
These polls are worthless this far from an election.
Also, Newsom is a staggeringly poor candidate, who would struggle to win California.
Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)
You are making the mistake of seeing China as Russia's ally. They're not. To them Putin is a idiot, but one who's stupidity serves China's purpose for the moment.
The war is useful to China for a variety of reasons, so Xi has been giving Russia some moderate help to keep the conflict rolling along. Mostly by selling them equipment, parts and raw material they can't get elsewhere because of sanctions. Help that, not coincidentally, makes China money.
That's as far as it goes. China will not sell Russia anything but the most primitive weapons, old Soviet era stuff it has lying about in warehouses going rusty. You will not see modern Chinese aircraft, tanks or missiles used by Russia, and certainly no Chinese soldiers. Xi does not want a direct conflict with the West until he's ready to jump for Taiwan.
Given how Russia's economy is cratering China would need to pump in incredible amounts of money, men and hardware to ensure Russia wins. But they're not. Compared to the support Ukraine is getting from the US and Europe, China's support for Russia barely exists. I see zero indications that will change.
I think that's complacent.
China is obviously seeking to play this for their advantage, and at the moment this means not being all-in supporting Russia. Recently this has involved Chinese banks cutting off some payment options for Russian firms, to keep on the right side of Western sanctions. But this calculation could easily change.
Consider the effect of two known Trump policies. Stopping support for Ukraine and imposing tariffs on China. The combined effect of these two policies would be to reduce the amount of help that Russia would require to prevail over Ukraine, and to reduce the incentive to China to limit their support to Russia to avoid Western sanctions.
The result could be a change in Chinese policy to provide sufficient support to Russia that it can overcome the limited European support for Ukraine, because the tariffs will mean that China will already have suffered much of any consequence for doing so.
There are things China can be very helpful with (electronics, some munitions), but for others - like food - Russia is very much on its own.
The internet is having so much fun with Jaguar rebrand. If the task for the PR agency was to get lots of people taking about the brand, they certainly achieved that. Not sure it will lead to lots of people buying their new perfume, that's what they sell right given the ad?
LOL 43% want to run Kamala again, after she lost by a landslide to Donald Trump!
Buttigeig is a much better politician, as is Josh Shapiro from that list. Those two would be my picks for ‘28, when the likely Republican nominee is JD Vance or Ron DeSantis. If they insist on a woman then definitely Gretchen Whitmer over AOC.
These polls are worthless this far from an election.
Also, Newsom is a staggeringly poor candidate, who would struggle to win California.
Worthless as an actual prediction for ‘28 of course, but also indicative of the thinking that the Dems don’t understand how and why they just lost.
Newsom would suffer from the same problems as Harris did, as having gone all-in on the California woke nonsense for the past decade.
Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)
You are making the mistake of seeing China as Russia's ally. They're not. To them Putin is a idiot, but one who's stupidity serves China's purpose for the moment.
The war is useful to China for a variety of reasons, so Xi has been giving Russia some moderate help to keep the conflict rolling along. Mostly by selling them equipment, parts and raw material they can't get elsewhere because of sanctions. Help that, not coincidentally, makes China money.
That's as far as it goes. China will not sell Russia anything but the most primitive weapons, old Soviet era stuff it has lying about in warehouses going rusty. You will not see modern Chinese aircraft, tanks or missiles used by Russia, and certainly no Chinese soldiers. Xi does not want a direct conflict with the West until he's ready to jump for Taiwan.
Given how Russia's economy is cratering China would need to pump in incredible amounts of money, men and hardware to ensure Russia wins. But they're not. Compared to the support Ukraine is getting from the US and Europe, China's support for Russia barely exists. I see zero indications that will change.
I think that's complacent.
China is obviously seeking to play this for their advantage, and at the moment this means not being all-in supporting Russia. Recently this has involved Chinese banks cutting off some payment options for Russian firms, to keep on the right side of Western sanctions. But this calculation could easily change.
Consider the effect of two known Trump policies. Stopping support for Ukraine and imposing tariffs on China. The combined effect of these two policies would be to reduce the amount of help that Russia would require to prevail over Ukraine, and to reduce the incentive to China to limit their support to Russia to avoid Western sanctions.
The result could be a change in Chinese policy to provide sufficient support to Russia that it can overcome the limited European support for Ukraine, because the tariffs will mean that China will already have suffered much of any consequence for doing so.
There are things China can be very helpful with (electronics, some munitions), but for others - like food - Russia is very much on its own.
For all his many faults, Xi has been pretty good when it comes to the Ukraine war. He realised quickly that it wasn’t in China’s interest to get involved, and that his country could benefit from a significantly weakened Russia in both the short and long terms.
That’s not to mean he shouldn’t be under pressure for being a conduit for sanctioned goods in one direction and sanctioned oil in the other, both of which are assisting Putin’s war machine, but if China had got involved militarily we’d almost certainly be looking at WWIII by now.
When I became a Democrat, it was the more tolerant party. Republicans were run by religious nut jobs and corporate robots. Now, the Democrats are in a lot of ways the less tolerant party.
The least tolerant part is actually the establishment wing of the party that says anyone opposing their anointed leaders is committing heresy. If you try to give constructive criticism of the party to improve it, they drive you from the party while screaming, “He’s not a real Democrat!!”
They hate populists. They have become the corporate robots I couldn’t stand. They hate their base. They insult our intelligence by pretending that the donors are not in charge. They think we should be controlled and learn how to follow orders. And they have no idea how elitist they sound.
Predictably, their unironic reaction to this post will be, “Heretic!!”
The FBI arrested a man who's been charged with planning an attack on the New York Stock Exchange
A Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged with a plot to “reboot” the U.S. government by planting a bomb at the New York Stock Exchange this week and detonating it with a remote-controlled device, according to the FBI.
Did we all see Sunny Hostin on The View getting told to read a ‘legal note’, minutes after talking about the historic allegations surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz - without mentioning that the FBI investigation resulted in no charges against him?
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
We would like to thank the amazing NHS doctors and nurses who cared for him after his stroke in 2019 and the dedicated staff at the care home where he passed away after latterly living with Alzheimer’s.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
“John’s punched a bloke”
I think most people thought better for him when he did come out swinging against that egg thrower- i did .
The current situation is that there is assisted dying for people with money, but not for the poor.
I'm not sure that's morally justifiable.
Don’t worry. After this government is finished with us no one is going to have any money
As I have written about, when my mother was dying in hospital, a nurse openly wanted her dead. Because she was terminally ill.
There’s a reason why people who’ve studied the history of ethics don’t want the same people treating patients and “assisting” suicides.
Even silly comedies like Scrubs touched upon people in hospitals becoming callously desensitised to older, ill people taking up time and attention rather than just dying.
Yes, it is one of a number of reasons that I am not keen on the Euthanasia* Bill.
I have seen it too many times, and sometimes in myself. It's not just being glad that someone's suffering is over, but also often relief that you won't be called to see them again. There is relief for staff too when someone dies. The journey from bereavement counselling to Ash Cash is a short one.
* let's call it what it is rather than use the term "Assisted Dying"
A brutal but honest reflection there, well done.
I'm opposed for a number of reasons, but what it could do to people in the medical field is an aspect of it.
Keeping the right balance between empathy and objectivity is the hardest bit to being a Doctor. Over empathise with patients and you risk losing objectivity in their treatment, don't empathise enough and you risk becoming callously and arrogant. You need a certain mental detachment in order to drill a hole in someone's skull, or stick a needle in their heart, you can't be thinking of what will happen to their dependents if you slip. I have seen people fail both ways and recognised warning signs in myself.
To take it back to silly comedies*, I remember a scene from Scrubs again on that topic, with a senior doctor talking to a younger one about why they make dark jokes sometimes and are detached, looking at a surgeon explaining to a family that something went wrong and the patient died, that he will say he's sorry, and then he would be going back to work. 'Do you think anyone else in that room is going back to work today?'.
*I get most of my life lessons from TV shows and movies.
I don't watch hospital shows as a general rule. It must be even worse for the police. I need to escape work not watch it for entertainment.
I think the moral danger is more obvious in Medicine, but I see it in other walks of life too, particularly where an individual can act in ways that impact on others. I think @DavidL manages well with his prosecutions of sex offenders. Living in that sewer corrodes ones ideas of how men and women should interact. It's hard to retain a moral compass in such work, but someone has to do it.
It's also why cops become callous. The notion that everyone else is on the make and can't be trusted seeps into how they act. Politicians risk it too, and journalists. Financiers start to believe that everyone has their price.
It's why people need time to psychologically decompress and spend time with people in completely different walks of life. We all live in bubbles to a greater or lesser degree, and that isn't always a bad thing, but some bubbles can become toxic very quickly. I've seen too many go over to the Dark Side.
Try Waterloo Road!!
Even I can see the absurdity in that show!
That's the other reason that I don't watch hospital shows. The medical and procedural gaffes grate so much.
I do make an occasional exception. I loved Green Wing for example, though perhaps because it is about staff interactions with patients barely feature.
I loathed "This is going to Hurt" by Adam Kay, though critics seemed to love it.
The only medical show that I watched was Cardiac Arrest - Good dark humour with good characters without it being silly
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
Somewhere I have a 1997 election pledge card signed by him and given out by him personally at a campaign stop in Loughborough.
Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.
There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.
It may make some think twice about giving to people doing ridiculous things in the name of Charidee. Not all such stunts are fraudulent, but the Charity Commission has a hard time keeping an eye on them.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
Apparently he was encouraged to pursue a career in politics by Sir Antony Eden, who he served whilst the former PM was recuperating from surgery on a cruise ship. If true, it's intriguing and kind of reflects well on them both.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
How to totally annoy all of your existing customers, while also not attracting the new customers at which you’re aiming the advert.
The remarkable thing is that JLR have any customers at-all. They build very expensive vehicles which are remarkably unreliable, and have done so for long enough that this is the main thing the brand is known for with the public.
Jag in particular - what segment are they chasing? If I wanted a really nice expensive saloon or sports car, there will be something from Merc, BMW, Audi, Lexus which is aimed at the segment I'm after and probably won't be going back to the dealership on a lorry once a month.
If I really want to show off ostentatiously wealth, I'd order a Bentley.
If I want an offroad workhouse, Ford Rangers are OK if you're handing them back in at the end of the lease (you don't want one out of warranty, but they last the first 3 years OK), or probably a HiLux if its a long-term keeper.
I just don't see what the target market is for "expensive, fairly average, terrible build quality and remarkably unreliable".
It may make some think twice about giving to people doing ridiculous things in the name of Charidee. Not all such stunts are fraudulent, but the Charity Commission has a hard time keeping an eye on them.
The regulator’s findings showed that Club Nook, a private firm set up by the Ingram-Moores in April 2020, was paid an advance of £1.47m for Sir Capt Tom’s three books, including his best-selling autobiography, Tomorrow Will be a Good Day.
April 2020 was just when he became famous. Its unclear from the BBC report if this company was something totally separate venture that his daughter setup and then used to enrich herself later on by funneling money through it, or if all of this was all about self enrichment as soon as his charity walk took off.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
“John’s punched a bloke”
I think most people thought better for him when he did come out swinging against that egg thrower- i did .
The DM and its like really went for him over that, but most normal people felt like you and me. It was a perfectly understandable response to an unexpected assault.
I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.
Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.
The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.
Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.
I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.
Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
But the analogy is entirely wrong
Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)
China also has vast reserves of manpower and can chivvy tributary states into assisting Putin. NB North Korea suddenly coming up with 100,000 soldiers, what a coincidence
This changes the equation entirely. Xi Jinping has made it clear he won't let Russia lose or Putin fall. That's it. To borrow your allegory it's like Germany in World War 1 having the USA on its side, rather than opposing, only this time America is right next door to Berlin and Britain cannot blockade any of their trade
I agree with most of this. As I mentioned a few days ago, Hitler was not a nuclear dictator supported by another nuclear-armed dictator.
We need to think very carefully indeed, in this situation, before reaching for what can sometimes be tempting but ahistorical analogies.
But, if one is a nuclear-armed power, one absolutely cannot give way to threats from another nuclear-armed power. Otherwise, deterrence collapses.
What worries me is that we don't seem to be functioning within a predictable framework of deterrence , as in the Cold War, though, when roomfulls of strategists on bith sides constantly sought to review it and update it for decades.
I doubt very much that a Soviet Prsident would have ordered a full invasion of Ukraine had it come under Western influence after World War Ii, for instance, or that the West would have provided the wherewithal for Ukraine to fire into Russia in response, for instance. What is precisely most worrying me is that the ratio of unpredictable anarchy to strategy of deterrence seems to be on the rise.
Under Cold War rules, Eastern Europe was in the Soviet zone of influence. Any kind of mucking around across the Iron Curtain would have been a breach of the unwritten rules. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, proper.
Which is part of what upsets Putin so badly. Eastern Europe isn’t supposed to have agency. They are supposed (in his mind) to give fealty to Russia.
The West didn't intervene when Stalin organised a coup in Czechoslovakia after WW2. Maybe we should have done.
With (a lot of) hindsight, we probably should have told the German army to about turn in 1945, kept them intact, and marched with them to Moscow.
That's essentially what they wanted us to do at the time.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
Somewhere I have a 1997 election pledge card signed by him and given out by him personally at a campaign stop in Loughborough.
Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.
There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.
Starmer is New Labour without the charisma and when they don't have any of other people's money to waste.
Why did so many people want to shut down any discussion of the possibility that the virus may have come from a Wuhan lab? I still don't get it.
It was a problem that some intern deep in the bowels of the New York Times decided that the idea that a virus that started in Wuhan might have something to do with the Amalgamated Wuhan Virus Corporation is racist, and the bulk of prestige media just said: “Okay.”
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
“John’s punched a bloke”
I think most people thought better for him when he did come out swinging against that egg thrower- i did .
The DM and its like really went for him over that, but most normal people felt like you and me. It was a perfectly understandable response to an unexpected assault.
Their coverage was a complete yolk.
Most people felt he was quite white to act as he did.
But the press give no shell ter from their silliness.
Why did so many people want to shut down any discussion of the possibility that the virus may have come from a Wuhan lab? I still don't get it.
It was a problem that some intern deep in the bowels of the New York Times decided that the idea that a virus that started in Wuhan might have something to do with the Amalgamated Wuhan Virus Corporation is racist, and the bulk of prestige media just said: “Okay.”
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
Somewhere I have a 1997 election pledge card signed by him and given out by him personally at a campaign stop in Loughborough.
Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.
There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.
Starmer is New Labour without the charisma and when they don't have any of other people's money to waste.
Starmer government is a Microsoft Windows 365 Link computer vs New Labour Mac mini....
Mr. Urquhart, it's worth comparing this government with the Coalition, who also had a difficult economic inheritance.
The Conservatives had highlighted the difficult economic picture ahead of the election, and campaigned on making cuts to try and sort it out. Labour ducked all of that, even with persistent and enormous leads. This raises not just the lack of a mandate from the electorate for many actions, it also means (seemingly) they didn't actually do much of the work ahead of time.
Edited extra bit: and RIP John Prescott. Alzheimer's is horrendous.
I think it should be a swap deal, for each one of these celebs we take, we should be able to send one of ours to US. James Corden your flight to America is departing....
Don't rock the boat - they already have Piers Morgan...
Once you rule out most of the new boys'n'girls, the elder states(wo)men, the ones on the non-partisan track (speakers, select committees) and the ones like James C and Tom T waiting for it all to fall apart...
... How many of those 57 are left? If there are any, they must be pretty annoyed this morning. Imagine- less credible than Andrew Rosindell.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
“John’s punched a bloke”
I think most people thought better for him when he did come out swinging against that egg thrower- i did .
The DM and its like really went for him over that, but most normal people felt like you and me. It was a perfectly understandable response to an unexpected assault.
Their coverage was a complete yolk.
Most people felt he was quite white to act as he did.
But the press give no shell ter from their silliness.
Once you rule out most of the new boys'n'girls, the elder states(wo)men, the ones on the non-partisan track (speakers, select committees) and the ones like James C and Tom T waiting for it all to fall apart...
... How many of those 57 are left? If there are any, they must be pretty annoyed this morning. Imagine- less credible than Andrew Rosindell.
This is the Tory party. If they had only 20 MPs I am not sure 20 whips would be enough to maintain discipline
Once you rule out most of the new boys'n'girls, the elder states(wo)men, the ones on the non-partisan track (speakers, select committees) and the ones like James C and Tom T waiting for it all to fall apart...
... How many of those 57 are left? If there are any, they must be pretty annoyed this morning. Imagine- less credible than Andrew Rosindell.
This is the Tory party. If they had only 20 MPs I am not sure 20 whips would be enough to maintain discipline
It's the kind of ratio that might case the Stasi to say "hold on chaps, is that a bit excessive?"
Especially since it doesn't matter. You need party discipline if you are a government trying to get business through. It can be helpful if you are an opposition with a chance of winning the odd vote.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
Somewhere I have a 1997 election pledge card signed by him and given out by him personally at a campaign stop in Loughborough.
Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.
There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.
Starmer is New Labour without the charisma and when they don't have any of other people's money to waste.
Starmer government is a Microsoft Windows 365 Link computer vs New Labour Mac mini....
Starmer government is Win CE (*) - looked bad, was clunky and no-one knew what it was for. New Labour was Windows XP - flash and good looking, but manky under the hood. Sunil's government was Windows Vista.
What I really want the government to be is VxWorks: small, well-implemented, works really well and does what it does very reliably.
(*) I had to work with when it was first released on an STB project. It wasn't good. The documentation was so new that the APIs differed from the documentation, and we had to ask MS which was accurate. Were we coding to the API, as the documentation would change, or the documentation because the API would change. The people we asked didn't know.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
How to totally annoy all of your existing customers, while also not attracting the new customers at which you’re aiming the advert.
The remarkable thing is that JLR have any customers at-all. They build very expensive vehicles which are remarkably unreliable, and have done so for long enough that this is the main thing the brand is known for with the public.
Jag in particular - what segment are they chasing? If I wanted a really nice expensive saloon or sports car, there will be something from Merc, BMW, Audi, Lexus which is aimed at the segment I'm after and probably won't be going back to the dealership on a lorry once a month.
If I really want to show off ostentatiously wealth, I'd order a Bentley.
If I want an offroad workhouse, Ford Rangers are OK if you're handing them back in at the end of the lease (you don't want one out of warranty, but they last the first 3 years OK), or probably a HiLux if its a long-term keeper.
I just don't see what the target market is for "expensive, fairly average, terrible build quality and remarkably unreliable".
Jag's problem is that they are a heritage brand that appeals to a demographic that is too old.
My Dad has always loved Jags, indeed in 1960 he drove one to a small Spanish fishing village called Torremelinos for his honeymoon, a 1948 model that he had bought and done up for £10. He gave it away when he got back as couldn't afford the petrol. Since then he has had Mark 2, Mark 10, XJ12 and currently has an XJ. The recent one is 20 years old and pretty reliable. The XJ12 was brilliant fun on the rare occasions that it worked.
That walnut and leather market is as old as my Dad and Prescott. If they are to survive then they do need to engage a youth market. Remember the days when every footballer wanted an E type? It is possible to get a youth market, but far more likely that Jaguar will follow MG, and just be badge engineered cars from the far East.
Wow Captain Tom family are the worst....in a statement to the BBC they claim that they never promised to make donations to charity from the book advance and their dead father decided he wanted to keep the money...despite the BBC having press releases etc saying money from the book will go to the foundation.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
Somewhere I have a 1997 election pledge card signed by him and given out by him personally at a campaign stop in Loughborough.
Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.
There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.
Starmer is New Labour without the charisma and when they don't have any of other people's money to waste.
Starmer government is a Microsoft Windows 365 Link computer vs New Labour Mac mini....
Starmer government is Win CE (*) - looked bad, was clunky and no-one knew what it was for. New Labour was Windows XP - flash and good looking, but manky under the hood. Sunil's government was Windows Vista.
What I really want the government to be is VxWorks: small, well-implemented, works really well and does what it does very reliably.
(*) I had to work with when it was first released on an STB project. It wasn't good. The documentation was so new that the APIs differed from the documentation, and we had to ask MS which was accurate. Were we coding to the API, as the documentation would change, or the documentation because the API would change. The people we asked didn't know.
Well the Tory Party is WindowsVista, ugly, bloated, nobody wants it and it crashes (the economy ) a lot.
Why did so many people want to shut down any discussion of the possibility that the virus may have come from a Wuhan lab? I still don't get it.
It was a problem that some intern deep in the bowels of the New York Times decided that the idea that a virus that started in Wuhan might have something to do with the Amalgamated Wuhan Virus Corporation is racist, and the bulk of prestige media just said: “Okay.”
Partly because how it started was a complete irrelevance when it came to tackling it.
And we will probably never know for sure how it started. What annoys me is that all this argument about how it started deflects from the one thing we can certainly pin on the Chinese government: that their secrecy and delay at the start of the pandemic allowed it to spread worldwide far quicker than could have been the case.
They probably could not have stopped it spreading totally; but some valuable time would have been bought with more openness.
The interesting question is whether that secrecy came from local authorities, who wanted to keep the truth from their superiors, the national Chinese government, or both. I reckon the latte.r
Wow Captain Tom family are the worst....in a statement to the BBC they claim that they never promised to make donations to charity from the book advance and their dead father decided he wanted to keep the money...despite the BBC having press releases etc saying money from the book will go to the foundation.
One of the things that annoys me about the VAT on school fees thing is the utter dishonesty of Labour over it. If they want to ensure that only charities can use charity exemptions, then there should be a root-and-branch evaluation of all charities. I fear there are many that only use a small percentage of donations for real charitable work. There are a heck of a lot of charlatan organisations and people in the charitable sector that need removing.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
“John’s punched a bloke”
I think most people thought better for him when he did come out swinging against that egg thrower- i did .
The DM and its like really went for him over that, but most normal people felt like you and me. It was a perfectly understandable response to an unexpected assault.
Their coverage was a complete yolk.
Most people felt he was quite white to act as he did.
But the press give no shell ter from their silliness.
LOL 43% want to run Kamala again, after she lost by a landslide to Donald Trump!
Buttigeig is a much better politician, as is Josh Shapiro from that list. Those two would be my picks for ‘28, when the likely Republican nominee is JD Vance or Ron DeSantis. If they insist on a woman then definitely Gretchen Whitmer over AOC.
These polls are worthless this far from an election.
Also, Newsom is a staggeringly poor candidate, who would struggle to win California.
Worthless as an actual prediction for ‘28 of course, but also indicative of the thinking that the Dems don’t understand how and why they just lost.
Newsom would suffer from the same problems as Harris did, as having gone all-in on the California woke nonsense for the past decade.
I think the Newsom prediction equally worthless this far out. He might surprise both Robert and you. Like all cynical (as opposed to conviction) politicians, he seems to be in the process of reinventing himself.
I don't particularly fancy his chances, but there are likely to be significant policy changes in the new year (note, for example the pragmatic new mayor in SF). The state will also be the effective leader of resistance to the more toxic stuff the Trump administration comes out with.
I can see circumstances where he might look quite attractive to the party. Equally it could all go wrong for him, and he'll have no chance at all, but I certainly wouldn't be laying him as a complete no hoper just yet.
Wow Captain Tom family are the worst....in a statement to the BBC they claim that they never promised to make donations to charity from the book advance and their dead father decided he wanted to keep the money...despite the BBC having press releases etc saying money from the book will go to the foundation.
One of the things that annoys me about the VAT on school fees thing is the utter dishonesty of Labour over it. If they want to ensure that only charities can use charity exemptions, then there should be a root-and-branch evaluation of all charities. I fear there are many that only use a small percentage of donations for real charitable work. There are a heck of a lot of charlatan organisations and people in the charitable sector that need removing.
Beware the chuggers that come round pubs in central london in the evening. Nominally raising “for the children”. Always studiously keeping their donations below the threshold for reporting their expenses.
I think its time for realpolitik. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. A wider war where its chunks of Nato + Ukraine vs Russia could defeat Russia, but it seems very likely that Putin would push the button with his back against the wall.
Ukraine doesn't have to defeat Russia, it just has to hold on militarily until the Russian economy collapses. No country can sustain spending 40%+ of GDP on war, particularly not one under severe sanctions and with deep-seated economic issues even in peacetime.
The first signs are there now. Food prices jumping because farms cannot get labour or parts for the machines. An ever increasing percentage of the food that is grown never makes it to market because the railways have the same issues; no people, no spares, no new equipment. This is why Ukraine is expending so many of their drones hitting Russia's fuel infrastructure. Fuel shortages will dramatically these problems.
Right now Russia is Germany in late 1917. Still functioning, still with a powerful army in the field, but with the economic and logistical situation in terminal decline. The Germans knew for some time the Royal Navy's blockade of the North Sea would evidentially strangle them, hence the do-or-die gamble of throwing the entire High Seas fleet at the RN in 1916.
I remember many, many years ago reading an article written by a foreign journalist who was stationed in Berlin during the last months of the war. He went for a walk one day and recounted how all the restaurants he passed were closed, except one. He went in and looked at the menu, which contained only one meat dish; boiled crow.
Russia is at the very most a year and a half away from boiled crow.
But the analogy is entirely wrong
Why? Because Russia has China to help. The biggest trading and manufacturing economy on the planet, right next door, and perhaps the single BIGGEST economy in the world (depending on GDP PPP arguments etc)
China also has vast reserves of manpower and can chivvy tributary states into assisting Putin. NB North Korea suddenly coming up with 100,000 soldiers, what a coincidence
This changes the equation entirely. Xi Jinping has made it clear he won't let Russia lose or Putin fall. That's it. To borrow your allegory it's like Germany in World War 1 having the USA on its side, rather than opposing, only this time America is right next door to Berlin and Britain cannot blockade any of their trade
I agree with most of this. As I mentioned a few days ago, Hitler was not a nuclear dictator supported by another nuclear-armed dictator.
We need to think very carefully indeed, in this situation, before reaching for what can sometimes be tempting but ahistorical analogies.
But, if one is a nuclear-armed power, one absolutely cannot give way to threats from another nuclear-armed power. Otherwise, deterrence collapses.
What worries me is that we don't seem to be functioning within a predictable framework of deterrence , as in the Cold War, though, when roomfulls of strategists on bith sides constantly sought to review it and update it for decades.
I doubt very much that a Soviet Prsident would have ordered a full invasion of Ukraine had it come under Western influence after World War Ii, for instance, or that the West would have provided the wherewithal for Ukraine to fire into Russia in response, for instance. What is precisely most worrying me is that the ratio of unpredictable anarchy to strategy of deterrence seems to be on the rise.
Under Cold War rules, Eastern Europe was in the Soviet zone of influence. Any kind of mucking around across the Iron Curtain would have been a breach of the unwritten rules. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, proper.
Which is part of what upsets Putin so badly. Eastern Europe isn’t supposed to have agency. They are supposed (in his mind) to give fealty to Russia.
I disagree
You need to remember that Putin was a key part of the super successful Dresden cell of the KGB.
It isn’t part of what upsets Putin so badly.
It’s entirely what upsets Putin. His mindset was fixed when he was the part of mother Russia that was functioning against the odds to disrupt the West and secure control of the DDR. The fact that he has not got back to that high point means his career is a personal failure.
Yes, Bluesky is the first twitter alternative that actually works, and as the Xodus continues it gets better each week. There is far more interesting comment and much more civil.
Politicians and journalists may seek balance, but in many topics such as health and science there is no need. We don't need to balance science with anti-science, and for most of us Social Media is a social space not a job. Just as in real life we are not forced to have conversations with ranting bigots, we shouldn't be forced to online.
I really didn’t like him in the lead up to 1997 and after but I find myself looking back with fondness at the old bugger as a lot more character with a good life experience pre politics than most of the current mob.
Somewhere I have a 1997 election pledge card signed by him and given out by him personally at a campaign stop in Loughborough.
Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.
There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.
Starmer is New Labour without the charisma and when they don't have any of other people's money to waste.
The Jaguar ad will get people talking - in the same way as Bud Light did in US....
How to totally annoy all of your existing customers, while also not attracting the new customers at which you’re aiming the advert.
I hope that Jag are doing some resilience work around Mr Chump's impending tariffs. AFAICs unlike their competitors, they do not have factories in the USA. That's where about 25-30% of their sales go.
Comments
Buttigeig is a much better politician, as is Josh Shapiro from that list. Those two would be my picks for ‘28, when the likely Republican nominee is JD Vance or Ron DeSantis. If they insist on a woman then definitely Gretchen Whitmer over AOC.
Also, Newsom is a staggeringly poor candidate, who would struggle to win California.
Newsom would suffer from the same problems as Harris did, as having gone all-in on the California woke nonsense for the past decade.
Curriculum shake-up expected to boost take-up of arts subjects
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/curriculum-shake-up-expected-to-boost-take-up-of-arts-subjects-rb6wwh8cs
That’s not to mean he shouldn’t be under pressure for being a conduit for sanctioned goods in one direction and sanctioned oil in the other, both of which are assisting Putin’s war machine, but if China had got involved militarily we’d almost certainly be looking at WWIII by now.
https://x.com/cenkuygur/status/1858896978618511748
When I became a Democrat, it was the more tolerant party. Republicans were run by religious nut jobs and corporate robots. Now, the Democrats are in a lot of ways the less tolerant party.
The least tolerant part is actually the establishment wing of the party that says anyone opposing their anointed leaders is committing heresy. If you try to give constructive criticism of the party to improve it, they drive you from the party while screaming, “He’s not a real Democrat!!”
They hate populists. They have become the corporate robots I couldn’t stand. They hate their base. They insult our intelligence by pretending that the donors are not in charge. They think we should be controlled and learn how to follow orders. And they have no idea how elitist they sound.
Predictably, their unironic reaction to this post will be, “Heretic!!”
A Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged with a plot to “reboot” the U.S. government by planting a bomb at the New York Stock Exchange this week and detonating it with a remote-controlled device, according to the FBI.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/the-fbi-arrested-a-man-who-s-been-charged-with-planning-an-attack-on-the-new-york-stock-exchange-1.7117881
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1859055717602238895
https://x.com/johnprescott/status/1859476675873906913
Prescott was a flawed individual, as we all are, but was key to the New Labour project. Blairism can only go so far in its technocratic managerial approach, and Starmerism is a pale imitation of New Labour without the Prescott it needs. Much the same applies to Kamala and the Democrats.
There needs to be some irrational soul and passion alongside the pragmatism, and Precott embodied that in 1997. He was that most unusual thing, a Centre-Left Populist.
It may make some think twice about giving to people doing ridiculous things in the name of Charidee. Not all such stunts are fraudulent, but the Charity Commission has a hard time keeping an eye on them.
Jag in particular - what segment are they chasing? If I wanted a really nice expensive saloon or sports car, there will be something from Merc, BMW, Audi, Lexus which is aimed at the segment I'm after and probably won't be going back to the dealership on a lorry once a month.
If I really want to show off ostentatiously wealth, I'd order a Bentley.
If I want an offroad workhouse, Ford Rangers are OK if you're handing them back in at the end of the lease (you don't want one out of warranty, but they last the first 3 years OK), or probably a HiLux if its a long-term keeper.
I just don't see what the target market is for "expensive, fairly average, terrible build quality and remarkably unreliable".
Simply rolling out every progressive education shibboleth.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86qdq67dd5o
April 2020 was just when he became famous. Its unclear from the BBC report if this company was something totally separate venture that his daughter setup and then used to enrich herself later on by funneling money through it, or if all of this was all about self enrichment as soon as his charity walk took off.
Most people felt he was quite white to act as he did.
But the press give no shell ter from their silliness.
Mr. Urquhart, it's worth comparing this government with the Coalition, who also had a difficult economic inheritance.
The Conservatives had highlighted the difficult economic picture ahead of the election, and campaigned on making cuts to try and sort it out. Labour ducked all of that, even with persistent and enormous leads. This raises not just the lack of a mandate from the electorate for many actions, it also means (seemingly) they didn't actually do much of the work ahead of time.
Edited extra bit: and RIP John Prescott. Alzheimer's is horrendous.
It’s not everyone who can throw a punch at a voter and emerge with your reputation enhanced.
... How many of those 57 are left? If there are any, they must be pretty annoyed this morning. Imagine- less credible than Andrew Rosindell.
Especially since it doesn't matter. You need party discipline if you are a government trying to get business through. It can be helpful if you are an opposition with a chance of winning the odd vote.
Right now, neither of those really applies.
What I really want the government to be is VxWorks: small, well-implemented, works really well and does what it does very reliably.
(*) I had to work with when it was first released on an STB project. It wasn't good. The documentation was so new that the APIs differed from the documentation, and we had to ask MS which was accurate. Were we coding to the API, as the documentation would change, or the documentation because the API would change. The people we asked didn't know.
My Dad has always loved Jags, indeed in 1960 he drove one to a small Spanish fishing village called Torremelinos for his honeymoon, a 1948 model that he had bought and done up for £10. He gave it away when he got back as couldn't afford the petrol. Since then he has had Mark 2, Mark 10, XJ12 and currently has an XJ. The recent one is 20 years old and pretty reliable. The XJ12 was brilliant fun on the rare occasions that it worked.
That walnut and leather market is as old as my Dad and Prescott. If they are to survive then they do need to engage a youth market. Remember the days when every footballer wanted an E type? It is possible to get a youth market, but far more likely that Jaguar will follow MG, and just be badge engineered cars from the far East.
And we will probably never know for sure how it started. What annoys me is that all this argument about how it started deflects from the one thing we can certainly pin on the Chinese government: that their secrecy and delay at the start of the pandemic allowed it to spread worldwide far quicker than could have been the case.
They probably could not have stopped it spreading totally; but some valuable time would have been bought with more openness.
The interesting question is whether that secrecy came from local authorities, who wanted to keep the truth from their superiors, the national Chinese government, or both. I reckon the latte.r
Like all cynical (as opposed to conviction) politicians, he seems to be in the process of reinventing himself.
I don't particularly fancy his chances, but there are likely to be significant policy changes in the new year (note, for example the pragmatic new mayor in SF).
The state will also be the effective leader of resistance to the more toxic stuff the Trump administration comes out with.
I can see circumstances where he might look quite attractive to the party. Equally it could all go wrong for him, and he'll have no chance at all, but I certainly wouldn't be laying him as a complete no hoper just yet.
Like ‘old Twitter’: The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky
After recent changes to Elon Musk’s X, a gradual migration turns into a stampede
https://www.science.org/content/article/old-twitter-scientific-community-finds-new-home-bluesky
Breaking news
John Prescott dies
https://news.sky.com/story/former-labour-deputy-prime-minister-john-prescott-dies-aged-86-13257566
NEW THREAD
You need to remember that Putin was a key part of the super successful Dresden cell of the KGB.
It isn’t part of what upsets Putin so badly.
It’s entirely what upsets Putin. His mindset was fixed when he was the part of mother Russia that was functioning against the odds to disrupt the West and secure control of the DDR. The fact that he has not got back to that high point means his career is a personal failure.
Politicians and journalists may seek balance, but in many topics such as health and science there is no need. We don't need to balance science with anti-science, and for most of us Social Media is a social space not a job. Just as in real life we are not forced to have conversations with ranting bigots, we shouldn't be forced to online.
I remember downloading the first series from The Box